BKNG
Booking Holdings
Platform / Network
★ Quality 92/100Price today
$179.31
what the market pays
Worth
$343.79
calculated cycle value
Price is 48% below its value
charlieapp.co
Unusually large discount. A gap this wide usually means the market is pricing in a risk (AI disruption, for example) that the model does not penalise. A contrarian opportunity: high upside, but high risk — not an obvious one.
A monopoly position
This company has a competitive advantage so strong that its rivals find it practically impossible to replicate.
Price vs Intrinsic Value
The line is the price month by month; the green band marks when it's undervalued (−20% off value). When the price drops in there, the discount is real, not opinion.
Where does the value come from?
Digital platform
$345.67
per share
How it's calculated
Booking Holdings — high via assistant (2026-06-07). Review note.
Net cash in the bank
cash minus financial debt, per share
Total calculated value
business + cash
How many times the cash flow
Platform / Network · vs 27 peers
You pay 16.3x times this business's cash flow; its sector median is 28.5x.
90% below what Charlie thinks it's worth (31x) — that gap is your safety margin.
Why Undervalued?
Its free cash flow is $11.14/share × 31.0x multiplier minus $1.88 in negative net cash = $343.79 in intrinsic value. Today's price of $179.31 is 92% below that value — there's a real safety margin to enter.
The price is 48% below the calculated value. There's a real safety margin.
The model asks for a discount to absorb estimate errors. That cushion is here.
If the business disappoints a little, the price should hold near $275.03.
At what price would buying make sense?
Entry zones
🟢 Undervalued
≤$275.03
-20% off Value
🟡 Discounted
≤$326.60
-5% off Value
🟢 Today
$179.31
+92% Valor
Undervalued
Today's price offers a real discount to the calculated value. For the long run, this is the kind of entry that builds wealth.
“Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.”
— Warren Buffett
Model updated · July 2026
The business
The front desk of every hotel in Europe, without owning a single room.
Booking Holdings runs Booking.com, Priceline, Agoda, Kayak, and OpenTable. It connects travelers with hotels, flights, and cars, and takes a commission on every booking. In 2025 it moved $26.9B in revenue with almost no capital of its own: it doesn't own the hotels, just the flow.
Two-sided network effect: more hotels attract more travelers and vice versa. It dominates lodging in Europe, where inventory is fragmented and nobody else aggregates it as well. Marketing spend is the toll to enter, and Booking pays it better than anyone thanks to scale.
Revenue history
From $11.0B to $26.9B in 4 years — nearly 2.4x its size. Selling more and more is the base of everything else.
Where each $100 of sales goes
Revenue $26.9B · FY2025
Of every $100 in sales, $80 goes to costs and operations; $20 is left as net profit (20% margin).
Catalysts and risks
Connected rooms program and 'Connected Trip' bundling flight, hotel, and car into a single booking.
FCF of $9.1B in 2025 funding aggressive buybacks that shrink the share count every quarter.
Agoda's expansion in Asia-Pacific, the travel market with the highest structural growth.
Google can wedge itself between Booking and the customer, capturing demand at the search stage.
Reliance on marketing spend: if acquisition cost rises, the margin erodes fast.
Travel is cyclical and sensitive to recessions, pandemics, and geopolitical shocks.
Charlie's note
“Paying 31x for a business growing 25% without touching its own capital isn't a gift, but it isn't crazy either: the marketing toll and the two-sided network in Europe justify the multiple. Patience to get in; the quality is already clear.”
Analysis · June 2026
So when would be a good price for Booking Holdings?
Today it trades below what we calculate. If you want us to tell you when that changes —or when the value itself moves because the company reported— we will email you.
🔔 Email meFree · no card
Charlie informs, it doesn't advise. No information should be taken as a recommendation to buy or sell.