Financial Survey: PDD (NASDAQ:PDD) and Booking (NASDAQ:BKNG)

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

Profitability

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

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Booking	19.23%	-134.19%	24.16%
PDD	24.63%	33.76%	20.50%

Volatility & Risk

Booking has a beta of 1.41, suggesting that its share price is 41% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, PDD has a beta of 0.42, suggesting that its share price is 58% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

92.4% of Booking shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 39.8% of PDD shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.2% of Booking shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 3.7% of PDD shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations for Booking and PDD, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Booking	0	10	19	3	2.78
PDD	0	7	6	1	2.57

Booking presently has a consensus target price of $5,781.0370, suggesting a potential upside of 5.99%. PDD has a consensus target price of $144.5455, suggesting a potential upside of 21.52%. Given PDD’s higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe PDD is more favorable than Booking.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Booking and PDD”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Booking	$23.74 billion	7.45	$5.88 billion	$143.79	37.93
PDD	$53.96 billion	3.07	$15.40 billion	$9.29	12.80

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

Summary

Booking beats PDD on 9 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 PDD

PDD Holdings Inc., a multinational commerce group, owns and operates a portfolio of businesses. It operates Pinduoduo, an e-commerce platform that offers products in various categories, including agricultural produce, apparel, shoes, bags, mother and childcare products, food and beverage, electronic appliances, furniture and household goods, cosmetics and other personal care, sports and fitness items and auto accessories; and Temu, an online marketplace. It focuses on bringing businesses and people into the digital economy. The company was formerly known as Pinduoduo Inc. and changed its name to PDD Holdings Inc. in February 2023. The company was incorporated in 2015 and is based in Dublin, Ireland.