Rosenblatt initiates travel and delivery coverage: Buy on Airbnb, DoorDash and Booking, Neutral on Expedia and Instacart

Rosenblatt Securities analyst Scott Devitt initiated coverage of five travel and delivery stocks on September 1 and 2, and the split in his ratings is the useful part. ABNB started at Buy with a $220 target, DASH at Buy with $270, and BKNG at Buy with $245 .

The other two came in Neutral. EXPE was started at Neutral with a $360 target, and CART, the Maplebear parent of Instacart, at Neutral with a $55 target, where Devitt pointed to a softening leadership position in grocery delivery . Grouping all five as a bullish call, as some coverage did, loses the actual content of the note.

One mechanical point matters for anyone reading the wires. These are initiations, meaning Rosenblatt had no prior rating on any of the five, so there was nothing to upgrade from. Several syndicators, including MarketBeat and Zacks-sourced feeds, labelled them upgrades and in at least one case described Airbnb's rating as Strong-Buy when the underlying note says Buy. An initiation and an upgrade carry different information: the first is a firm entering coverage, the second is a firm changing its mind.

The Expedia target is the quietly interesting one. A $360 target against a share price near $317 is meaningful implied upside attached to a Neutral rating, which usually signals an analyst who likes the valuation but not the near-term catalyst path. What to watch from here is whether other firms follow Rosenblatt into these names and whether the Buy-versus-Neutral split holds through the next round of bookings data.

Related Stocks

• BKNG
• DASH
• EXPE
• ABNB
• CART