Share
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
■A typo in Lyft’s earnings release caused a 62% stock surge.
■Lyft’s Q4 report exceeded most Wall Street expectations.
■Lyft’s shares are up more than 11% in 2024.
Lyft shares jumped 62% after the closing bell Tuesday thanks in part to a typo in the ride-hailing company’s earnings release that appears to have sent investors’ auto-trading algorithms — or “bots” — into a buying frenzy.
Lyft’s fourth-quarter report initially forecast that an important profit metric was expected to climb by 500 basis points, or 5%, in 2024. However, the company informed investors about five minutes after the original release that there was one zero too many in that number and corrected it to 50 basis points, a much more realistic 0.5%.
Shares retreated after the correction, but remain more than 37% higher — at $16.69 per share — in early Wednesday trading because the company topped most Wall Street expectations for the quarter.
Lyft’s Performance and Expectations
Lyft’s gross bookings beat Wall Street forecasts, rising 17% year-over-year to $3.7 billion. Lyft’s guidance for first-quarter bookings between $3.5 and $3.6 billion also came in higher than projections.
The San Francisco company earned 19 cents per share in the period, more than doubling the 8 cents that industry analysts were expecting.
Lyft has appeared to turn things around since the last quarter of 2022, when it posted a whopping loss of 76 cents per share. In the four subsequent quarters of 2023, Lyft has easily beat profit targets, twice posting profits when Wall Street was expecting losses.
Lyft vs Uber
The company has long played second-fiddle to rival Uber, which softened the pandemic ride demand slump by expanding rapidly into food delivery.
The profit metric that contained the typo on Tuesday is referred to as adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) margin expansion, which is calculated as a percentage of gross bookings, according to Lyft.
With Wednesday’s boost, Lyft shares are now in the green for 2024, up more than 11% to date.
RELATED TOPICS:
CA Has Seen Many New Towns, but This Big Project Is Stalled
2 hours ago
Fresno Man Sentenced to 29 Years for Sexually Assaulting Children and Dog
13 hours ago
Bulldogs’ Two-Position Standout Tommy Hopfe Signs With Rockies
14 hours ago
Former Bulldog QB Jake Haener: I Have a ‘Rare Form of Skin Cancer’
15 hours ago
The Many Names of GOP Vice Presidential Nominee JD Vance
15 hours ago
Jack Black, a Small Dog With a Big Heart, Is Looking for His Forever Home