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To: Jim Willie CB who wrote (3048)7/23/2002 4:30:45 PM
From: stockman_scott  Respond to of 89467
 
Expedia, Inc. Reports Record Revenue and Earnings for Second Quarter

7/23/2002 4:22:00 PM

BELLEVUE, Wash., Jul 23, 2002 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Expedia, Inc. (EXPE):
Expedia, Inc. (EXPE) today reported record gross bookings of $1.33 billion, an increase of more than $530 million over the year-ago quarter. The company also reported record quarterly revenue of $145 million, up 85%.

Pre-tax adjusted earnings were $43.2 million, or 67 cents per diluted share, and after-tax adjusted earnings were $29.2 million, or 45 cents per diluted share, for the second quarter ended June 30, 2002. For the year-ago period, adjusted earnings on both a pre-tax and post-tax basis were $15.0 million, or 25 cents per diluted share. The company reported net income for the quarter on a GAAP basis of $19.1 million, or 29 cents per diluted share, on 65 million diluted shares. This compares with a net loss of $4.4 million, or 9 cents per share, for the quarter ended June 30, 2001.

"Expedia(R) is reporting another quarter of phenomenal growth and excellent execution against our strategy," said Richard N. Barton, president and CEO of Expedia, Inc. "Key to our success this quarter has been anticipating and satisfying our customers summer vacation needs. We have grown the number of merchant hotels we work with from 2,200 to nearly 6,000 since last year, we offered new vacation activities to make our packages more flexible and complete, and we opened specific destination stores to help travelers see all they can do in any particular vacation spot.

"We can provide better value and more choice for our customers because of our cutting-edge technology platform, quality customer service and the aggressiveness with which we pursue new solutions to old travel industry challenges," Barton continued. "The recent announcement of our entry into the corporate travel market and the acquisition of Metropolitan Travel continues our expansion of the addressable market for our technology-based travel services."

Merchant revenue more than tripled over year-ago levels to $85.7 million on the strength of revenue from Expedia(R) Special Rate hotels and the addition in March of the Classic Custom Vacations(R) business. Agency revenue of $54.8 million rose 25% year-over-year.

In addition, the company reported that conversion, or the average monthly percentage of visitors who purchased travel on Expedia.com(R), increased sequentially to 6.3% from 5.8%, following recent improvements in and additions to our websites. The company reported 2.6 million total hotel room nights stayed in the quarter, including 2.1 million merchant room nights, up from 1.1 million total room nights and 0.7 million merchant room nights in the year-ago quarter.

The company's reported results included the first full quarter of bookings, revenue and earnings from Classic Custom Vacations, which Expedia acquired on March 9, 2002. The company also reported a non-cash provision for income taxes of $14 million in the quarter, an increase of $10 million over the March quarter. Cash flow from operations in the quarter was $86 million, in part due to an increase in deferred merchant bookings, including those of Classic. Expedia ended the June quarter with $452 million in cash and short-term investments, compared with $238 million at the end of 2001.

Gross profit rose to $97.5 million, up 76% year-over-year. Gross margin was 67.3%, as improvements in costs at customer call centers partially offset falling revenue per agency air ticket and the effect of consolidating Classic.

"Our success in merchant lodging, including Classic Custom Vacations, validates our strategy to diversify our business model over the past couple of years," said Greg Stanger, senior vice president and CFO. "We believe our hotel, packages and tours businesses - with their higher net-revenue and gross-profit characteristics - will continue to increase their contributions to Expedia's financial results."

For the six months ended June 30, Expedia reported net revenue of $261 million, compared with $136 million in year-earlier period. Pre-tax adjusted earnings were $76.2 million, or $1.20 per diluted share, and after-tax adjusted earnings were $57.5 million, or 91 cents per diluted share. Net income on a GAAP basis was $24.8 million, or 39 cents a diluted share. In the six-month period ended June 30, 2001, pre-tax and after-tax adjusted earnings were $19.4 million, or 34 cents per diluted share, and net loss on a GAAP basis was $22 million, or 45 cents a share.

An outlook relating to the company's previously published summary operating budget for 2002 are included in Exhibit 5 to this press release.

Expedia, Inc. (EXPE) is the world's leading online travel service and was the eighth largest travel agency in the United States in 2001. To meet the needs of travelers around the globe, it operates Expedia.com in the United States and localized versions throughout Europe and Canada. Expedia.com helps travelers travel right with a wide variety of travel products and services, such as Expedia(R)Special Rate hotels and vacation rentals with the guaranteed lowest prices. Expedia operates Classic Custom Vacations, Inc., a leading wholesaler of premiere vacation packages to destinations such as Hawaii, Mexico, Europe and the Caribbean; and Metropolitan Travel, a corporate travel agency. Travelscape, Inc., wholly owned by Expedia, also operates as WWTE, a private-label online travel business that supplies car and hotel inventory to third parties. Expedia is a majority-owned subsidiary of USA Interactive (USAI).

This press release contains forward-looking statements relating to future events or future financial performance that involve risks and uncertainties. Such statements can be identified by terminology such as "may," "will," "should," "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "believes," "estimates," "predicts," "potential" or "continue" or the negative of such terms or comparable terms. These statements are only predictions and actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these statements based upon a number of factors including final adjustments made in closing the quarter and those identified in the company's filings with the SEC.

Expedia, Expedia.com and the Expedia logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Expedia, Inc. in the U.S., Canada and/or other countries. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.



To: Jim Willie CB who wrote (3048)7/23/2002 4:33:24 PM
From: stockman_scott  Respond to of 89467
 
Comments on Capitulation...

Message 17782891



To: Jim Willie CB who wrote (3048)7/23/2002 4:33:49 PM
From: Sully-  Respond to of 89467
 
E-Wave analysis of HUI....... both the preferred & the alternate scenarios FWIW............

From AllansAlias...........

angelfire.com



To: Jim Willie CB who wrote (3048)7/23/2002 8:58:47 PM
From: pogbull  Read Replies (3) | Respond to of 89467
 
Hey Jim:
Check out this post.

Message 17784136

To:pete who wrote (97633)
From: pete Tuesday, Jul 23, 2002 8:24 PM
View Replies (1) | Respond to of 97639

July 23 - Gold $312.30 down $11 - Silver $5.86 down 15 cents
Gold Cartel Panic / Morgan, Citibank Trashed / Morgan Tapioca?
What a day! Rumors were flying. As I am preparing for my CSPAN interview tomorrow, this will be down and dirty.
Market manipulation was blatant as could be today, for all the world to see. With our money center banks near collapse, the dollar ( 107. 08, up 1.95) soared and gold was trashed. Meanwhile, The Working Group on Financial Markets supported the Dow all day long to do what they could from keeping J.P. Morgan Chase from blowing up.
A hedge fund manager told me if Morgan closed below $20, they were history due to certain capital markets. By buying the Dow futures, the PPT encouraged arbitrage buying of Morgan as part of the basket of Dow stocks. Amazingly, J.P. Morgan Chase closed at $20.08, down $4.44.
The financial desk of a major firm reported: “massive over-the-counter derivative problems.”
From a highly respected Café member:
Just received word from a very trusted source in Toronto that BofA is in big derivatives trouble and has quietly gone to the Fed for a bailout.
Pls let me know if you hear anything.
I went into my branch last week and they were falling all over themselves to be of service to me. They seemed almost afraid of a run and I thought so at the time.
Mike
The Gold Cartel is desperate. They are falling apart. Once gold flies, they are tapioca. They know it and we know it. That is why gold was creamed by the crooks in New York and Washington.
A report on the gold action:
“see gold today? hearing the fed is selling…”
Dear Mr. Murphy, the above line was sent to me by a friend at JPMorgan... Thank you, Trey
The cabal kicked off the gold selling. Goldman Sachs sold until they hit massive stops. Goldman’s probe set off fund sell stops and they puked.
Don’t you love our free markets in America. Isn’t great how the bullion banks are allowed to operate their criminal enterprises at our expense. As I have said before, there are no better people than Americans, but we are no longer a great country. No free press, rigged financial markets. We are second rate and that has to change.
The John Brimelow Report:
Indian ex duty premiums: AM $2.01, PM $ $1.57, with world gold at $320.40 and $319.80. Below legal import level, but of course sharply higher (by some $3) than yesterday. The rupee made another 18 week high today. Reports have been heard that serious Indian demand materialized when gold collapsed – by over $7 – during NY’s lunch hour today. These premiums suggest this information is highly plausible.
Although gold was steadily pressured against a background of a rising dollar from the start of Asian trading this morning, Tocom open interest actually edged up a little, by the equivalent of 202 Comex contracts, on moderate volume equal to 25,954 comex lots. (Comex traded 40,737 contracts yesterday and open interest there rose 3,528 lots: a good deal of it surely shorting). While bullion sales from various points was reported early today, Tocom does not seem to have been an important source.

Where the highly influential and abrupt dollar buying came from is obviously a key question. There seems to have been some Central Bank action – Reuters reports Korean dollar sales as a fact, and there were stories of Japanese and even German harrumphing. Most commentators are at pains to find some fundamental
cause, such as US foreign equity sales repatriation, but, as a Japanese trader is quoted as remarking on Reuters, this type of dollar strength after the ’87 meltdown proved fleeting.

A day on which the equities of two major US banks drop almost 20% on rafter –rattling stories of derivative wrong- doing, and the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee is reported to be trying to protect Robert Rubin from having to submit to potentially devastating interrogation concerning his role in recent financial scandals (See would not seem the most obvious one in which to launch one of the most powerful bear raids of modern times on gold. Yet it happened. Comex is estimated to have traded a huge 88,000 contracts, including 21,000 on the break between noon and 1 PM, and an enormous 33,000 in the final half hour, preventing any rally. Either number would have made a respectable days’ volume in the recent past. This follows steady selling since Monday morning, and notable softness by the
ever- prescient gold equities, recently cited with unprecedented frequency as causing, rather than anticipating gold price weakness.

Obviously it is time to recall the key contribution to logic of William of Ockham. Ockham’s razor states that the simplest explanation of natural phenomenon is
generally the best.

Those friends of gold who prefer more specifically economic comfort will find solace in Bernard Connolly’s latest assessment:

“Yet, for the US viewed in isolation, we remain firmly of the view that substantial real depreciation of the dollar is necessary…
We remain equally firmly of the view that euroland and Japan could not stand the appreciation of theircurrencies that would be required for this real dollar depreciation to take place through nominal exchange rate movements. How do things get resolved? Through euroland/Japanese inflation? Ultimately, a big Japanese inflation is inevitable, but in the context of even bigger yen depreciation. Euroland? There, too,…. there is a high probability of inflation down the road. But in neither case can one see the kind of euroland/Japanese inflation without currency depreciation that would be needed from the US point of view. So…. Greenspan has to keep puffing up the housing market, with the consequent risk of US inflation.”

JB

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