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ABNB & DASH IPOs Demonstrate The Risk Appetite For Equities

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The markets might be getting frothy with excess and this week's IPO bonanza epitomizes the market's lust for risk. The IPO market is red hot, with Renaissance IPO ETF (IPO - Free Report) having more than double in 2020 and more than tripling from its bottom.

Airbnb (ABNB - Free Report) became the largest IPO of this unprecedented year yesterday, raising over $3.5 billion. The IPO was priced at $68 per share, valuing the company at $47 billion, but ABNB was met with significantly more enthusiasm when it hit the public exchanges. Its share price opening at $145, more than double the IPO price, and a high of $165 a share.

Airbnb, a business valued at $18 billion in April, is now worth more than $100 billion. This is more than 20x price to 2019 sales, multitudes higher than any comparable business. Booking Holdings (BKNG - Free Report) has a broader portfolio of vacation booking options, generates more than 3 times the revenue, produces a profit, and robust growth. Yet, it's being valued at less than ABNB. Airbnb is now more valuable than Marriott (MAR - Free Report) , Hilton (HLT - Free Report) , and Hyatt (H - Free Report) combined.

DoorDash's (DASH - Free Report) was a similar story, with an official IPO price of $102. After hitting the public exchanges, the shares shot up 86% to over $180 and a $72 billion valuation. This values DASH at above 32x price to trail 12-month sales, far to zealous for a business in such a highly saturated space.

DoorDash's revenues did surge 226% in the first 9 months of 2020, but this tailwind will come to an end and maybe even reverse once restaurants start opening again as the vaccine is distributed over the next 6 months.

I believe that the future of this business is bright as the online-driven foodservice space explodes. Analysts and investors need to ponder whether DoorDash can maintain its #1 positioning in this highly saturated category. Uber's (UBER - Free Report) recently announced acquisition of Postmates will give its food delivery business a firm #1 positioning in some key US markets and provide it with the scale it needs to compete with DoorDash.

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