Wyndham Hotels & Resorts Inc

The next phase of the AI trade may reward companies that use AI to cut costs and lift profits rather than the chipmakers and infrastructure builders that led the first leg. Travel platforms Airbnb, Booking Holdings, and Expedia have surged nearly 40% at the median since May 19, while hotels are roughly flat, as AI begins to show up in measurable business results. Airbnb says nearly 45% of customer issues that begin with its AI assistant are resolved without a human, and customer support cost per booking has fallen roughly 16% from a year ago. Booking reports customer service cost per booking falling at a double-digit rate with AI investments already producing a positive return. Choice Hotels and Wyndham are also reporting hard AI gains, including a 360-basis-point lift in group-request conversion and a more than 500-basis-point boost in direct contribution at participating hotels, yet both stocks are down since May 19 and trade around 15 times forward earnings with analyst estimates down about 7% over the past three months.

The consumer discretionary sector saw mixed Q1 results, with revenues beating analyst estimates by 2% on average but next-quarter guidance coming in 4.1% below expectations. Sysco reported revenues of $20.52 billion, up 4.7% year-on-year and in line with estimates, while Smith & Wesson posted the best performance with revenues of $178.4 million, a 26.7% increase that beat expectations by 14.9%. Leggett & Platt was the weakest, with revenues of $918.2 million, down 10.2% and missing estimates by 3.3%. Wyndham and Figs also reported, with Figs seeing a 28% revenue jump to $159.9 million but its stock falling 26.5% since the release.