Introduction

Since my last article about Priceline.com (PCLN) in Jan. 2013, titled Why Investors May Have To Reconsider Priceline.com, the company's stock price has outperformed the increase in the NASDAQ index and that of major competitor Expedia (EXPE), while under-performing the jump in the common shares of Orbitz (OWW) and TripAdvisor (TRIP) (see graph). This price performance was stronger than expected, given that the company reported a lower than expected guidance for the rest of the year, which seems like another sign that the largest on-line travel company by enterprise value could be reaching its peak performance. Growth investors could be better served if they look at other smaller companies in the on-line travel industry.

Valuation and fundamentals

Priceline has 50.1 million shares outstanding and $5.2 billion of cash and short-term investments for an enterprise value of $37 billion. For comparison, Expedia and Orbitz have 135.1 million and

Stocks discussed on the in-depth session of Jim Cramer's Mad Money TV Program, Tuesday April 9.

CEO Interview: Allen Wilson, McCormick (MKC)

Cramer has long been a fan of McCormick (MKC), a steady growth stock which, since it tends to decline after its quarterly report, provides investors with buying opportunities following earnings, only to march higher almost every time. The 1.9% yield is "deceptively low," since the stock price keeps rising, and Cramer would use pullbacks to get into this steady grower, which is usually immune to macro economic shocks. Those who bought MKC 5 years ago have seen a 113% gain, and in the last 20 years, the stock has performed twice as well as the S&P 500; "That is the most important thing you need to know about MKC," said Cramer.

CEO Allen Wilson discussed how management maintains strong performance by "weeding and feeding the categories." The

By Matt Doiron

Britain is reviewing Priceline's (PCLN) acquisition of Kayak (KYAK) on antitrust grounds, with a decision expected next month. Kayak's shareholders have already approved the deal, less than a year after the company went public. Priceline grew its revenues by 22% in 2012 compared to the previous year, to a total of $5.3 billion; Kayak, for purposes of comparison, generated less than $300,000 in sales during the same period though its top line growth rate was considerably higher. So while the acquisition would certainly supplement Priceline's own growth rate, the company is performing nicely on its own and any delay or uncertainty regarding the deal should not be taken as too bearish (in addition to the fact that M&A actually tends to destroy shareholder value).

The company also improved its net margins over the course of 2012, with earnings rising 34%. Currently Priceline trades at 25 times trailing

Stocks discussed on the in-depth session of Jim Cramer's Mad Money TV Program, Friday March 15.

12 Things To Watch In The Week Ahead: Dell (DELL), Williams-Sonoma (WSM), Cintas (CTAS), FedEx (FDX), Jabil Circuit (JBL), Lululemon (LULU), Nike (NKE), Darden (DRI), Tiffany (TIF)

Monday

Dell (DELL) is in a sector that is in secular decline: PCs. Cramer would sell Dell first thing on Monday. The CEO has been trying to take the company private for less than it is worth, and its cash flow is poor.

Tuesday

February Housing Starts should show strong results. The bulls predict 1 million housing starts for the year, but Cramer thinks the number is closer to 1.2 million.

Williams-Sonoma (WSM) is a high-end play on housing and should give a read on the bullish housing trend.

Cintas (CTAS) is a uniform supplier, and what management says might be a precursor to the employment

Stocks discussed on the in-depth session of Jim Cramer's Mad Money TV Program, Wednesday March 6.

Stocks That Are Safe At Any Speed: Starwood Hotels (HOT), KeyCorp (KEY), AFC Enterprises (AFCE), American Realty Capital Properties (ARCP), Linn Energy (LINE), Linn Co (LNCO), Celgene (CELG). Other stocks mentioned: Toll Brothers (TOL), J.C. Penney (JCP), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Apple (AAPL), Berry Petroleum (BRY).

Since the Dow took out its all-time high on Tuesday and gained 42 points on Wednesday, many wonder if the market is breaking the speed limit. Stocks have run right through the "red lights" of sequestration worries, the end of the payroll tax holiday, renewed European concerns and fuel prices. Some stocks seemed to have experienced "undeserved" rises, including Toll Brothers (TOL), which has worked its way up after poor earnings and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), up 47% even after a bad quarter. Best Buy (BBY) has risen 58% on mixed

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that travelers are booking an ever-increasing amount of their trips online, and much of global growth is coming out of developing markets in Asia, The Middle East and Latin America. These long-term fundamental trends provide a robust runway for Priceline (PCLN) and other online travel sites. International travel is estimated to be a $600 billion market and market share is extremely fragmented amongst a diverse array of competitors. Priceline parlayed its astute 2004 and 2007 acquisitions of booking.com and agoda.com, respectively, into becoming the leading global online travel provider. At current prices, Priceline offers a high-risk, high-reward investment opportunity due to the immense opportunity to enhance market share, weighed against the lack of a strong durable competitive advantage.

I won't be the first or the last to say that internet companies are, generally, extremely hard to value for value-oriented investors.

This article is the fifth in a monthly series to analyze the stocks at the forefront of the monetization of the trend towards mobile data traffic. The original mobile monetization index highlighted the leading public companies and defined the concept.

Market Data

The expectations for the monetization of mobile traffic continued to increase in January following solid results reported by Facebook (FB) for Q4. While analysts continue to become more bullish on the concept due in part to adoption of larger screens for mobile devices, the question for most companies continues to mount on whether the revenue rates can justify the higher costs.

Stocks

As expected, the mobile monetization stocks continue to have eventful months. With a strong stock market in January, these high beta stocks had robust returns during the month. The real estate sector had a phenomenal month, with Trulia (TRLA) soaring nearly 62% and

By Matt Doiron

Investors can stay on top of hedge fund activity partly by keeping track of 13D and 13G filings, which report significant percentage stakes in public companies. The nature of the filing requirements means that these filings are rare for large-cap companies, and very rare for mega-caps, but it's arguably more important to know how hedge funds are trading smaller-cap stocks since their investment teams are more likely to uncover a good value in less widely followed names. We have gone through recent filings and here are five stocks that hedge funds have bought recently:

Billionaire Stephen Mandel's Lone Pine Capital has reported a position of 7.2 million shares in Charter Communications (CHTR), up from about 330,000 shares at the end of September. Lone Pine now owns over 7% of the company's outstanding shares. See more of Mandel's stock picks. When we looked at Charter we

Stocks discussed on the Lightning Round session of Jim Cramer's Mad Money TV Program, Monday January 28.

Bullish Calls:

AbbVie (ABBV), Abbott Labs (ABT): "We kept Abbott Labs because it is faster growing, but ABBV is just fine."

Nokia (NOK): "I think Nokia is fine ... they are doing everything they can ... they are showing fiscal prudence. Nokia can go to $5 without a problem."

Standard Pacific (SPF): "This was controversial ... they have a big homebuilding business ... they have the Inland Empire in California. Buy it when it comes down to $7."

PetSmart (PETM), PetMed (PETS): "I like PETS. Someone downgraded PetSmart. I disagree with that downgrade."

Bearish Calls:

First Niagara (FNFG): "They bit off more than they could chew. So many regional banks are better. They did a lot of good things, but they expanded too

Even though Priceline.com (PCLN) had a strong third quarter, as forecast in my October 8, 2012 article, now could be a good time for investors to consider recognizing gains in the company's shares. The main reasons are the company's acquisition of Kayak Software (KYAK), new developments in the car-rental business, a new lawsuit (and likelihood of future similar issues), and its high valuation. All this compounded together leaves a little margin of safety. Shares of Priceline are up about 8% from October 8, 2012, outperforming the Nasdaq Composite, which was relatively unchanged (mostly due to Apple's (AAPL) decline of 30%), performing in line with competitor Orbitz (OWW), and underperforming TripAdvisor (TRIP) and Expedia (EXPE), which were up 33% and 12%, respectively (see graph).

Kayak Acquisition

Kayak has a short but colorful history. The company was established in 2004 and went public in July of 2012, only to

Kayak (KYAK) is a travel search company that offers travel suppliers and online travel agencies (OTAs), such as Expedia (EXPE), Priceline (PCLN), Orbitz etc., an efficient channel to sell their products and services to potential customers. It provides travel buyers a one-stop research solution to find the best fares, along with travel management tools and services such as flight status updates, pricing alerts and itinerary management.

Delaying its IPO for over 20 months, Kayak finally got listed in June 2012. However, along with its last quarter earnings in December 2012, Kayak announced being acquired by Priceline in a deal that valued the company at $1.8 billion. Earlier this month, Priceline won the U.S. antitrust approval to purchase the company.

The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2013, and Kayak will operate as an independent unit within Priceline. Kayak believes that Priceline’s global reach will accelerate its

This article is the fourth in a monthly series to analyze the stocks at the forefront of the monetization of the trend towards mobile data traffic. The original mobile monetization index highlighted the leading public companies and defined the concept.

Market Data

The expectations for the monetization of mobile traffic increased dramatically in December following the nice surprise when Facebook (FB) reported very strong mobile revenue back in October. Analysts continue to become more bullish on the concept.

eMarketer published a report in mid-December forecasting a dramatic increase in mobile ad spending. The agency expects a huge increase in "native" ad formats like Facebook's mobile newsfeed ads and Twitter's Promoted Products.

The company forecast a dramatic increase in 2012 mobile spending from $2.6B in the September report to over $4B now. The new forecast for 2014 is over $11B or a roughly 175% increase from the significantly

The prices of online travel search companies have jumped up as different players in the space are acquiring shares to shore up control of these firms. These developments have been great for investors who were shareholders before these purchases pushed share prices up. The question investors should ask today is whether any of the stocks in this space trade at reasonable valuations.

In this article, I will discuss Expedia (EXPE), Kayak Software (KYAK), Orbitz Worldwide (OWW), priceline.com (PCLN), and TripAdvisor (TRIP) to see if they are attractive investment candidates. I chose these five stocks because I believe they could offer the best investment opportunities for investors under the right market conditions. These are the most widely viewed travel websites on the market today.

Travel Search Company Takeovers

Liberty Interactive (LINTA) purchased $300 million in TripAdvisor shares from Barry Diller, who resigned as the Chairman

This article is the third in a monthly series to analyze the stocks at the forefront of the monetization of the trend toward mobile data traffic. The original mobile monetization index highlighted the leading public companies and defined the concept.

Market Data

Generally the expectations for the monetization of mobile traffic only increased throughout November following the nice surprise when Facebook (FB) reported very strong mobile revenue at the end of October. The numbers were shocking because the company is the exact one that originally shot down the mobile advertising industry with its depressing monetization of mobile traffic. Ironically though, the stocks in the sector mostly plummeted regardless.

Stocks

As expected, the mobile monetization stocks had another eventful month with all but one stock having absolute returns in excess of 10%. As expected, the travel sector had the better returns so far as the sector remains the most

By Rip Empson

Last week, Priceline.com acquired Kayak for $1.8 billion. That's more than twice what Google paid for ITA back in 2010. Why did Priceline (PCLN) make this move? And why now?

Priceline acquired Kayak (KYAK) for $40 a share, about $500 million in cash, $1 billion in Priceline equity, and about $300 million in stock options. Kayak got a premium price - a 29 percent premium, to be exact - from Priceline considering that, on the day of its acquisition, Kayak closed at roughly $31 a share. That's about 54 percent higher than where Kayak was on IPO day, at $26 a share. This no doubt added to Priceline's impression that Kayak was on the way up and that it was worth paying the big bucks to save it from having to deal with a strong competitor down the road.

While the big numbers are eye-catching,

By Ben Kolada

For a price comparison website, Kayak Software (KYAK) appears to be settling for a relatively low price in its purchase by online travel giant Priceline.com (PCLN). At first glance, Priceline's offer for Kayak appears respectable. The $40-per-share bid is the highest Kayak's shares have seen in its short life on the Nasdaq. Using an enterprise value of $1.65bn, Kayak is being valued at 5.8 times trailing revenue and about 5.6x full-year 2012 revenue.

But as we look closer, we see that Kayak is being valued only slightly higher than Priceline's current trading valuation, and that's excluding any takeout premium for the acquirer. With an enterprise value of roughly $28bn, Priceline trades at about 5.5x trailing revenue and 5.3x 2012 revenue. (Priceline shares, which have tacked on roughly 15% so far this year, were unchanged on the news of its largest-ever acquisition.)

Valuation - especially for the acquirer

This article is the second in a monthly series to analyze the stocks at the forefront of the monetization of the trend towards mobile data traffic. The original mobile monetization index highlighted the leading public companies. The concept was created as the market continuously lumped the new mobile stocks into the original failures of the relatively old companies such as Facebook (FB) and Google (GOOG). Recently Facebook reported a huge improvement in the monetization of mobile traffic providing hope for the sector

A range of companies benefiting from this shift to mobile traffic continues to grow. The industries range from Advertising to Real Estate to Travel with varying degrees of success and profits.

Mobile Monetization Defined

The concept encapsulates the ability of a company to grow the revenue base via mobile traffic. Included companies need to have a revenue base where mobile revenue is additive or at

By Frederic Lardinois

Online travel site Priceline.com (PCLN) announced that it has agreed to acquired the travel search engine Kayak, which is operated by Kayak Software (KYAK), for $1.8 billion. Priceline will pay $40 per share for Kayak. About $500 million of the purchase price will be in cash and the other $1.3 billion in equity and stock options.

Kayak was founded in 2004 by a team of online travel industry veterans, including CEO Steve Hafner, a co-founder of Orbitz; CTO Paul English, a former VP of technology at Intuit; Chairman Terrell Jones, founder of Travelocity; and Director Greg Slyngstad, founder of Expedia. The company received a total of about $229 million in venture funding for major Silicon Valley firms, including General Catalyst Partners, Sequoia, Accel Partners, and others. The company had its IPO this August and currently processes about 100 million user queries per month.

Durin ga