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Uber opens at $42 per share

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Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#241

Post by aetherson »

carlsborg wrote: post #160
chollida1 wrote: post #3

Some notes from watching Uber open: - if it closes below $45(its IPO price) it will be the first time since 2008 that the happened for a major IPO - TD Ameritrade executed more orders in the first 10 minutes of trading than they did for the first 2.5 hours with Lyft. - Uber is 9% of all trading at TD Ameritrade, retail loves this stock, - market is down today, which isn't helping Uber but its probably not much of a f…

Facebook was at ~$44 on the day it IPOed, and proceeded to fall over the next month to about $19. Today its at $187.

I think Uber had better hope that this isn't the relevant comparison. Facebook stayed low for 5 quarters and then was buoyed back into growth by like 33% or so operating margins.

It feels like Uber is a really fucking long way from 33% operating margins.

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#242

Post by ASinclair »

sytelus wrote: post #87
ufmace wrote: post #11

Did I miss something? I thought Uber was still a long way from being profitable and had no plausible plan for how to become profitable.

Amazon didn't turned profit for first 5 years or so after IPO. If you go back 15 years down the history, you will find many articles/analysis doubting if they would ever become profitable. However no one doubted that online retail was the future and brick-and-mortar stores will increasingly become part of the history. I see a lot of parallels here. No one doubts anymore that app-based cabs are the future and traditio…

> Amazon, the company that everyone loves point to as an example of how losing money eventually makes money, lost a combined $2.8 billion over its first 17 quarters as a public company, significantly less than the $4.5 billion Uber lost in 2017.

Source: https://oversharing.substack.com/p/bird-raises-prices-to-tri...

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#243

Post by davidrupp »

jimmywanger wrote: post #208
drocer88 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Market is up today (as of 3:20pm EST). Über and Lyft are down > 6% . SV Unicorn hype aside, there's not a big moat around running a jitney cab company.

Hmmm. Never heard that term before. I usually hear "gypsy cab".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_taxicab_operation

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#244

Post by Gibbon1 »

wesammikhail wrote: post #67
zd123 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not arbitrary at all. IPOs are structured by investments banks to ‘pop’ on the first day. If the closing price is below the IPO that is generally regarded as a failure and may imply over-valuation.

> If the closing price is below the IPO that is generally regarded as a failure and may imply over-valuation. Generally regarded by whom* exactly? The world is full of examples of IPOs that did badly on opening day/week but soared like mad afterwards. These generalizations and pretense of knowledge helps no one; especially considering that "over-valued" is not something that can be determined in a short period of tim…

> Generally regarded by whom* exactly?

It reflects badly on the investment bank. But doesn't mean anything about the companies fundamentals or where their stock is going to be in a year. Friend of mine bitched that when his company went IPO the bank priced it low and the result was the bank made a fortune and the companies war chest was smaller than it would have been with a higher initial price.

You used whom correctly, but an English speaker wouldn't notice if you used who either.

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#245

Post by _bxg1 »

criddell wrote: post #93
bfrog wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the burn rate uber has, it'll be bankrupt in < 2 years. There are no other suckers to buy in after the public.

I've never understood why so many people were/are so bullish on Uber. I understand that ride hailing is a big deal, but it doesn't feel like it's that hard to launch a new ride hailing company. I'm basing that opinion on what I've seen in my city. When Uber and Lyft left Austin, there were lots of alternatives that had existed or popped up to fill the space. Aside from brand recognition, what does Uber have that the…

Ease of competition aside, I still think Uber is a massive bubble. Ride-hailing is of dubious actual utility, it's been causing traffic problems (and has been getting regulated accordingly), it has ethical problems with regards to employment (and faces constant threat of regulation from that angle too), and above all else, it's clear at this point that it will never be profitable while it relies on human drivers.

Investing in it is basically a hail-mary that we'll get fully autonomous vehicles within the next couple of years, and even in that best-case scenario Uber would be a strong-but-not-world-eating company (the traffic problems would still exist, and operating costs would skyrocket in the short-term before they go down). I can't fathom how it's worth nearly $10 billion dollars. I almost want to short it.

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#247

Post by sushisushisushi »

sytelus wrote: post #87
ufmace wrote: post #11

Did I miss something? I thought Uber was still a long way from being profitable and had no plausible plan for how to become profitable.

Amazon didn't turned profit for first 5 years or so after IPO. If you go back 15 years down the history, you will find many articles/analysis doubting if they would ever become profitable. However no one doubted that online retail was the future and brick-and-mortar stores will increasingly become part of the history. I see a lot of parallels here. No one doubts anymore that app-based cabs are the future and traditio…

>No one doubts anymore that app-based cabs are the future and traditional taxis business is pretty much done now.

As a counterpoint, I haven’t used a ride-sharing/bike-sharing/scooter-sharing app since about 2016, haven’t missed them, and find recent studies showing that they unaccountably plague cities with congestion and litter and injuries both compelling and indicative that these services, which proliferated by aggressively avoiding regulatory oversight, are about to find that that strategy no longer works.

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#248

Post by [deleted] »

lkbm wrote: post #188
criddell wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never understood why so many people were/are so bullish on Uber. I understand that ride hailing is a big deal, but it doesn't feel like it's that hard to launch a new ride hailing company. I'm basing that opinion on what I've seen in my city. When Uber and Lyft left Austin, there were lots of alternatives that had existed or popped up to fill the space. Aside from brand recognition, what does Uber have that the…

> When Uber and Lyft left Austin, there were lots of alternatives that had existed or popped up to fill the space. I tried to use one or two of those alternatives. Setup was a pain and I ended up taking a cab. I have at least one coworker who couldn't get a ride because he was in South Austin. Additionally. if your company is only in one city, visitors have to know about, install, and setup a new app just so they can…

[deleted]

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#249

Post by resters »

tapland wrote: post #238
resters wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It sounds like the correct conclusion is they still over estimated the market price The bank has every incentive not to do that. The bank must juggle the needs of its various constituencies, preferred investors (who provide capital expecting not to have it lose value right away), the firm (which wants to raise capital) and existing investors (who may want to liquidate). If a bank routinely over-prices IPOs, then pr…

You say this because you want it to seem like desperation. The claim that any stock that is overvalued at IPO shows desperation is just not true, and it's the statement you are making.

No, I said it is too soon to tell, and that it has more to do with the balance of power going into the IPO.
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