Wedgewood Partners, an investment management firm, published its fourth-quarter 2021 investor letter – a copy of which can be downloaded here. For calendar 2021, a portfolio net return of +32.1% was recorded by the fund, outperforming the S&P 500 Index that delivered a +28.7% return for the same period, and the +27.6% gain of the Russell 1000 Growth Index. Spare some time to check the fund’s top 5 holdings to have a clue about their top bets for 2022.
Wedgewood Partners, in its Q4 2021 investor letter, mentioned Booking Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: BKNG) and discussed its stance on the firm. Booking Holdings Inc. is a Norwalk, Connecticut-based travel company with a $97.6 billion market capitalization. BKNG delivered a -0.92% return since the beginning of the year, while its 12-month returns are up by 10.05%. The stock closed at $2,377.09 per share on January 19, 2022.
Here is what Wedgewood Partners has to say about Booking Holdings Inc. in its Q4 2021 investor letter:
“Booking Holdings also contributed to performance, though less so compared to most portfolio holdings. The Company reported substantial room-night growth compared to the year ago period, which was heavily affected by COVID. Intra-quarter, Booking Holdings consolidated room-nights approached almost 90% of pre-COVID levels because both domestic and international travelers have had to endure a few years of pent-up travel aspirations and are being eased back into the market with various governments relaxing some of their most stringent, COVID-related travel restrictions. Although infection rates related to new COVID variants (particularly Omicron) have risen subsequent to last quarter, we think populations around the world are coming to grips with the risk of infection and will inevitably return to spending on travel. Booking Holdings represents a key source of demand for the small and medium sized hospitality industry and has the second largest global booking volume for alternative accommodations. The latter observation is significantly misunderstood by investors and represents substantial upside to the stock, regardless of the timing of the recovery of traditional hospitality spending; hence, we added to our position in Booking Holdings.”
Copyright: sidelnikov / 123RF Stock Photo
Our calculations show that Booking Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: BKNG) ranks 19th on our list of the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. BKNG was in 96 hedge fund portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2021, compared to 100 funds in the previous quarter. Booking Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: BKNG) delivered a -0.30% return in the past 3 months.
In November 2021, we also shared another hedge fund’s views on BKNG in another article. You can find other letters from hedge funds and prominent investors on our hedge fund investor letters 2021 Q4 page.
Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
