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Uber opens at $42 per share

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Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#341

Post by jacques_chester »

greenyoda wrote: post #291
throwaway082729 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Andy Byford is one of the most dangerous people in Uber's world.

Luckily for them: Cuomo and De Blasio have a running bet going to see who can bugger it up more completely.

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#342

Post by hawaiianbrah »

aseipp wrote: post #320
throwaway082729 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

> Local taxi companies are more expensive than Uber and inconvenient Uber essentially sets money on fire in order to make the rides cheaper than alternatives, but that will eventually end. I've got some bad news for you about what happens to prices when that occurs. Of course that is the ultimate goal of Uber, and all ride sharing systems: to destroy any and all local public transit and competitors, no matter the cos…

> (Side note, but it's going to be legitimately hilarious when Uber re-introduces the concept of "buses" and tech nerds here drop their jaws in disbelief at how amazing it is.)

Lyft already did: http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/06/lyft-reinvents-the-bu...

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#343

Post by sokoloff »

scarface74 wrote: post #190
malvosenior wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a heavy early Amazon and Uber user, I'd say not really. Both are pretty revolutionary and I certainly have been paying Uber a lot more than I was paying Amazon when they just sold books.

Yes you might be paying Uber more, I pay them about $300-$400 a month between our occasional use and my teenage son getting around (still cheaper than a car + insurance), but they lose money on each ride. Amazon has high fixed costs while they were building infrastructure. Uber has negative marginal profits. Edit: negative marginal costs -> negative marginal profits.

I can't get a clear reading from Uber's most recent financials filing in Feb to determine that they have negative marginal profit. It looks the opposite to me. Given their substantial gross profits, I have to think that they last ride they sell is profitable.

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#344

Post by sokoloff »

aseipp wrote: post #320
throwaway082729 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

> Local taxi companies are more expensive than Uber and inconvenient Uber essentially sets money on fire in order to make the rides cheaper than alternatives, but that will eventually end. I've got some bad news for you about what happens to prices when that occurs. Of course that is the ultimate goal of Uber, and all ride sharing systems: to destroy any and all local public transit and competitors, no matter the cos…

> Uber isn't a "public service", by definition, that is, unless words simply don't mean anything anymore. It's a business designed to make money; the fact that you confuse these two proves Uber's marketing is working on you, not that it's actually true in any meaningful way.

Is Delta Airlines "public transportation"?

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#345

Post by baby »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #231
baby wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber is definitely undervalued on HN. They have so much more markets to enter.

If your business loses money on each transaction, entering more markets isn't going to save you...

They are expanding agressively, that adds to the cost, they could also increase prices. I'm not worried at all.

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#346

Post by sokoloff »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #313
24gttghh wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>...unless they're going to hike up their prices. I assume that's what any company like this does eventually once they've captured enough of the market.

Right but they haven't yet. Lyft is big in the US and most cities / towns in the US and across the globe have small start-ups doing similar ride sharing. Does Uber have enough market to hike their prices yet? Will it before it runs out of money? If they're IPOing I feel like they have to think they can do this, I just don't get the how.

I used only Uber for probably 3+ years. On a recent business trip (where I wasn't even the one paying the bill in the end), Uber hit me with some ridiculous quote for a fare from Orlando airport to the convention hotel. That was the moment I downloaded Lyft, took the ride for a far more reasonable price and now I regularly cross-shop the two. Many drivers drive for both, so it's not even that different a wait time or experience.

You can shear a sheep many times, but skin them only once.

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#347

Post by unreal37 »

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.

The Facebook IPO broke the stock market. Literally broke it. They had to stop trading it for a while. That affected the stock.

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#348

Post by unreal37 »

nPo102y wrote: post #145
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 (2012) needed strong underwriter support to barely close above opening price.

Facebook had a weird first day. They literally broke the stock market software that day.

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#349

Post by pizzazzaro »

resters wrote: post #97
tux1968 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Boo to the underwriters(Morgan Stanley), who seemed to misjudge the market's appetite Who suffers if the price is quickly adjusted downward by the market? How is that different than it being released at that final market price from the get go? Naively I would think that setting it too high ensures maximum value is captured rather than going to early traders.

The investment bank sells a lot of shares to its own preferred clients. If the price then drops (because the initial offering price was too high) those preferred clients lose money. So the bank has every incentive to price it low, and usually does. So when the market goes even lower, we know that the IPO was done out of desperation and that early investors who had influence over the IPO price were eager to dump some…

>If the price then drops (because the initial offering price was too high) those preferred clients lose money.

Unless these preferred clients are active traders, this isnt a problem. Remember when government nixed fiduciary resposibility?

Just slide a soon-to-drop, over-valued-at-IPO stock into say,... someones' retirement account? Wouldnt it be weird if a bunch or Morgan-Stanley-managed 401Ks were shifted to include that?

Especially if the bank managing the IPO gets a cut of the cash, there's no downside to such. At least for them.

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#350

Post by iakh »

caprese wrote: post #314
rlucas wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...aaaand, Uber (meaning, the owners of Uber pre-IPO) has less ownership in the business afterwards. Sure, you can argue that the $8.1B is something "real" that the owners of Uber have more of, afterwards. But you also have to acknowledge that the business of running Uber is also something "real" that the owners of Uber have less of, afterwards, having traded it in a heavily-scrutinized auction.

> ...aaaand, Uber (meaning, the owners of Uber pre-IPO) has less ownership in the business afterwards. How is that even a point? They had 23 funding rounds according to Crunchbase where the same thing happened everytime, with today being the 24th. You don't have to acknowledge any of those things, this is how finance works.

If you have $1 and I give you $1, but you now only own half of the total of $2. You did not "make" $1.
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