Analyzing Booking (NASDAQ:BKNG) and Wayfair (NYSE:W)

Booking (NASDAQ:BKNG) and Wayfair (NYSE:W) are both large-cap retail/wholesale companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, institutional ownership, earnings, valuation, profitability, analyst recommendations and risk.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings and recommmendations for Booking and Wayfair, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Booking	0	10	22	3	2.80
Wayfair	2	9	18	2	2.65

Booking presently has a consensus target price of $6,121.23, suggesting a potential upside of 23.91%. Wayfair has a consensus target price of $103.96, suggesting a potential downside of 3.00%. Given Booking’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities analysts plainly believe Booking is more favorable than Wayfair.

Profitability

This table compares Booking and Wayfair’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Booking	19.37%	-134.86%	25.39%
Wayfair	-2.65%	N/A	-3.77%

Insider & Institutional Ownership

92.4% of Booking shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 89.7% of Wayfair shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.2% of Booking shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 21.9% of Wayfair shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Booking and Wayfair”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Booking	$26.04 billion	6.12	$5.88 billion	$153.86	32.11
Wayfair	$11.85 billion	1.17	-$492.00 million	($2.56)	-41.87

Booking has higher revenue and earnings than Wayfair. Wayfair is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Booking, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Risk and Volatility

Booking has a beta of 1.34, suggesting that its stock price is 34% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Wayfair has a beta of 3.03, suggesting that its stock price is 203% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Booking beats Wayfair on 12 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Booking

Booking Holdings Inc, formerly The Priceline Group Inc., is a provider of travel and restaurant online reservation and related services. The Company, through its online travel companies (OTCs), connects consumers wishing to make travel reservations with providers of travel services across the world. It offers consumers an array of accommodation reservations (including hotels, bed and breakfasts, hostels, apartments, vacation rentals and other properties) through its Booking.com, priceline.com and agoda.com brands. Its other brands include KAYAK, Rentalcars.com and OpenTable, Inc. (OpenTable). As of December 31, 2016, Booking.com offered accommodation reservation services for over 1,115,000 properties in over 220 countries and territories on its various Websites and in over 40 languages, which included over 568,000 vacation rental properties (updated property counts were available on the Booking.com Website).

About Wayfair

Wayfair Inc. provides e-commerce business in the United States and internationally. The company offers approximately thirty million products for the home sector. It offers online selections of furniture, décor, housewares, and home improvement products through its sites consisting of Wayfair, Joss & Main, AllModern, Birch Lane, Perigold, and Wayfair Professional. The company offers its products under the Three Posts and Mercury Row brand name. The company was founded in 2002 and is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts.