Airbnb: When Timing the Market is Right

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:6-7

This is a powerful verse in the Bible. Essentially, God is the authority above all of humanity and when humanity is not capable of understanding life circumstances, this verse is God’s answer. God’s peace is real, and it is the difference for why two people can go through the same circumstances, and one can come out full of God’s peace while the other has nothing but resentment and frustration. Jesus Christ is the bridge to God’s peace.

What can I glean from this from an investment standpoint? There are two important points; first, being anxious for nothing, and two, finding true peace through God. As an investor, I’ve been taught to have goals, objectives, management strategies, etc. But the most important aspect of my investing performance is execution. The biggest threat to my execution is emotion. Being in a state of peace, or calm, or level-headedness, is what makes the difference in my ability to execute accordingly.

Timing the market is often stated as taboo. While I don’t pretend to think that I can time the market perfectly, Airbnb, Inc. (ABNB) brings up a challenging justification why timing the market prudently can work to a retail investor’s advantage.

Looking at a high-level annual valuation chart for ABNB and it can still be seen as to ABNB’s flat-lined results since 2022. This seemingly is not an issue assuming ABNB is growing in a sustained fashion equating to revenue and cash flow gains, which has been the case. However, the other observation investors should immediately key in on is ABNB’s EV/Sales overvaluation stemming from the company going public, notably through the pandemic.

This has translated as follows; ABNB being down 15 percent since its year-end IPO, while today, being negative from any annual year prior with the only exception being 2022, which was a broadly poor performing year across all stock exchanges and indices.

ABNB has had very few investment opportunities since the company has gone public. These have included late 2022-early 2023, the summer of 2024, and most recently, April to current 2025. Investors exercising patience and waiting for these periods where ABNB’s operating cash flow multiples were clearly within the buy zone,  will be in a much more stable position to benefit from ABNB’s future stock price growth.

While timing the market can become a dangerous game to varying degrees, focusing on cash flow multiples and corresponding buy zone targets can make a big difference in investment return potential versus the alternatives.