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UBER Stock Skyrockets on Inaugural Buyback Announcement

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Shares of Uber Technologies (UBER - Free Report) performed exceedingly well on Feb 14, ending the trading session at $79.15 per share, up 14.73% from Feb 13’s closing price. The uptick followed management’s announcement that it would be buying back stock for the first time in its history, thereby rewarding its shareholders.

The board of directors of the ride hailing company authorized up to $7 billion in share repurchases. The decision to buyback its own stock suggests that the board believes shares are currently undervalued. Per chief financial officer, Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah, UBER will first use the buyback plan to offset its stock-based compensation.

When a company buys back its own stock, it retires those shares, thereby causing a reduction in total number of shares outstanding. This implies that the denominator of earnings per share is decreased, thereby boosting the bottom line.

Price Performance

Shares of UBER, which was recently added to the S&P500 index, have risen 47.2% in the past three months, outperforming S&P 500’s 10.6% growth.

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The company recently reported strong fourth-quarter 2023 results as the ride share market improves from pandemic lows.

Zacks Rank & Other Key Picks

UBER currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Investors interested in the same industry may also consider some other top-ranked stocks like Shopify (SHOP - Free Report) and Zscaler (ZS - Free Report) .

Shopify has outshined the Zacks Consensus Estimate in each of the past four quarters, the average beat being 82%. Shopify’s focus on developing merchant base, international expansion, addition of fulfillment network functionalities, rich partner ecosystem and mobile focus are key growth drivers. The growth in e-commerce spending bodes well for Shopify.

Zscaler has also outpaced the Zacks Consensus Estimate in each of the past four quarters, the average beat being 27.3%. Zscaler is benefiting from the rising demand for cyber-security solutions due to the slew of data breaches. The increasing demand for privileged access security on digital transformation and cloud-migration strategies is a key growth driver.


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