Adjusted earnings per share came in at $3.19, comfortably ahead of Wall Street’s $3.05 estimate. Adjusted EBITDA climbed 13% to $1.49 billion, and worldwide gross fee revenue increased another 13%. Yet revenue of $7.07 billion fell short of expectations, and the market’s response was swift. Shares dropped almost 4%, leaving the stock trading almost exactly where it was after the previous earnings season.
That felt… odd. A business that keeps producing higher earnings shouldn’t spend an entire quarter running in place unless investors have found something more important than another EPS beat.
So I went back through the filing. The further I read, the less interested I became in the revenue miss as my attention drifted toward a different part of the income statement that showed how Marriott’s most profitable revenue streams were growing faster than the business itself. Franchise fees accelerated 19%, net fee revenue rose 13%, while adjusted EBITDA expanded more than twice as fast as total revenue.
The insiders got rich from SpaceX years before you could touch it. But just one mile from SpaceX's launchpad, a tiny company is doing something SpaceX can't.
Robert Kiyosaki calls it The Shadow SpaceX. The man he calls his "Financial 007" found it first.
It still trades under $7.
The institutions have not moved in yet. But they will.
Marriott still gets described as a hotel company. But the company finished the quarter with 10,082 properties and more than 1.81 million rooms across 144 countries and territories. Yet only 50 of those properties are actually owned or leased by Marriott. The overwhelming majority generate earnings through management and franchise agreements rather than hotel ownership.
More specifically, franchise fees climbed 19% year over year to $1.02 billion, making them the fastest-growing major revenue stream in the quarter. Net fee revenue increased 13% to $1.55 billion, matching the growth in adjusted EBITDA and comfortably outpacing the company’s 5% revenue growth. Base management fees, meanwhile, edged up just 1%.
The pattern is difficult to ignore because Marriott isn’t relying on adding more owned hotels to lift earnings. It is collecting a larger share of its profits from brands, management contracts and franchise agreements spread across a network someone else largely paid to build.
That’s one reason the revenue miss didn’t bother me as much as it did the market. A difficult quarter in one region can weigh on reported sales. Expanding fee income across thousands of franchised and managed properties tells me something far more durable is happening beneath the surface.
Look at the business through that lens and the quarter reads differently. Every franchise agreement shifts more of the construction costs, maintenance bills and operating headaches onto the property owner, while Marriott adds another stream of recurring, high-margin fee income to its own books
Wall Street Isn’t Paying Up For Incremental Progress
Three months ago, Marriott was trading around $360 after first-quarter earnings. Three months, another earnings report, and another EPS beat later, it’s… still around $360.
Indecision? No. Valuation discipline? Most likely. You see, since peaking near $405 in June, the stock has carved out a series of lower highs, with every rally stalling beneath the descending trendline that now defines the upper boundary of the chart. The post-earnings selloff pushed shares below both the 20-day moving average ($371.58) and the 50-day moving average ($378.72) before buyers stepped in around $355, almost exactly where the rising trendline from April intersects with price. Even after the pullback, the 200-day moving average ($335.52) continues to slope higher, leaving the longer-term uptrend intact.
That combination tells its own story. The exits aren’t crowded. Neither are the entrances. Institutions don’t appear to be questioning Marriott’s business. They’re questioning how much more they’re willing to pay for it. I can understand that.
The company continues to execute with remarkable consistency, but consistency has become the expectation, not the surprise. Once a business reaches Marriott’s quality, another earnings beat rarely changes anyone’s valuation framework. Investors begin looking for something capable of expanding the multiple, not merely defending it.
The stock has spent an entire quarter reflecting that mindset
Sometimes Great Businesses Need Time More Than Catalysts
Marriott keeps producing the kind of quarter most companies would celebrate. The market keeps responding with a shrug.
I’m okay with that. One quarter rarely changes how I value a business that’s spent decades proving it knows exactly what it is. If anything, this report reinforced that confidence. The economics continue to improve, even if the stock refuses to acknowledge it for now.
For the moment, Marriott looks like a business quietly compounding beneath the surface while its share price takes a breather. Markets eventually notice businesses that keep getting better. They just don’t always do it on our timetable.
Sooner or later, one of them catches up with the other. My bet is it won’t be the business
StockEarnings, Inc (SE) is a research service not owned or managed by registered brokers and therefore this site does not make any investment recommendations. Please click here for SE Disclaimers.
StockEarnings Inc.33 SE 4th St, Suite 100,Boca Raton, FL 33432 USA
At 7:00 p.m. ET, subscribers will receive six expiration-week trades, each built around the same core structure: Straightforward call or put setups with five day holding periods.
This isn’t about forecasting what the market might do weeks from now. It’s about knowing exactly what you’re trading this week. That’s why expiration week works. The timeline is tight, the rules are clear, and execution stays focused.
And the structure has already delivered. Here’s a snapshot of recent results from similar setups:
150% on Cava Group
108% on American Airlines Group
151% on Freeport-McMoran
152% on NVIDIA
All fromtrades that are designed to move (and finish) inside one work week.
Tonight’s process is simple:
Aug’s trades will be delivered at 7 p.m. ET to your email
You’ll enter each position before the closing bell rings TOMORROW (extremely important)
All positions will be closed out by Friday, Aug 14
You won’t need to watch these all week or guess when to exit. Each step is laid out in advance, so you’ll always know exactly what you’re doing.
If you’re not on the list, then you won’t receive the trades...
You’ll follow our instructions and place your trades by end of market day Aug 10
By Friday, Aug 14, all 6 trades will be closed out
That’s it.
These aren’t lottery-ticket options requiring massive moves to succeed.
We focus on in-the-money options, which means even relatively modest moves in the underlying stock can translate into substantial percentage gains on the option itself.
Because these trades are designed to only last a few days, they also reduce the impact of time decay and eliminate the need to hold positions for weeks or months.
Even better, you won’t be guessing what to do next.
Every recommendation includes:
✔️ The exact option contract to buy
✔️ A recommended entry range
✔️ A clearly defined target profit
✔️ A specific exit strategy
✔️ Commentary explaining the ‘why’ behind each trade
In other words, we’ve already done the research.
All that’s left for you is executing the plan.
For this weekend’s release, I wanted to make it easier for new members to get started.
Congratulations on reserving your spot to the AI Trade Monster Summit!
On Wednesday, February 4 at 2 p.m. ET, join trading pioneer and CNBC/Fox Business superstar Jon Najarian for a special LIVE demonstration of his new patent-pending “AI Trade Monster.”
This isn’t your typical scanner or AI trading tool...
This MONSTER that Jon invented can help everyday traders identify:
The ideal time to enter a trade
What type of trade to place
And the ideal time to exit a trade.
REGARDLESS of what the market conditions are.
Frankly, this is the most robust AI software that I’ve seen...
And if it’s anything like Jon’s past projects, which have sold for as much as $1 billion...
This patent-pending tool can fundamentally change the game.
Looking back at historical data...
Those who knew about the opportunities in the past could have achieved gains of up to 1,700% within a few weeks...
And since mid-November, Jon has used his tool to help a select group of early members lock in SIX 100%+ winners!
That’s why you NEED to attend this FREE trading summit when Jon will give his FIRST live demonstration of this new software.
There are three things that I recommend you do between now and the LIVE AI Trade Monster Summit on Wednesday, February 4 @ 2 p.m. ET ...
We look forward to seeing you in the MTA Live chat room during the FREE AI Trade Monster Summit.
See you there,
Stephen Prior, Publisher
Monument Traders Alliance
Monument Traders Alliance, LLC
You are receiving this email because you signed up for AI Trade Monster emails presented by Monument Traders Alliance.
To stop receiving AI Trade Monster emails, please click here.
Please note: This will not impact the fulfillment of your subscription in any way.
Please do not reply to this email as it goes to an unmonitored inbox.
AI Trade Monster is a special event by Monument Traders Alliance, LLC. Questions? Check out our FAQs. Trying to reach us?Contact us here.
Nothing published by Monument Traders Alliance should be considered personalized investment advice. Although our employees may answer your general customer service questions, they are not licensed under securities laws to address your particular investment situation. No communication by our employees to you should be deemed personalized investment advice. We allow the editors of our publications to recommend securities that they own themselves. However, our policy prohibits editors from exiting a personal trade while the recommendation to subscribers is open. In no circumstance may an editor sell a security before subscribers have a fair opportunity to exit. The length of time an editor must wait after subscribers have been advised to exit a play depends on the type of publication. All other employees and agents must wait 24 hours after publication before trading on a recommendation.
Any investments recommended by Monument Traders Alliance should be made only after consulting with your investment advisor and only after reviewing the prospectus or financial statements of the company.
Protected by copyright laws of the United States and international treaties. The information found on this website may only be used pursuant to the membership or subscription agreement and any reproduction, copying or redistribution (electronic or otherwise, including on the world wide web), in whole or in part, is strictly prohibited without the express written permission of Monument Traders Alliance, LLC, 14 West Mount Vernon Place, Baltimore, MD 21201.
