Investors are losing patience with Uber, Lyft
Investors aren’t trying to hitch a ride with Uber (UBER) or Lyft (LYFT) like they used to.
The individual stocks have been struggling since going public earlier this year, each making its market debut in heavily hyped IPOs. Here’s how the numbers stack up:
Before Wednesday’s open, Lyft was down 48% from its record high IPO day of $88.60. The numbers aren’t much better for its main competitor, Uber. It’s down about 35% from its record high – set on June 28 – of $47.08.
While both stocks are seeing a nice jolt Wednesday, each are hovering near all-time lows, and this is a major cause for concern, highlighting how investors are losing patience with these ride-hailing companies after a short time.
“I think we’re being reminded here of the competitive advantages in the marketplace are rarely that durable,” Scott Clemons of Brown Brothers Harriman, said on Yahoo Finance’s “The First Trade.” You’ve got a duopoly of Uber, Lyft and other competitors as well.”
Investors have a track record of being patient when it comes to profitability. While Amazon (AMZN) showed promise early on, Tesla (TSLA) has been highly scrutinized over the last year.
However, Clemons said as the season begins to change, so will investors’ patience. “I think the market is also realizing that it may not pay to have as much patience with every company as the market has had with the business model like Amazon – waiting for the profits to come,” he said.
Mike Isaac, author of the new book “Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber,” told Yahoo Finance’s “The Final Round” that the company is still struggling to stay dominant post-IPO, and “there is going to be probably another year or more of pain to get there.”
In its most recent earnings report last month, Uber showed a steep second-quarter net loss of $5.23 billion, while Lyft reported better-than-expected second-quarter results and projected the loss for the year to be as much as $875 million, $300 million lower than an earlier projection.
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