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Omicron variant hits travel and reopening stocks — is it time to buy?

Investors should be closely watching for buying opportunities in reopening stocks in the travel and ride-sharing sectors that have been hit hard this past week amid Omicron variant fears, according to EvercoreISI tech analyst Mark Mahaney.

"We have processes in place as societies, cultures manage this [the pandemic. If you have a sell-off on the ride-sharing stocks, the travel stocks that is probably a buying opportunity. I find it hard to believe we will have a repeat of the stocks we had which were massive last March, last April and a year and a half ago," said Mahaney on Yahoo Finance Live.

To this end, the long-time internet analyst continues to rate shares of Airbnb, Lyft and Uber at Outperform. Mahaney has Inline ratings on Booking Holdings and Expedia shares.

Reopening stocks of all kind have been battered in recent sessions as concerns on the economic impact of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 sweep through markets.

For instance, Uber and Lyft have lost 9.9% and 22%, respectively, in the last five sessions — significantly underperforming the broader stock markets. Shares of Expedia and Booking Holdings have shed 9% and 11%, respectively, during that same time span.

The Arca Airline Index — which tracks the stock price performances of major airlines such as Delta and JetBlue — is down close to 10% over the past five trading sessions.

Stocks levered to the global economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic took another tumble on Tuesday, as did the wider stock market.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average tanked more than 600 points in early afternoon trading, while the Nasdaq Composite and S&P 500 were also deeply in the red. All 30 Dow components were in the red for the session, except for Apple.

Added Mahaney,"Like everyone else we are watching to see how virulent this new [COVID-19] strain is and then whether existing vaccines are effective enough or not."

Brian Sozzi is an editor-at-large and anchor at Yahoo Finance. Follow Sozzi on Twitter @BrianSozzi and on LinkedIn.

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