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Uber opens at $42 per share

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Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#411

Post by matt4077 »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #68
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.

Right? This is what I don't understand. Everyone keeps saying the only way they make money is with autonomous cars but they're not even close with being able to do that (probably 5 years, at a minimum, and that's in small select areas). With such a high burn rate, what are they going to do? From everything I read they're not like Amazon where they can just "turn on" monetization unless they're going to hike up their…

When autonomous cars arrive, Uber is toast. The only actually useful moat they have is experience in managing drivers. When that goes away, car manufacturers, or even private car owners, will just flood the streets just like scooters or bike rentals now.

It will just be a rather simple yet massive capital investment to put those cars on the streets, something that large, traditional companies with their far better financing terms will easily dominate.

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#412

Post by matt4077 »

harryh wrote: post #80
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.

How much would you like to bet on that? I'm happy to be your counterparty.

If only there were some sort of large, liquid, well-regulated market offering opportunities to bet on the prospects of publicly traded companies.

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#413

Post by IfOnlyYouKnew »

rubyn00bie wrote: post #20
dugluak wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes I see no difference between these Market Gurus and Horoscope readers. Just say some bullshit authoritatively and some people will believe.

There isn't any difference both are empirically absolute bullshit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownian_model_of_financial_ma...

That... doesn't quite work, logically?

Observing that there is no predictable "signal" in stock price changes only proves that whatever you're using to make predictions is unable to beat the market (the "efficient market hypothesis").

Stock prices are very obviously not completely random, in that they tend towards $0 when companies go bankrupt.

There is some randomness, or at least unpredictability, in stock prices. This is called "volatility". But the model operates on the very small tick-to-tick scale, not wether UBER is priced at $45 or $450.

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#414

Post by FartyMcFarter »

busymom0 wrote: post #394
shmageggy wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no evidence that Tesla has any distance on Uber, other than Elon's word which means jack. Waymo is thought to be the leader in this space.

> Elon's word which means jack He has proved his words countless times now. I have no idea what you are talking about. Only criticism I have about Elon would be his estimations on the time but I work in the tech field too and I can relate to issues coming up which postpone the deadlines. How exactly is Waymo thought to be the leader? It's like the same argument short sellers have been making for years that Tesla elec…

Well, for one thing Waymo's vehicles haven't been involved in any deadly accidents. Tesla's self driving cars are unable to avoid driving into the undersides of trucks. So it's hard to see Tesla as the leader here.

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#415

Post by askafriend »

levthedev wrote: post #380
acdha wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is definitely misleading: they became profitable within specific business areas (e.g. books & music first) but invested that money in new businesses. The analogy would be if, say, Uber was profitable in San Francisco and Los Angeles but still bootstrapping Phoenix and Denver. I haven’t read anything which suggests they aren’t subsidizing rides in their most established markets just like everywhere else, and bo…

I believe they are, by some fairly loose accounting definition (i.e., not counting back office expenses, capital expenses, etc), profitable on non-pool rides in core US cities.

I believe that is considered being "contribution margin positive"

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#417

Post by Marazan »

fooker wrote: post #281
rococode wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the sensible conclusion here is that the two companies have such different business models and goals that it doesn't make much sense to compare them at all.

Precisely my point. Advertising is a high margin industry with poorly understood issues. Logistics is a low margin winner-takes-all industry which is fairly well understood.

Famously why we only have a single parcel delivery company, trucking company and warehouse provider.

Love to see your working on how logistics is winner takes all.

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#418

Post by [deleted] »

sokoloff wrote: post #344
aseipp wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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"?

[deleted]

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#419

Post by discreteevent »

mattmanser wrote: post #403
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. Amazon is and has been accumulating a massive vertically-integrated empire of physical infrastructure they actually own or lease. Uber is accumulating… uh. Microservices? Negative goodwill?

Markets, it's acquiring markets. I'm no Uber fan, but come on, they're moving into more and more cities world-wide, often without competition save the local taxi firms.

Amazon buys a warehouse and then shortly after turns a profit on it which they use to buy another warehouse. Uber buys users and then shortly after borrows more money to buy other users.

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#420

Post by marvin »

peripitea wrote: post #362
warp_factor wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 5 years I expect the MarketCap to be around 10B$ max. If Self Driving cars are a thing then even less than that. their customer base will be richer//business people ready to pay higher sustainable prices for rides.

If you really believe this then you can probably make a healthy amount of money buying put options.

5-year put options on Uber right now would probably cost more than the price of the stock, which would put you at less than even odds. I don't think you can get options yet, though.

A 5-year short.....maybe? Will be interesting to see what the short interest and borrowing rate will be.

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