Morgan Stanley upgrades Booking, says ‘just as important in agentic world’

As previously reported, Morgan Stanley analyst Brian Nowak upgraded Booking Holdings (BKNG) to Overweight from Equal Weight with a price target of $5,500, down from $6,150. Even as agentic tools evolve, the firm sees Booking staying “a key driver of travel,” contending that the company will still “own the customer,” capture “robust” traveler data and use those to drive high margin direct business. Early agentic travel products are developing differently than expected in some ways, but the firm thinks Booking and the OTAs are set to be “just as important in the agentic world as they have been the past two decades,” the analyst tells investors.