Buy the dip or analyze companies and possible corporate action stories?

It’s hard to predict anything in these turbulent times except that today will be a big market drop…unless Trump releases some positive news in the form of a withdrawal of the threat....and sure is that the market will react positively once the situation calms down...if it's soon enough. So, we have to predict when to buy the dip. But we’re still looking for stocks that are little talked about but could see significant gains in the short term. My focus is on Tripadvisor, and the news surrounding it is so consistent that a positive scenario is increasingly likely.

Tripadvisor has just undergone a quiet but very important management change.

The latest 8K confirms that Greg Maffei (who is the Chairman since 2013) will not run for re-election, and another director will step down.....2 of the 8 board seats are opening up just before Starboard Value’s campaign is active.

Until recently, Tripadvisor was controlled through a Liberty and preferential voting. That no longer exists. There is no longer dual class of shares, no controlling shareholder. And now there is no long-standing chairman who probably recognized the need for change.

For Starboard, this is now a much easier setup than a typical activist fight.

It’s important to note that the fight may not be started because Maffei has a long history of value-unlocking moves like the original Tripadvisor spinoff from Expedia and the Liberty sale of Tripadvisor itself.

They’re not opposed to spinoffs but they just tend to do them on their own terms. What we may now be seeing is a transition phase where this kind of move becomes viable again.

At the same time, the fundamentals remain the same:

Viator is a high-quality, growing brand, and the legacy hotel business is undermining the company’s value, and the most important thing for investors is that the sum of the parts suggests a much greater value than today’s price.

The market reaction has been muted for now. The stock is still trading around $9-10, implying little confidence in a near-term strategic shift. No, we’ll know soon enough, certainly before the June shareholder meeting.

But if Starboard gains influence and pushes for a real event that unlocks value (a spin-off of Viator, a sale of TheFork…), a re-evaluation of the stock’s value is very likely.

Reasonable ranges would be for the status quo: $9–$11 (where we are currently), until complete success and unlocking the value of parts of the company (e.g. a spin-off of Viator) according to some analysts could bring the stock to $18–$25.

This does not guarantee anything - but it seems that serious foundations for change are being laid day by day. We will see when the market will start to valuate this.