Lyft upgraded to Buy at Benchmark despite ‘headline risk’

As previously reported, Benchmark upgraded Lyft (LYFT) to Buy from Hold with a $20 price target. While the analyst acknowledges that both Uber (UBER) and Lyft are likely to face ongoing pressure from Tesla (TSLA) and Alphabet’s (GOOGL) Waymo headlines, the firm says the argument for Lyft from “boils down to a few factors.” Namely, Benchmark believes Lyft’s decision to reduce surge pricing, while sticking with their Price Lock platform expansion, should drive upside to rider metrics and it thinks Lyft is “just getting started” with their expansion via partnerships, both on the traditional and autonomous vehicle fronts, with prior partnerships likely to produce near-term upside to metrics, the analyst tells investors.