Lyft Is Luring Investors, Just Not the Kind It Wants | NYT

Going for a short ride with Lyft

"Lyft, just days into its existence as a publicly traded company, is drawing unwanted interest from Wall Street’s pessimists.

Traders who bet that the stock will decline are piling into the ride-sharing company. These so-called short-sellers borrow and sell the shares, hoping to buy them back at a lower price sometime in the future.

One way to gauge their interest in a stock is to look at the number of shares that are being lent, and as of Tuesday, 6.6 million shares, or $455 million worth of Lyft, were on loan, according to the data provider IHS Markit. That was equal to 20 percent of the shares actually available for trading, known as the float."

Lyft Is Luring Investors, Just Not the Kind It Wants | NYT