Lyft (NASDAQ:LYFT) Raised to “Buy” at Benchmark

Lyft (NASDAQ:LYFT) was upgraded by Benchmark from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note issued on Monday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has a $20.00 price objective on the ride-sharing company’s stock. Benchmark’s price target would suggest a potential upside of 40.15% from the stock’s current price.

Several other research analysts have also issued reports on the stock. Piper Sandler reiterated an “overweight” rating and issued a $23.00 price target (up from $17.00) on shares of Lyft in a research note on Thursday, November 7th. TD Cowen boosted their price target on Lyft from $16.00 to $18.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 7th. Canaccord Genuity Group raised their price objective on Lyft from $18.00 to $22.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 7th. DA Davidson increased their target price on Lyft from $11.00 to $16.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 7th. Finally, Bank of America increased their price objective on shares of Lyft from $16.00 to $19.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 7th. Twenty-seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, ten have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $17.84.

Lyft Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:LYFT opened at $14.27 on Monday. The company has a current ratio of 0.75, a quick ratio of 0.75 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.88. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $15.42 and a 200-day moving average price of $13.42. The company has a market cap of $5.92 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -89.19, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.10 and a beta of 2.14. Lyft has a 12 month low of $8.93 and a 12 month high of $20.82.

Lyft (NASDAQ:LYFT) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, November 6th. The ride-sharing company reported $0.29 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.20 by $0.09. The business had revenue of $1.52 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.44 billion. Lyft had a negative return on equity of 1.58% and a negative net margin of 1.19%. Lyft’s quarterly revenue was up 31.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted ($0.02) EPS. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Lyft will post 0.08 EPS for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, insider Lindsay Catherine Llewellyn sold 4,242 shares of Lyft stock in a transaction on Thursday, November 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $17.76, for a total transaction of $75,337.92. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 755,847 shares in the company, valued at approximately $13,423,842.72. This trade represents a 0.56 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CAO Lisa Blackwood-Kapral sold 9,081 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, November 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $18.02, for a total transaction of $163,639.62. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 332,243 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,987,018.86. The trade was a 2.66 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 24,242 shares of company stock valued at $427,330 over the last 90 days. Insiders own 3.07% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Lyft

Large investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Sanctuary Advisors LLC raised its position in Lyft by 3.5% during the 3rd quarter. Sanctuary Advisors LLC now owns 28,454 shares of the ride-sharing company’s stock valued at $363,000 after purchasing an additional 969 shares in the last quarter. XTX Topco Ltd increased its stake in shares of Lyft by 2.5% during the third quarter. XTX Topco Ltd now owns 42,203 shares of the ride-sharing company’s stock valued at $538,000 after buying an additional 1,043 shares during the period. Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Lyft by 9.1% in the second quarter. Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC now owns 13,894 shares of the ride-sharing company’s stock valued at $196,000 after acquiring an additional 1,160 shares in the last quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company raised its holdings in shares of Lyft by 1.6% in the third quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 82,690 shares of the ride-sharing company’s stock valued at $1,054,000 after acquiring an additional 1,315 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its stake in Lyft by 0.8% in the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 185,280 shares of the ride-sharing company’s stock worth $2,612,000 after acquiring an additional 1,477 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 83.07% of the company’s stock.

About Lyft

Lyft, Inc operates a peer-to-peer marketplace for on-demand ridesharing in the United States and Canada. It operates multimodal transportation networks that offer access to various transportation options through the Lyft platform and mobile-based applications. The company's platform provides a ridesharing marketplace, which connects drivers with riders; Express Drive, a car rental program for drivers; and a network of shared bikes and scooters in various cities to address the needs of riders for short trips.