I am back with my second big stock. There will be anywhere from 3-5 total stock picks for the coming year. I am pretty selective, one of the reasons my portfolio is so concentrated, so I am not going to force a pick or anything. You can feel confident that what I am saying I believe in. So, with that out of the way, here is my second pick for 2024 (excluding stocks in my portfolio).

This one I feel less sure about, Block felt like a cupcake buy, something obviously good (hopefully) but this recommendation I feel less secure about. UBER (UBER) is a stock I believe is potentially primed for growth. I owned UBER during 2020-2021, which was an extremely wild time, and coincidentally, a pandemic is not a great time to own a ridesharing service. As soon as my position turned a marginal profit I fled, which was an emotional decision that I regret, but I was 12, so I do not kick myself too much. Anyways, I believe Uber is a buy for 2024.

First of all, Uber no longer has any competition. They have left Lyft in the rear-view mirror (pun) and therefore face no competition, controlling 75% of market share, up from 62% in 2020. Lyft’s stock is down 80% in the same amount of time that Uber’s is up 50%. In response to their failing business, Lyft restarted their leadership by hiring a board member as CEO. In case you cannot sense my sarcasm through text, I will spell it out, that is not restarting anything, having your leader be someone who oversaw a 90% decline in share price is an awful decision. For some reason, in the past month, idiots have been all over Lyft, driving the price up 40% until insiders saw a chance to make a buck and sold off, causing a slide. Uber diversified, branching out into groceries and packages, Lyft did not, and now Uber has yet another source of revenue. Oh, and going back to that leadership point, Uber has a real gun at their helm. Before, Uber had an idiot. I forget his name and he is not worth my time to look up, but he had no idea what he was doing and he ended up getting pushed out Adam from WeWork style. Now, Uber has this guy named Dara Khosrowshahi, who both possesses a great name and deep business acumen. To make a long story short, Uber has spent the past five years sharpening their sword, diversifying their business, getting the right leader in place, Lyft has done none of that, and now Uber no longer has real competition. Lyft has been reduced to niche.

Uber’s lack of competition is a buff, but what excites me more than anything is their self-driving vehicle. Uber has been working on this for a while, much to the chagrin of many investors, but it seems as if they have given up on making their own self-driving vehicles and are hitching their wagon to Google’s self-driving vehicle, Waymo. Uber had to give up their self-driving program and just buy someone else’s because their program killed a pedestrian. Recently, Uber rolled out Waymo, the Google self-driving car, in Phoenix. Uber has not killed a pedestrian with their self-driving cars yet, and their program has not been embarrassed online via some public failure, so overall, I would the program is doing well. In the future, I believe Uber will rake in cash from their self-driving cars. That is truly the long-term play, the self-driving car. The money Uber will save as those cars become more and more cost-effective will make investing in the company now a decision you will wish you had made.

Now, I say that as a person who does not own any Uber stock. Once my next paycheck hits (I write for my local paper) maybe I will buy some, but I prefer all of the companies in my portfolio to Uber. Not to say Uber is a bad company, I just spent a bunch of words hyping them up, merely that Uber has potentially the highest ceiling but also the lowest floor. It is possible that this self-driving car never works out and Uber keeps being a semi-profitable company that has a profitable quarter and then finds something else to spend their money on. I would say the odds of that are low as I believe Uber has what it takes, the right combination of intangibles, to make it to the top, but it is a risk.