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The Lyft logo is shown on the screen at the Nasdaq offices in Times Square on March 29, 2019 in New York.
- Lyft is scheduled to report its fiscal fourth-quarter and full-year 2019 earnings on Tuesday after market close.
- Investors are waiting to see if Lyft will try to match Uber's updated timeline to profitability, which the competitor ride-hailing company announced last week.
- Here's what five Wall Street analysts are saying about Lyft before its earnings report.
- Watch Lyft trade live on Markets Insider.
- Read more on Business Insider.
Lyft is gearing up for its latest quarterly release.
Shares of the ride-hailing company gained as much as 8% Monday as investors picked up the company stock ahead of its fiscal fourth-quarter and full-year 2019 earnings release, due Tuesday after market close.
All eyes are on Lyft after its rival Uber reported rosy fiscal fourth-quarter results last week that exceeded analysts expectations and said that it would reach its goal of being profitable on an Ebitda-adjusted basis in 2020, a year earlier than expected. That sent Uber's stock as much as 9% higher for the day, and gave Lyft a boost as well.
Uber's updated profitability target means it may reach the important milestone ahead of Lyft, although previously the companies had similar timelines. In October 2019, Lyft announced that it expected the company to turn a profit on an Ebitda-adjusted basis by the fourth quarter of 2021, instead of in 2022, which Wall Street analysts had previously forecast. Shortly after, Uber said it would turn a profit at around the same time.
Uber's move to push up its own profitability timeline shows that "the race is on," wrote Jake Fuller of Guggenheim Securities in a Monday note. "But we are not sure that Lyft wants or needs to win," he added.
Lyft is running at half the incremental margin of Uber's rides business, which suggests that it's taking advantage of Uber's accelerated timeline to grow its market share of that business, Fuller wrote. While that means it may work toward profitability on a longer timeline, it's a trade-off that Fuller sees as "acceptable for a #2 player."
Lyft has struggled to make meaningful gains since its March initial public offering. At Monday's close, it traded 25% lower than its IPO price of $72. Investors have been hesitant of the company because of its unprofitability and steep losses posted in the first few months after its public offering.
Still, Wall Street analysts are largely bullish on the company. The company has a consensus price target of $66.62, roughly 24% higher than where shares closed on Monday. Lyft also has 29 "buy" ratings, nine "hold" ratings, and one "sell" rating, according to Bloomberg data.
Here's what five Wall Street analysts had to say about Lyft ahead of its Tuesday earnings release, in order of lowest to highest price target:
Axel Springer, Insider Inc.'s parent company, is an investor in Uber.
