Shares of Lyft (LYFT) were rising about 2% to $60.50 in early Wednesday trading following its first earnings report as a public company on Tuesday.
When a company can report a non-GAAP loss of $9.02 per share and miss estimates by $7.95 per share and rally, it may just be time to buy. That’s a bit tongue-in-cheek, but all kidding aside it’s impressive that Lyft stock is able to rally despite a somewhat alarming headline result. Here’s Wall Street’s takeaway.
While it was able to grow revenue 95.4% year over year to $776 million, the company’s cash burn and losses have been the real concern since Lyft’s initial public offering in March. Maybe management’s comments regarding “peak losses” in 2019 has investors hopeful on its future. Perhaps it’s optimism over Lyft increasing its partnership with Alphabet’s (GOOGL – Get Report) (GOOG – Get Report) Waymo unit.
In any regard, Lyft stock is trading well on Wednesday given the results. The question now turns to whether the stock has bottomed and if it’s safe on the long side. Let’s look at the charts.
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Trading Lyft Stock
It’s tough business working with recent IPOs and their charts. There’s not a lot of historical pricing to go on, which makes finding key levels more difficult. Further, since the security is so new it hasn’t had time to establish many, if any, trends at all.
When the $67.50 level gave way, Lyft stock really took a beating. Just a few day after that, shares were changing hands near $56 in mid-April. On the plus side though, this level has emerged as a new support level on the chart, one of the few key levels we can pull up.
The other is $62. This mark has been resistance since Lyft stock broke below it in April and it’s now where the 21-day moving average currently rests.
It may not be a lot to work with but at least it’s something we can form a game plan around. I’m not all that attracted to Lyft stock at current levels. For all we know, shares can continue to bounce between this $56 to $62 range. There’s also the recent increase in stock market volatility to worry about and the Uber (UBER) IPO just around the corner.
I’m not sure how these events will impact Lyft so I would rather wait for a more defined setup. That is, on a breakout over $62 speculative traders can go long Lyft and look for a potential rally up to the $67.50 area. This is the 38.2% Fibonacci retracement for the 52-week range and it’s also the key level that gave way as support back in April. On the downside, I would not be long Lyft stock on a close below $56. Some will even use a close below this level as a shorting opportunity.
