Given LYFT is now public... figure this season deserves its own thread seperate of the trading thread. Here's the place to discuss all the IPOs of this round from Lyft, Uber, Pinterest, Palantir, AirBnb etc. Which are buys, which are shorts and on a head to head basis which are more compelling?

Lyft opening price was $87.24, around a $24b valuation which is $9b more than their last private round. Company has said in their S1 profitability is unlikely short term and who knows in the long run? Good to day to dump on retail while shares are hard to short and no options available.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...sXuhop&ampcf=1

Lyft valuation is a joke. Way too much emphasis on "potential" with no clear road map to profitability. Seems like the market is being propped up on the backs of a bunch of paper tigers. Maybe you can ride the pump today and get out, but I'm certainly not touching it.

Lots of sentiment around it being severely overpriced.

AirBnB has meaningful potential. Travel market is a $2 trillion/year growing industry and they're well established with future opportunities including going into spinoff products, which they incredibly wisely have not done yet, keeeping it clean and simple and desirable. Well run and a good business model - charging 10-15% of the total booking cost and getting it; strong network effects via a broad verification based and 2 way feedback model which others haven't/can't implement; profitable.

Lyft valuation is completely absurd. Baggy gold. I'm normally biased toward buying IPOs even with the valuations but this is just toxic.

Absolutely agree with TS that AirBnb is the one to watch for the simple reason that they are coming public as close to profitable as any of the decacorns. I like how they comply/work with communities that don't want them there so they avoid a lot of headline risk. Sure regulation is the problem but absolutely both in the travel and home ownership/rental market that they can continue to disrupt and increase market share.

Palantir is an interesting one as well because so little has been publicly released about the business, will be nice to see a S1. Originally was working with the DOD to analyze data to find/kill terrorists, really curious to see how they are branching out beyond just government contracts.

Lyft's only path to positive cash flow may just be 3 way cartels of Lyft/Uber/old taxis in every city.

You know Lyft and Uber are in the clear when you start seeing news stories of people illegally sharing a single uber "license."

Good news: I think it's actually rapidly becoming the most probable outcome in a lot of cities.

Bad news: it's still not enough to justify 24b

ummm as a general rule ipos are a bargain because the general public cant get in. once they settle in price id look at airbnb and pinterest. IT depends on the interest of the commanding crew..both those businesses could explode if theres a bezos running them. but i dont follow close enough to make a determinatino and am pretty happy with my tech picks(i only buy tech and utilities). might add but not in a rush

Zoom looks good so will most likely shoot up to a ridiculous valuation.

Yeah, so basically to be in on an IPO you have to be customer of the offering bank/broker and they have to be willing/can randomly decide if they let you participate based on volume/your nose or something, right?

There are also IPO ETFs like
https://www.renaissancecapital.com/I...ing/US-IPO-ETF
Any opinions?

Niche ETFs are a bad idea

i love the zoom product and its #s look interesting so will likely grab that.

Is there a master list anywhere of what's supposed to hit this year?

Someone at work asked me about the alibaba/amazon of africa ipo and i was like wat.

So that's already 20% down for Lyft from Friday's open, I'm sure JPM and the other underwriters will try to spin it saying it opened way above the original range but I mean lol this is pretty much a disaster so far. Reminder that most insiders are locked up until September. The way the msm spins opening day price moves for IPOs is hilarious, focusing on the offer price as opposed to the open which has way more relevance to the average investor and trader.

That super bullish case for Zoom is really funny to me, as they have conquered the market with a great sales force and a good product, but will have a hard time expanding the business.


Also there is some competition, that is trying to get at them from the bottoms-up. I am really interested to see how they want to keep up their revenue retention, because the cost of switching isn't too high.

I follow https://twitter.com/IPODave on Twitter. He is very active and about all he does is IPOs.

Some other IPO pumps: TW, SILK, SWAV, FUTU

JMIA and OD coming

RUHN just dump for now

Anyone on the long side excited about Uber's upcoming IPO, coming in at around $100 billion?

Uber isn't Lyft and they seem to be going in super cautious after what happened to Lyft. Historically, blockbuster IPOs have been fantastic investments and this falls in that category. I'll definitely pick up some shares.

As far as the business though, profitability seems like a big if right now, but I don't look at that valuation and question it at all. A few good decisions could easily turn them into an absolute powerhouse company.

PD soared.
Must be nice to actually get in at the IPO price on some of these.

Jumia is taking off. 10% market cap of eBay at 1% it's revs. Never been profitable. Financials don't show a way it can become profitable.

I don't plan on touching it right now, but this can't be sustainable

Jumai has everything you want in an IPO - flagship for a large region, right backers, history of rapid growth/success. Reasonable chance of becoming the Amazon of Africa and more - the first major high mind share online services company is likely to get entrenched.

No opinion on buying or selling but I understand the hype.

Ridesharing is a dead end that will never be profitable to any meaningful extent.

Airbnb has massive potential. But some of their inventory is showing up on other booking sites. I wonder if they have a huge edge or just a small edge.

More interestingly, do we have any way to get in on these IPOs? Both Lyft and Uber are offering their drivers a lot of shares without lockup periods, but the drivers had to have a long track record. Airbnb might do the same for hosts... Any other ways to get Airbnb?

Two more relatively high profile names going public today: Pinterest (PIN) & Zoom (ZM). Both the digital scrapbook & video conference companies are looking to price well above their original ranges ($15-$17, around $11.3b valuation for PINS; $28-$32, around $8.25b valuation for ZM). Looking at a flat round for PINS from its last private funding round which valued it at $12.3b, ZM as we know is profitable is looking to 9-10x its last private valuation of around $1b.

I still haven't heard a cogent explanation for what Pinterest is, or how it provides value

Girls categorize pictures is as far as I've wrapped my head around it

jesus, zoom opens in the 60s lol

I'm seeing a lot of the same sentiment around pins as Lyft, people cannot wait to short it. Oddly hearing nothing about ZM despite it opening almost +100