Airbnb falls amid short report from The Bear Cave (update)
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Update 2:50 pm: Adds analyst comment defending Airbnb.
Airbnb (NASDAQ:ABNB) drifted down 4% amid a new short report from The Bear Cave.
The Bear Cave argues in the short report on Thursday that Airbnb (ABNB) is increasingly facing competition from its own "top professional hosts," who are building out their own booking platforms and offering better prices than ABNB.
Bernstein analyst Richard Clarke came out in defense of Airbnb (ABNB) in a note on Thursday, writing that professional hosts often have properties that cost more than Airbnb.
"The report to us has more similarity with our sell thesis on BKNG about the risk of direct bookings â Booking has a massively more consolidated supply and is still useful; Airbnb on the other hand sits in a much more favorable supply market, and looks much more like Amazon: everything on Amazon is pretty much purchasable another way, but that does not make it a less valuable platform," Bernstein's Clarke, who has an outperform rating and $140 price target on Airbnb (ABNB) wrote in the note.
 Airbnb (ABNB) short interest is 4%.
Airbnb (ABNB) didn't immediately respond to Seeking Alpha email request for comment.
Also see SA contributor Bradley Guichard's piece from last month entitled "Airbnb: Here Is The Price I Will Finally Buy Shares."