An Update On A Juice Stock Pick That’s Up 80%

Today, we shift our focus from retirement, one of core themes for 2024, and have another look at DoorDash (DASH). A stock The Juice has been super bullish on since 2022. We first mentioned DASH in November, 2022, when the stock traded for a mere $55 a share:

DoorDash is following the Amazon and Uber playbook. Building out an impressive ecosystem to keep consumers loyal.

And they’re still doing it. But, now, DASH trades for closer to $107 — up roughly 80% over the last year. And we still like it. Here’s why.

The other day we detailed three of the main things we look for when we pick stocks. DASH still has all three going for it. 

Among them, the company is growing revenue on the path to profitability and its strong ecosystem narrative remains intact with — a big key — international expansion on the horizon.

As DoorDash CEO, Tony Xu, recently told the Financial Times:

The two largest areas of investment are expansion and penetration outside of the US, as well as the same outside of restaurants. 

The keys here, as they relate to what we look for. 

Investment. You remember all of those years when Amazon.com (AMZN) bears not only stayed away from, but literally ridiculed the company for not being profitable? It was a complete joke. These black-and-white thinking bean counters, who live and die by P/E ratios, can’t see beyond their noses. Amazon was growing market share — and revenue — as it invested heavily in the massive opportunities in front of it. 

Expansion outside of restaurants. This is a key element of the ecosystem argument. How do you become part of the consumer’s life at as many points as possible in their day, week, month, whatever? This is what Dash is doing by moving aggressively into areas such as grocery and alcohol delivery. Like Amazon was and Uber (UBER) still is, Dash is in the early innings of this expansion. 

Penetration outside of the US. This might be most exciting and the reason why we remain bullish on DASH today. For the record, DASH is up about 10% already in 2024 compared to a roughly 3% gain for the S&P 500 and 6% pop for the Nasdaq 100. 

Anyhow, right now Dash operates in 29 markets. It either buys or partners with delivery companies, particularly in Europe, where it recently bought Wolt, a delivery app in Finland. In these countries where it operates, Dash still has not penetrated the entire population. So there’s room to grow. 

The company recently expanded with alcohol delivery in 20 states as well as Canada and Australia. 

In terms of its core restaurant delivery business, it’s the market share leader with around 60% market share, compared to Uber’s approximately 35%. As we’ve been saying, don’t be surprised if Uber makes a run to buy Dash. 

But Dash doesn’t need a buyout. It’s doing just fine on its own. Building an ecosystem in the United States and beyond that’s impressive for what it has already done in terms of growth and the massive potential for what it can do. 

The Bottom Line: Interestingly, as we look through Trackstar, our proprietary sentiment indicator, we see that DASH flies under the radar. For example, relative to the nearly 46,000 searches UBER received over the last month (see the top of this email), DASH only generated about 10,000. We’re not sure why it’s not the radar of more investors in terms of search interest and trading activity. 

DASH trades around 4.5 million shares per day. UBER more than 36 million. 

It’s all good, though. Sometimes you can learn as much from what people aren’t searching for. We knew, in 2022, that DASH was flying under the Trackstar radar. We kicked the tires, liked what we saw and suggested making the stock part of your long-term portfolio. The results have been amazing and we see no reason for things to slow down.

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