New York, Feb 17, 2026, 18:12 EST — After-hours
- Expedia shares fell about 6% after Tuesday’s close, underperforming online travel peers
- Investors are still parsing management’s slower full-year 2026 margin expansion outlook
- Traders now look to Wednesday’s session for signs the post-results slide is stabilizing
Expedia Group’s shares slid 5.8% to $200.42 in after-hours trade on Tuesday, after touching as low as $198.55 earlier in the day. The stock was down $12.34 from the prior close, leaving it one of the weaker large-cap travel names into mid-week.
The move matters now because investors have been re-pricing online travel stocks on profitability, not just bookings. Expedia’s selloff has been sharper than some peers even as the broader group has been choppy rather than one-way.
Expedia last week projected first-quarter adjusted EBITDA margin expansion of 3 to 4 percentage points, but only 1 to 1.25 points for the full year. Adjusted EBITDA is a profit measure that strips out items such as interest, taxes and depreciation to give a cleaner view of operating performance. In the same update, Expedia forecast 2026 gross bookings of $127 billion to $129 billion and revenue of $15.6 billion to $16.0 billion, and said it repurchased about 9 million shares for $1.7 billion in 2025. (Fortune)
But the slower full-year margin trajectory has stayed the sticking point. Expedia said it remained “appropriately cautious due to ongoing macro uncertainty” and uneven consumer spending, and finance chief Scott Schenkel warned the rest of the year “could be relatively muted.” CEO Ariane Gorin pointed to heavy discounting appetite, telling Reuters that Black Friday partner participation rose 70% year-on-year and that about 30% of fourth-quarter bookings came from inventory that included deals. (Reuters)
Analyst notes kept coming. DA Davidson cut its price target on Expedia to $260 from $294 and kept a Neutral rating, pointing to the risk that the company’s 2026 margin outlook falls short of what some investors had been modeling. (Investing)
Online travel peers were mixed on Tuesday, highlighting the stock-specific nature of the move: Booking Holdings was little changed, while Airbnb and TripAdvisor traded higher.
For traders, the question into Wednesday’s session is whether selling pressure eases near the $200 level or whether more estimates move lower. The next marked date on Expedia’s calendar is the March 5 record date for its $0.48 quarterly dividend, payable March 26. (Fortune)
