Ride-Hailing’s “iPod moment”

As I write this sentence, Lyft’s stock is worth $56.02 per share, which means that the stock has lost 41% of its value since its March 29th debut on the Nasdaq. Likewise, Uber will make its Initial Public Offering in the coming weeks, and it can expect a similarly bumpy ride as its filing has shown, among other things, that growth has leveled off.

Reasons for the volatility of ride-hailing company valuations abound (some of which we’ve discussed in prior columns). The one I’d like to zoom in on this time is the instability of the companies’ pricing models.