Booking Holdings Inc. BKNG is slated to report second-quarter 2020 earnings on Aug 6, after the closing bell.

Notably, its surprise history has been decent. The company surpassed estimates thrice and missed once in the trailing four quarters, with an average negative surprise of 4%. The online travel company delivered a negative earnings surprise of 25.9% in the last reported quarter.

Trend in Estimate Revision

For the second quarter, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings has remained stable at a loss of $11.87 per share over the past 30 days. This indicates an increase of 86.7% from the year-ago reported figure.

The consensus mark for revenues is pegged at $511.28 million, implying a decline of 86.7% from the year-ago reported figure.

Let’s see how things have shaped up for this announcement.

Factors to Note

The COVID-19 crisis and a lingering effect on global travel are likely to reflect on Booking Holdings’ upcoming results.

Being a travel-focused company, it has been largely impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. However, the stock performance improved later in May as economies in Europe and the United States began to reopen due to improvement in demand for some discretionary activities. However, travel spending remained very poor.

Weak performance of its direct channel is expected to have impacted total room nights booked in the to-be-reported quarter.

However, strength across other platforms is expected to reflect on the results to some extent.

Merchant revenues are expected to have increased in the to-be-reported quarter, driven by strength across agoda.com and rentalcars.com. While agoda.com is expected to have benefited from discounting in the markets served by the company, rentalcars.com is likely to have improved from persistent operational improvements.

In addition, room night growth is expected to have improved in the quarter to be reported, driven by diverse inventory and brand recognition that tend to balance out macro uncertainties related to any market, along with growing competition from local and international players.

What Our Model Says

Our proven model does not predict an earnings beat for Booking Holdings this time around. The combination of a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) increases the odds of an earnings beat. That is not the case here as you will see below.

Earnings ESP: The company has an Earnings ESP of 0.00%. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they’re reported with our Earnings ESP Filter.

Zacks Rank: Currently, Booking Holdings has a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).

Stocks That Warrant a Look

Here are a few stocks worth considering, as our model shows that these have the right combination of elements to deliver an earnings beat in the upcoming releases.

Cogent Communications Holdings CCOI has an Earnings ESP of +11.66% and carries a Zacks Rank of 2, at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Synaptics SYNA has an Earnings ESP of +10.6 % and currently carries a Zacks Rank of 2.

Benefitfocus BNFT has an Earnings ESP of +6.25% and carries a Zacks Rank of 2, currently.

Breakout Biotech Stocks with Triple-Digit Profit Potential

The biotech sector is projected to surge beyond $775 billion by 2024 as scientists develop treatments for thousands of diseases. They’re also finding ways to edit the human genome to literally erase our vulnerability to these diseases.

Zacks has just released Century of Biology: 7 Biotech Stocks to Buy Right Now to help investors profit from 7 stocks poised for outperformance. Our recent biotech recommendations have produced gains of +50%, +83% and +164% in as little as 2 months. The stocks in this report could perform even better.

See these 7 breakthrough stocks now>>

Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report
 
To read this article on Zacks.com click here.
 
Zacks Investment Research