(This is The Best Stocks in the Market , brought to you by Josh Brown and Sean Russo of Ritholtz Wealth Management.) Josh — Every quarter, the travel companies report earnings and their CEOs head out to do media, they get hit with the same question about “the state of the consumer.” Reporters are begging them to finally say, after years and years, that there is some sort of pronounced, dramatic, across the board slowdown. The CEOs would be glad to oblige; it’s nice to have a ready-made excuse for a light profit outlook. The problem is, there simply is not — nor has there been — any sign of a consumer slowdown in any of the numbers. I understand how badly the media wants there to be. It’s a more interesting story than “business as usual, people are traveling.” They just cannot get confirmation of this when these travel companies share their numbers. It isn’t happening. Yes, there are some segments of the consumer populace who are under more strain than others. Is that really a profound thing to say? “People at the low end are struggling.” Wow, you figured that out all by yourself, Copernicus? We know it’s a struggle, THAT’S WHY IT’S CALLED THE LOW END. And yes, there are some specific regions and routes that are not doing as well as they have been. Las Vegas is a wreck. The prices are too high, the only hot properties (Wynn, Encore, Venetian) are concentrated toward the higher end vacationer. The normally reliable degenerate population from Canada , we’ve been told, are not showing up in the same volume as they had been pre-Trump II. Okay, fine. The propensity to continue traveling is not universal. There are winners and losers. So what. Vegas’s new reputation as a price-gouging, private equity-orchestrated fee grabber is some other destination’s gain. It happens. Despite these pockets of demographic or geographic weakness, the evidence is that the consumer’s discretionary trip-taking is not decelerating. It is accelerating. We are mobile, as a society, like never before. Enough with the handwringing. On Dec. 1, the TSA set a new all-time record for the most passengers screened in a single day at 3.13 million. This is the highest daily volume ever recorded, surpassing every pre-pandemic holiday and summer peak. Airlines are simultaneously reporting Q3 and Q4 load factors that are consistently above 85%, near historic peaks. Tourists from Europe, Latin America, India and the Middle East continue to vacation and business-trip in the United States, despite some of the worst fears about the current administration’s “tone” about foreigners. Additionally, the hotels are telling us that occupancy remained elevated throughout the course of the year relative to prior years. Revenue per available room actually rose in every single category, from Lux to Economy, according to CoStar. Even the cruises haven’t seen any sort of “the consumer is faltering” signs in their corner of the industry. 2025 bookings ran above 2024’s record levels at the major cruise lines. Demand exceeded available cabins all year long. The bottom line is that here we are late in 2025 and travel demand is not “softening”, it’s setting records. Record TSA volumes. Peak airline load factors. Hotel RevPAR hitting new highs. Cruise bookings beating prior records. Inbound tourism is accelerating. What are we talking about here? Sean’s going to share some intel with you about some of the travel related names on our Best Stocks in the Market list. But first, some list stats from the past week, and we’re going to take a victory lap on Carvana , one of the first names we wrote up for you here since beginning the Best Stocks columns for CNBC Pro. Let us have this one, we’ve earned it… We wrote up CVNA on May 12 with the stock breaking out but still 27% below its all-time high. You can see what’s happened since in the chart above. The stock printed a record high above $400 per share early this month and the good news just keeps coming. This past Friday night, it was announced that Carvana will be added to the S & P 500. I want you to remember that this was a stock that once had massive short interest and a stock price below $5 per share. Do you believe in miracles? If you’re still long the name, congratulations. You can raise your stops accordingly while playing with the house’s money. Sector leaderboard As of Dec. 8, there are 182 names on The Best Stocks in the Market list. Top sector ranking: Top industries: Top 5 best stocks by relative strength: Delta Air Lines Date added: Dec. 3, 2025 Sean — DAL was just added to the Best Stocks list last week. Considered the highest quality airline, DAL was in a 40% drawdown circa “liberation day.” This list does not catch knives, but it does add to winners and DAL has launched itself back into that category. The stock is now less than 3% off all-time highs. Over the past 15 years, Delta has annualized at 12% a year versus 9% for United (UAL), 8% for Southwest (LUV) and 2% for American (AA). Delta has been one of the most reliable airlines in an economy where people are constantly complaining about the lack of value and quality. They’re far from perfect, but the airline consistently leads network carriers in operational performance. From 2014 through October 2024, Delta achieved a 98.7% completion factor (The percentage of flights that do not get canceled or delayed) compared to United’s 97.9%, and led in on-time arrivals for ten out of ten years. In Q3 2025, Delta led the industry on operational reliability and customer experience, including the best Net Promoter Score. Delta won Business Travel News’ #1 ranking for the 15th consecutive year, achieving first place in all eleven categories. The quality of Delta is translating to its fundamentals. The focus on customer service and differentiated segments for higher-income folks has led to more business at higher margins. In Q3 2025, Premium, Loyalty and Partnership segments contributed to 60% of total revenue, up 3 percentage points from the prior year. Premium products, including Delta One, deliver margins that are over 15 points higher than Main Cabin (data via Quartr). During Delta’s most recent commentary, the CEO noted their customer is fairly healthy. He emphasized that Delta focuses on ” the upper tier ” of the economy, noting ” our consumer, our households are earning a minimum of $100,000 a year in terms of current income. About roughly 40% of U.S. households fit that definition .” Within the same travel-exposed sector as Delta, booking giant Expedia (EXPE) isn’t seeing much weakness in its customer base either. Nor is there any weakness in its share price: EXPE reported that inbound travel to the U.S. was nearly back to prior year levels and Europe to U.S. growth recovered from Q2. Similar to Delta, EXPE had an outsized reaction to what went on in April. But a lot of those fears seem to be behind us. Price is now reflecting this improved sentiment. EXPE delivered a beat on its top and bottom lines in early November, sending the stock up 18%. The market took most of it back during the late November rotation out of momentum, but the stock has worked its way back to within 6% below that post-earnings pop. Within that blowout earnings report was the fact that net income was up 40% year-over-year. U.S. room nights growth reached its highest level in over three years, with 108 million room nights booked, up 11% year-over-year. And full-year guidance was raised with an expected two points of margin expansion in Q4. Delta and Expedia are proof that service quality paired with pricing power can translate to returns, even in less optimal economic environments. Josh — Here’s Delta: Not quite a breakout yet, but I think it goes. $70 on meaningful volume would be the trigger. I think what I would do is set a buy stop limit (ever hear of these) on a GTC (good till canceled) basis and just let the trade happen if and when it trips the wire. I could be at the dentist or busy watching all my other stocks and then, boom , I’m long an airline stock. I don’t want to own it below the breakout level at all. The thing you have to worry about here is not the economy, it’s a sudden oil price spike. West Texas crude ripping fifteen bucks would take this thing back down into the 50’s. If you’re venturing a trade here before the breakout, a stop at $59 would keep your downside from getting out of hand if it fails. Here’s Expedia, which, as Sean mentioned, is also on our list: You probably think you missed it now that the stock is near record highs and has broken out well above its old 2022 highs. You haven’t. The stock was trading at 150 times earnings the last time it held these levels and today that trailing twelve months PE ratio is more like 26. Forward PE is under 20, according to YCharts. You’re not as late as you think. You can see that the rising 50-day has served as a key level, call it $233 per share. This was the price before the earnings gap too, I would put my stop there if taking the trade. Booking a trip is not just about the memories you create with the people you love. It’s also important for your mental health to have a trip to look forward to (and, maybe, to lose weight for). Call Delta, log on to Expedia, get something on the calendar for yourself. You’ll be glad you did. 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