After Airbnb's Massive IPO, Two Market Analysts Lay Out What's Ahead

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Airbnb exploded out of the gate in its market debut.

The short-term rental and travel company rallied 113% on Thursday, its first day as a public company, closing with a market cap above $85 billion. Airbnb is also larger than travel booking site Expedia, and roughly equivalent to Booking's more than $86 billion market cap.

Gina Sanchez, CEO of Chantico Global and chief market strategist at Lido Advisors, sees that market valuation as justified.

"If you look at the network of Airbnb, Expedia has yet to get the kind of levels and volume that Airbnb has managed to garner through the building of its network. So those network benefits cannot be underestimated here," Sanchez told CNBC's "Trading Nation" on Thursday.

Matt Maley, chief market strategist at Miller Tabak, said jumping into Airbnb immediately after its huge initial public offering may not be the best move, though.

"We've got some euphoria in these names right now, but if we get any kind of pullback next year, the pent-up demand is huge, it will provide an unbelievable buying opportunity at some point in the first half," Maley said during the same "Trading Nation" segment.

While the coronavirus pandemic has hit the travel industry hard, Sanchez added that it's not just Airbnb that will benefit from the rollout of a vaccine globally and the reopening trade.

"I don't think that this [industry] is necessarily just a fixed pie that everyone's going to get a slice of. I think the whole pie is going to get larger because there's going to be a tremendous amount of growth, not only in travel, vacation-type bookings but also in business bookings, etc. And I think that's going to open the market for Expedia, for Booking, also directly for the hotels themselves," Sanchez said.

Shares of Expedia and Booking, for example, have already rebounded well off the March lows. Since then, Booking is up 90% and Expedia 220%.

But, those extreme gains could also make Booking and Expedia susceptible to a pullback, Maley said.

"These two stocks, like a lot of stocks after the recent rally, they're starting to get overbought on a near-term basis but these two in particular -- not only overbought on a near-term basis, but also on an intermediate-term basis," he said.

Booking's weekly relative strength index, a momentum measure, trades at 62 and Expedia's at 68. Any reading above 70 typically suggests overbought conditions. Maley said both could move higher, but an overextended RSI could mean that upside is limited.

Disclosure: Sanchez holds ABNB shares.

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