What's Going On With Lyft Stock?

LYFT Inc LYFT shares are trading lower by 3.8% to $9.68 Friday afternoon. The stock has been volatile after the company this week reported second-quarter earnings.

What Happened?

Lyft reported strong second-quarter results, with adjusted EPS of $0.24, beating estimates. Revenue reached $1.44 billion, a 41% increase year-over-year. Gross bookings rose 17% to $4 billion, and active riders hit an all-time high of 23.7 million.

Lyft generated $256.4 million in free cash flow, a significant improvement from the previous year. The company also launched a price lock feature for users. For the third-quarter, Lyft projects gross bookings of $4.0-$4.1 billion and adjusted EBITDA of $90-$95 million.

Despite a decrease in prime time bookings, Lyft expects positive free cash flow for the full year.

Read Also: What’s Going On With CVS Health Stock?

How To Buy LYFT Stock

By now you're likely curious about how to participate in the market for Lyft – be it to purchase shares, or even attempt to bet against the company.

Buying shares is typically done through a brokerage account. You can find a list of possible trading platforms here. Many will allow you to buy ‘fractional shares,' which allows you to own portions of stock without buying an entire share. For example, some stock, like Berkshire Hathaway, or Amazon.com, can cost thousands of dollars to own just one share. However, if you only want to invest a fraction of that, brokerages will allow you to do so.

In the the case of Lyft, which is trading at $9.66 as of publishing time, $100 would buy you 10.35 shares of stock.

If you're looking to bet against a company, the process is more complex. You'll need access to an options trading platform, or a broker who will allow you to ‘go short' a share of stock by lending you the shares to sell. The process of shorting a stock can be found at this resource. Otherwise, if your broker allows you to trade options, you can either buy a put option, or sell a call option at a strike price above where shares are currently trading – either way it allows you to profit off of the share price decline.

According to data from Benzinga Pro, LYFT has a 52-week high of $20.82 and a 52-week low of $8.85.