What happened
Shares of Booking Holdings (BKNG -1.15%) fell as much as 7.9% in trading today as the market took a nosedive and tech stocks magnified broader losses. Shares closed Monday near their low, dropping 7.8% in a brutal start to the week.
So what
The market overall tumbled on continuing fear about inflation, rising interest rates, and a possible recession. There wasn't any significant economic data out today, but earnings have generally been weak recently, and investors are moving out of risky stocks and into safer investments.
Image source: Getty Images.
Ironically, the travel industry did get a bit of good news with internet rates falling slightly today and oil dropping 6.6%. That will make travel slightly less costly and put more money in consumers' pockets, which should be good for demand. But given the economic concerns overall, those tailwinds are being ignored by the market.
Now what
This is one of those volatile days that investors need to live through in order to generate long-term returns. Growth stocks tend to be extremely volatile, and that leads to big drops in down markets, but also big gains when the market recovers.
I don't think Booking Holdings' business has changed today; shares just dropped on macro concerns. For long-term investors, this is the kind of opportunity to buy in and hold on for the ride. But we've seen that it could be a rocky ride to market-beating returns.
