This hotel stock is breaking out of a yearlong consolidation phase
(This is The Best Stocks in the Market , brought to you by Josh Brown and Sean Russo of Ritholtz Wealth Management.) Josh — When we close the books on this year, we’ll be able to say definitively that travel was one of the strongest segments of the economy. U.S. consumers simply did not stop booking trips — by sea, by air and by land. Hotels, airlines and booking sites were the standout stocks in the leisure patch. Despite the fact that most retailers and restaurants spent 2025 struggling, the travel trade just kept on ticking. That’s good news for us here at The Best Stocks in the Market because we have been all over this trend for you since this column began in the summer. We’ve had fresh additions to the list, update columns, technical set-up ideas, new storylines and more in names like Marriott (MAR) , Expedia (EXPE) and Delta (DAL) . In September, we brought you Expedia in the midst of a consolidation in the 210’s to 220’s. You had a month and a half to accumulate before the next ramp. That stock today is on the verge of taking out $300 per share following a killer earnings report in early November. In that report, the company showed acceleration across demand, profitability, and capital returns. Gross bookings were up 12% year over year, revenue was up 9%, and room nights booked up 11%. Profitability improved materially, with adjusted EBITDA up 16% and EBITDA margins expanding by more than 200 basis points. Earnings per share came in at $7.57, up about 23% vs the same quarter in ’24, an absolute blowout relative to expectations. Expedia bought back $451 million worth of stock in the quarter and raised full-year guidance for gross bookings, revenue and margins. Did Sean and I know this report was going to be as incredible as it was? No. We knew something even more important. Following price action, we knew that the largest, most knowledgeable investors in the stock were buying ahead of the report. And we knew from a hundred years worth of market history that fundamental upside surprises tend to occur in uptrends while negative surprises tend to occur in downtrends – something we’ve been teaching you all year long. At Best Stocks, one of our core beliefs is that the market is smart and, as such, steady institutional accumulation doesn’t occur randomly. Ladies and gentleman, take a gander at this masterpiece: If you took this idea from us, you haven’t even seen a test of the 200-day in the last three months. I’d let it roll up at this point and switch to the 50-day as a trailing stop. Check it every Friday and adjust as necessary. Sean’s got some commentary on the state of the travel industry and we’ll do another ticker at the end. Merry New Year! Sector leaderboard As of Dec. 29 , there are 195 names on The Best Stocks in the Market list. Top sector ranking: Top industries: Top 5 best stocks by relative strength: Sector spotlight: Consumer discretionary / travel Sean — These last few weeks of 2025 are expected to be the busiest travel days of the year. An estimated 122.4 million people are expected to have traveled from Dec. 23 – Jan.1, according to AAA, which would be up 2.3% year over year. Airlines expect 52.6 million passengers to pass through airports, while 110 million Americans are expected to hit the roads around the country. We pointed this out earlier in the year, but people seem perfectly willing to spend money traveling to see family for the holidays or even flying to places like Mexico or Florida, while complaining about the high cost of living the entire way. These costs have not slowed down the consumer just yet. The U.S. Travel Association expects 2025’s total travel spend to have grown 1.1% year-over-year to a whopping $1.5 trillion. They also note there are some major travel catalysts, particularly for U.S. exposed companies. This upcoming “mega-decade” of U.S. events includes: the FIFA World Cup and America’s 250th anniversary in 2026, the 2028 Summer Olympics in L.A., and the 2034 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. In addition, business travel continues to come back online, with domestic business travel expected to have grown 1.4% in 2025, and business rates are expected to surpass leisure rates in 2027 and beyond as business investment improves. A lot of this growth is getting priced into our travel stocks on the Best Stocks in the Market list. Take a look at Hilton Worldwide Holdings, Inc. (HLT) and Marriott International, Inc. (MAR): Both of these companies expect 12%-13% EPS growth for 2026. HLT trades at a forward 32x earnings, while MAR trades at a 28x forward earnings. Both of these companies broke out in Q4 2025, just in time for lower rates and a FIFA World Cup in 2026. Here are our two airline companies on the list, United Airlines Holdings, Inc. (UAL) and Delta Air Lines, Inc. (DAL) , again breaking out to new highs in late 2025: Both United Airlines and Delta Air Lines are taking more shareholder-friendly approaches to capital allocation. United has moved more aggressively on buybacks, launching a $1.5 billion share repurchase program in October 2024 and buying back roughly $700 million worth of stock by Q3 2025 while balancing capital returns with an effort to push net leverage below 2x. Delta has leaned more heavily on dividends and balance-sheet strength, raising its quarterly dividend by 50% in 2024 and authorizing a $1 billion opportunistic buyback program in mid-2025. Delta’s cash generation has been exceptional with $3.4 billion in 2024 and an expected $4 billion through 2025, roughly 10% of its market cap. Travel demand remains resilient. Hotels and airlines are benefiting from a high-spending consumer and a growing list of events going on in the U.S. for the next decade, pushing demand higher. Risk management Josh — We showed you Hilton (HLT) back on July 1 as part of our 10 Most Exciting Stocks of the Summer piece. We cautioned that HLT was a potential breakout, not quite a breakout yet. It took a few more months of consolidation but the stock finally ignited this fall and has now broken above a full-year of consolidation and congestion. I’m showing you a three-year chart with the 50-week moving average below. Longer-term investors can stay long and trail this name with its 50-week, checking in every Friday for a meaningful violation. Traders will be watching the rising 50-day at $275 and looking for a momentum breakdown (RSI is now a healthy 63) for clues that the recent rally is reversing. Absent those clues, I think it can be held for the next test at $300. 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