Charts flash warning for this travel stock ahead of earnings

Posted by jbrumley on February 11, 2020 8:09 PM

By Keris Lahiff, CNBC

Travel earnings are on deck this week, and it could give insight into how large an economic impact the coronavirus outbreak might have on the industry.

Hilton Worldwide, which reported Tuesday morning, issued solid guidance but said the effect of the coronavirus was still unknown. TripAdvisor, Expedia and MGM could offer a better outlook when they report later this week.

Watch out for one of those, says Mark Newton, founder of Newton Advisors.

"TripAdvisor, in particular, has been a real laggard. It is fairly bearish technically just in the month of December," Newton said on CNBC's "Trading Nation" on Tuesday. "The stock moved down to the lowest monthly close we've seen since 2011 so it's been in a pretty persistent downtrend."

"It shows very little evidence thus far of any stabilization," said Newton. "I think it's a good likelihood it pulls back into the mid- to low-$20s in the weeks and months to come. So that'd be one specifically I would avoid."

TripAdvisor moved 3.5% higher Tuesday, trading at around $29.65. It reports earnings Wednesday afternoon.

Quint Tatro, president of Joule Financial, said the entire group looks dangerous with the full economic damage of the coronavirus still a question mark.

"I think that investors have to be very careful. There's a big allure any time you have some kind of headline risk like this to venture in and say 'oh, these stocks are cheap here, look at these on a fundamental basis etc. etc.,'" Tatro said during the same segment. "When something like this happens that we have absolutely no idea how the future will play out, they just become no-touch for us."

Tatro added that the airline stocks could be ones to consider once uncertainty lifts. United Airlines, Southwest, JetBlue, Delta and American Airlines were all higher Tuesday.

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