Booking Shares Jump 8.46% to $4,613 After Mizuho Top Pick Call
Booking shares jumped 8.46% to $4,613.28 after Mizuho made it its Top Pick in Internet, citing OpenAI’s pullback from ChatGPT checkout due to merchant onboarding hurdles and missing sales-tax infrastructure. It trades below its 50-day and 200-day moving averages and remains 21% under its $5,839.41 12-month high.
1. Mizuho Names Booking Top Pick
Mizuho elevated Booking to its Top Pick in Internet services, replacing Airbnb, after determining that OpenAI’s rollback of ChatGPT native checkout eases AI-driven disintermediation threats for online travel agencies.
2. OpenAI Rolls Back ChatGPT Checkout
OpenAI halted its native ChatGPT checkout pilot due to low completion rates, manual merchant onboarding complexities and lack of sales-tax infrastructure; only about a dozen Shopify merchants were active as of February.
3. Stock Reaction and Analyst Revisions
Booking shares surged 8.46% to $4,613.28, yet remain below their 50-day and 200-day moving averages and 21% under the $5,839.41 12-month high; several firms, including Morgan Stanley, Susquehanna, UBS and Citigroup, have trimmed price targets to $5,000–$6,485.