Airbnb CEO Offloads Another $5M Worth Of Shares: Retail Investors See Red

Airbnb, Inc (ABNB) CEO and chairman Brian Chesky has sold his shares in the company worth $4.9 million, according to a securities filing on Wednesday, the latest in a series of share sales by company insiders.

The transactions, executed on March 17, involved the sale of 38,461 class A common shares at prices of $124.00 to $127.4949 per share.  

Including this, Chesky has offloaded a stake worth at least $92.5 million across several transactions this year, according to Investing.com.

Other Airbnb insiders including CFO Ellie Mertz, CTO Ari Balogh and Chief Strategy Officer Nathan Blecharczyk, too, have sold shares worth millions of dollars in recent months.

Chesky's sales are part of a 10b5-1 trading plan the company adopted in August last year, according to the securities filing.

Airbnb shares climbed steeply to a nearly 10-month high in mid-February after the company published strong Q4 results. They are now down 22% from that peak.

Per its latest update, the global hospitality company is seeing healthy demand in Asia, particularly from Chinese consumers visiting Southeast Asian destinations.

In Q4, Airbnb's revenue rose 12% to $2.48 billion, above FactSet estimates. The company said last month it would spend $200 million to $250 million on new business lines this year.

Earlier this month, Jefferies raised its rating to ‘buy’ and price target to $185 from $165 on the stock.

On Stocktwits, the sentiment among retail investors was 'bearish' and moved a notch lower than the previous day amid weak message volume.

A user posted that, based on technical charts, the stock price could be hitting a support level.

Another said $125.5 and $119.2 are the levels to watch out for.

Currently, nearly half of the analysts covering the stock rate it 'hold', with an average price target of $157.97, according to Koyfin data.

Shares trade at $126, down 4.1% year to date.

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