We recently published a list of 13 Best NASDAQ Stocks to Buy So Far in 2025. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Booking Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:BKNG) stands against other NASDAQ stocks to buy in 2025.

On April 4, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives appeared on CNBC to discuss the potential impact of current tariffs and compared the situation to an economic armageddon. If the current tariffs remain in place, Ives thinks it would lead to a 15% to 20% demand reduction across the board. He thinks that investor anxiety is much higher considering how things were in the March 2020 COVID-19 crash earlier. The analyst thinks that investors should now focus on the likelihood of tariff adjustments from comments about negotiations, the impact on consumer-focused companies, and the potential for demand destruction. He even thinks that companies may refuse to provide guidance in the first-quarter earnings calls due to the persistent tariff uncertainty.

Ives thinks that a lot of tech companies will not be able to absorb high tariff increases and rather this cost will be passed on to the consumers which will lead to significant margin erosion and even potential sales declines. He indicated that tech stocks are currently pricing in a 10% to 15% cut to numbers. He suggests that investors should now look at companies with strong long-term potential as he believes earnings may normalize in 2025 and 2026. The analyst also addressed the defensive performance of defense contractors. While acknowledging the relative stability here, Ives cautioned that even these even such sectors are not immune to tariffs. He noted the significant foreign component, specifically 40% to 50% in some instances, in hardware and other sectors.

Our Methodology

We sifted through the financial media reports to compile a list of the top NASDAQ stocks to buy for 2025. We then selected the 13 stocks that were the most popular among elite hedge funds and that analysts were bullish on. The stocks are ranked in ascending order of the number of hedge funds that have stakes in them, as of Q4 2024. The hedge fund data was sourced from Insider Monkey’s database which tracks the moves of over 900 elite money managers.

Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here).

A fast-paced travel agent making a bookings for a family vacation package.

Booking Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:BKNG)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 99

Booking Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:BKNG) provides online and traditional travel and restaurant reservations and related services internationally. It primarily operates Booking.com and Priceline. It offers travel-related insurance products and restaurant management services to consumers, travel service providers, and restaurants, along with advertising services.

The company has a focus on its connected vision trip which is a unified platform with all travel-related services that help create a seamless, end-to-end travel experience for consumers by using GenAI. The connected trip transactions grew by over 45% year-over-year in Q4 2024. This was a high single-digit percentage of the company’s total transactions. Flights are significant for these connected trips, with travelers booking almost 50 million airline tickets across the platform in Q4. This was up by 38%.

The company’s Accommodation segment remains its primary business, with room night growth of 13% year-over-year in Q4. For the full year, this rise was 9%. Alternative accommodations, which refer to lodging options other than traditional hotels, also grew room night by 19% in the last quarter of 2024. The Genius Royalty program at Booking Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:BKNG) is expected to further improve these numbers.

Wedgewood Partners stated the following regarding Booking Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:BKNG) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:

“Booking Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:BKNG) contributed to performance as travel spending across the U.S. and Europe remains quite healthy, whereas the Company took share in alternative accommodations, and looks set to expand margins after a few years of reinvestment. The Company has also been aggressively reducing its share count at reasonably attractive valuation multiples. Booking should be able to compound earnings at an attractive, double-digit rate for the next few years given these various initiatives.”

Overall, BKNG ranks 12th on our list of the best NASDAQ stocks to buy so far in 2025. While we acknowledge the growth potential of BKNG, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold great promise for delivering high returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. There is an AI stock that went up since the beginning of 2025, while popular AI stocks lost around 25%. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than BKNG but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.

READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires.

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.