Opinions
Teal Linde
Uber
UBER-N
WEAK BUY
May 19, 2020
Stock price when the opinion was issued
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Let it go after Q4 results. Concerned that it was reaching saturation in major urban markets. Talked about aggressively pursuing suburban market share, which is harder to serve and likely not as profitable. Slowing growth YOY. Major question marks about fledgling freight business.
New CEO in 2017 vowed to increase profitability, and it's materialized in operating margins, earnings, and cashflow. Thinks that will continue. Rapidly getting into self-driving, which apparently will dominate the space over the next number of years. Stock has a long way to go over next 5 years.
Chart shows fairly clear upward move. True leader in its nascent industry, has quickly become a very big part of our society. Stock's down today on news that LYFT has done a deal with Waymo for autonomous vehicles in Nashville. One-day news is just noise.
See his firm's blog under Insights at goodreid.com.
The knock is that self-driving cars are going to be everywhere, and you don't need an intermediary service like this one. But they're doing not only mobility, but also delivery and freight. Good partnership announcements to get into robotaxis. Share buybacks.
Not expensive at 21x, growing visibly at 37%. Lots more to go.
Technically, doing fine. Stock's moving higher, as is the 200-day MA. He worries about competition down the road, in particular autonomous vehicles such as Waymo. Diversified. Earnings growth for next few years somewhat muted. Trades at 30x PE, and it might get back to 15% growth, so the PEG is 2 (not exciting).
See his Top Picks.
For the long term The big money has already been made here by private equity investors. But Uber is still growing as a duopoly (with Lyft). It's breaking even on an EBITDA basis and not losing money as some think, but Uber Eats is losing money. Uber enjoyed double-digit growth before the virus, and will likely return to that, but earnings may be weak short term. That said, you will come out ahead for the long term. Uber doesn't spend money on cars, but rather marketing. The scalability also makes this attractive. This will grow, but not as much as in the past.