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Uber opens at $42 per share

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Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#291

Post by greenyoda »

throwaway082729 wrote: post #104
rtempaccount1 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My feeling though is that Amazon had a much larger moat to build, with distribution networks, warehouses, logistics etc. With Uber, what's their moat, so that when they raise prices to become profitable users don't just move away? Lyft/local taxi companies/public transport, all have the infrastructure to provide the service that uber provides.

Lyft has to be in business till then. Local taxi companies are more expensive than Uber and inconvenient. Public transport is barely used. Uber is providing a subsidized public service while employing a lot of people. The moat is there but the question is one of diversification and sustenance as a public company. In the coming days, there'll be a massive internal push to reduce costs, diversify and become profitable.…

> Public transport is barely used.

In one of Uber's largest markets, NYC, public transport is extensively used, and I assume that many price-sensitive Uber users will go back to taking the subway or bus if Uber raises its fares too much.

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#292

Post by atemerev »

ip26 wrote: post #284
atemerev wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These days, being profitable is considered harmful. More profits = more taxes. Getting virtual “profits” into stock appreciation and structuring revenues to pay nearly zero tax is the name of the game today, and only big corporations can afford it. It is small and medium businesses that pick the bill.

Don't forget also, it's believed that "being profitable" = "you're done with hypergrowth", at which point the whole band of capital looking for 100x unicorns moves on. Remaining unprofitable is a part of maintaining the illusion that the company has huge upside in the future.

Yes, I suppose this is also correct. I just wanted to reiterate that with modern creative financing, a large company can stay “unprofitable” basically forever and still keep shareholders happy.

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#293

Post by dclowd9901 »

caprese wrote: post #255
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…

doesn't matter, made $8,100,000,000 in a day should really start looking at this from the underwriter and issuer perspective to understand the success story here. Retail buys ticker symbols that have been marketed to them. Everyone else dumps. Company made a ton of money and can do whatever it wants with it, they gain nothing from secondary market trading today. VCs, founders and employees can't sell for another 60-9…

That's an interesting definition of "made"... assumes the concept of liquidity has no meaning.

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#294

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

prklmn wrote: post #287
matthewowen wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spotify didn't IPO: they did a direct listing.

It was still an IPO, just an untraditional one.

But to that point there was no "IPO price", i.e. the price paid by institutional clients before the first day of public trading, so there was nothing to fall below (there was a "reference price", but that's just more like the MSRP given by the stock exchange, not what anyone actually paid).

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#295

Post by throwaway082729 »

fooker wrote: post #179
almost_usual wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook was also profitable and had about 10x the number of users compared to Uber pre IPO https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2019/04/22/ub...

Uber has paying users. Facebook had advertisement targets. Doesn't make too much sense to conflate the two.

Am I the only one that feels that Uber has a ton of valuable location data? Aren't rides to a particular location similar to FourSquare checkins? "How many customers are likely to come to your restaurant every Saturday night? How has that changed over time?"

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#296

Post by konschubert »

atemerev wrote: post #292
ip26 wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget also, it's believed that "being profitable" = "you're done with hypergrowth", at which point the whole band of capital looking for 100x unicorns moves on. Remaining unprofitable is a part of maintaining the illusion that the company has huge upside in the future.

Yes, I suppose this is also correct. I just wanted to reiterate that with modern creative financing, a large company can stay “unprofitable” basically forever and still keep shareholders happy.

The is only true as long as shareholders believe that the company gets a return on its investments.

If they believe it just destroys the money it keeps, they will start demanding a payout.

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#297

Post by cubano »

exogeny wrote: post #101
sytelus wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is a foolish viewpoint. Amazon got immense economies of scale as they grew, Uber’s costs scale alongside it. It drives me crazy that so many people equivocate them.

Uber is totally banking on driverless cars to lower to cost per mile to near nothing.

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#298

Post by mft_ »

_bxg1 wrote: post #268
freewilly1040 wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dubious utility? It's a massive improvement over cabs for the consumer.

Is it though? Cabs have apps now. What makes them different? If the answer is the price, well, that price is unsustainable and denies thousands of people a living wage.

Uber offers a single app that works in most major cities in the world, which is fantastic as a regular traveler.

Versus having to find, download, and set up a new app for every new city... maybe on roaming data or dodgy airport WiFi... when you've just flown in...

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#299

Post by malvosenior »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #270
malvosenior wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had very extensive and very negative taxi experiences around the world. Uber is night and day from a UX perspective. Being able to see where the car is when it's on the way, pre-inputting your destination, paying through the app... The gig economy aspect was definitely revolutionary as well. It's essentially changing the nature of work (love it or hate it). As much as I love Amazon and always have, in the early…

I don't see how the UX thing is so revolutionary. I live in a city with 120k people, and the app of the local taxi company here does all of those things as well.

That's not been my experience and definitely not before Uber existed and forced people to start copying them.

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#300

Post by caprese »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #293
caprese wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

doesn't matter, made $8,100,000,000 in a day should really start looking at this from the underwriter and issuer perspective to understand the success story here. Retail buys ticker symbols that have been marketed to them. Everyone else dumps. Company made a ton of money and can do whatever it wants with it, they gain nothing from secondary market trading today. VCs, founders and employees can't sell for another 60-9…

That's an interesting definition of "made"... assumes the concept of liquidity has no meaning.

> That's an interesting definition of "made"... assumes the concept of liquidity has no meaning.

Thats interesting definition of "literally traded a bunch of shares to underwriters in exchange for $8,100,000,000 and let the underwriters worry about liquidity on the stock exchanges"

Uber has dollars for the shares they sold. Liquidity is not a concern for the party of the transaction I talked about.

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