Lyft shares plunged nearly 30 percent in value on the New York stock exchanges. The taxi service came with disappointing expectations for the current quarter. In particular, according to investors, Lyft’s plans to invest more in hiring drivers could put pressure on the company’s results.
Competitor Uber, which was supposed to report results after the close, decided to bring forward the publication of its figures due to Lyft’s warning. Thanks to the further recovery from the corona crisis, the taxi app recorded considerably more turnover in the first three months of the year. However, the number of drivers also increased again without Uber taking action itself. As a result, shares of Uber lost more than 10 percent.
However, all attention is focused on the Federal Reserve’s interest rate decision, announced later in the day. Markets forecast an interest rate hike of half a percentage point to curb strong inflation. Interest rates were raised by a quarter of a percent in March.
Shortly after opening, the Dow-Jones index was lower at 33,124 points. The broad S&P 500 barely moved from its previous closing position of 4176 points, and tech gauge Nasdaq fell 0.1 percent to 12,529 points.
Airbnb rose 5.8 percent. The home rental platform benefited from the further recovery of the travel world after the corona crisis and passed the 100 million booking mark for the first time in the first quarter of a year. Compared to the same period in 2019, before the corona pandemic, the number of nights booked via the platform was almost a third higher.
Starbucks was up 6.8 percent. The coffee chain saw sales in China fall in the past quarter due to the corona lockdowns in the country. However, despite declining sales in China, the group managed to record sales due to strong sales and price increases in North America.
AMD increased 6.1 percent after solid quarterly figures and an outlook from the chip manufacturer. The results of vaccine maker Moderna (plus 1.5 percent) were also popular.
Twitter climbed 0.4 percent. Tesla CEO and future Twitter owner Elon Musk have said that commercial and political users of the social media platform may have to pay a small fee for the service in the future.
Oil prices rose after the European Commission’s proposal to ban crude oil imports from Russia within six months. A barrel of US oil costs 4.5 percent more at $107.01. Brent oil rose 4.1 percent to $109.43 a barrel. The euro was worth $1.0551 against $1.0536 a day earlier.