Americans may be cutting back their spending on fancy restaurants and Venice vacations, but one convenience they apparently can’t resist is a Lyft.

Lyft’s shares were lifted 28.08% on news of a record-busting quarter: Ride volume jumped 16% year over year to 218.4 million, surpassing forecasts of 215.1 million. Meanwhile, gross bookings also topped expectations, rising 13% annually to $4.16 billion, notching the company’s 16th consecutive quarter of double-digit growth.

Although the ridesharing app’s first-quarter revenue of $1.45 billion fell just shy of the expected $1.46 billion, the company defied grim forecasts on the earnings front, posting EPS of $0.01, higher than the anticipated loss of $0.02 and far better than its $0.08 loss during the same quarter last year.

As for widespread fears that passengers might curb their rideshare spending amid an iffy economy, CEO David Risher doesn’t seem worried in the slightest. “The consumer demand is absolutely there,” he explained.

Lyft’s wild ride

Lyft has faced an uphill battle of late, including a skirmish with activist investor Engine Capital, which had been pushing for changes amid concerns over its stock price and strategic positioning. But this stakeholder withdrew its campaign on Friday after Lyft boosted its share buyback plan from $500 million to $750 million.

“A $750 million buyback is like 10% of the total market cap, which highlights an opportunity for investors,” noted Eric Clark, portfolio manager of the Rational Dynamic Brands Fund.

The news was enough to convince Goldman Sachs analyst Eric Sheridan to upgrade the stock rating from “neutral” to “buy” with a $20 price target.

To top it off, Lyft seems to be gaining ground on alpha dog Uber. Although the industry giant has cornered around 75% of the rideshare market versus Lyft’s 25%, Uber stock dropped in the wake of a mixed Q1 report earlier this week, with its $11.53 billion in revenue falling short of $11.62 estimates.

Still, Uber does have a head start in terms of robotaxis, having inked deals with Google’s Waymo, which is already picking up 250,000 US passengers per week. Lyft has signed on with Mobileye to launch its own fleet as soon as 2026, but it's clearly got some catching up to do.—JD

🟢 What’s up

• Microchip Technology climbed 12.60% on a solid beat-and-raise quarter for the semiconductor stock.
• Pinterest gained 4.84% thanks to higher-than-expected revenue last quarter and projected strong revenue growth in the current quarter.
• Insulet popped 20.88% after the insulin device manufacturer crushed Wall Street’s estimates on the top and bottom lines and raised its fiscal forecast.
• Trade Desk soared 18.60% thanks to an impressive first quarter for the digital marketing company, including EPS of $0.33 compared to forecasts of $0.25.
• DraftKings rose 2.49% thanks to a smaller-than-expected loss last quarter due in part to fewer March Madness upsets than usual.
• Cloudflare popped 6.32% on strong earnings after the cloud services provider inked its biggest contract ever last quarter.
• Monster Beverage missed first-quarter revenue estimates, but the energy drink giant still managed to climb 1.43%.

What’s down

• United Airlines lost 2.69% on the news that Newark Airport experienced its second major outage in two weeks.
• Coinbase stumbled 3.48% lower on a surprise revenue miss last quarter, thanks to a 17% decline in consumer trading volume.
• Expedia beat profit estimates, but lower revenue thanks to a travel spending slowdown still sank the stock 7.30%.
• Sweetgreen was crushed by 16.25% due to full-year fiscal guidance that came in way worse than Wall Street anticipated.
• Affirm may have done well in the third quarter, but the Buy Now, Pay Later company fell 14.47% thanks to lower revenue forecasts this quarter.

For decades, private equity was reserved for institutional investors and high-net-worth individuals. Those days are over, and PE giants have opened their doors to regular retail investors.

Let’s be clear: They’re not doing it out of the kindness of their hearts. Just listen to comments from KKR or Apollo management and you can practically hear them champing at the bit for access to the $12.5 trillion that regular Americans have stashed in their 401(k)s.

But it’s a two-way street. Access to private equity means retail investors suddenly have a massive opportunity in front of them. There’s just one problem: Where do you even start?

That’s where we come in! Join our very own Ann Berry on May 13 as she sits down with industry leaders to explore how the private equity market is shifting. You’ll learn about the rise of tokenized assets, new infrastructure funds, and what’s fueling the public’s growing interest in private equity.

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Lost among yesterday’s trade deal news was an announcement that sent shivers down economists’ spines: The backbone of US economic growth for the last three years is beginning to break.

Worker productivity is the difference between the amount of goods and services that workers produce versus how many hours they work. In other words, it measures how efficiently US workers can create products—and the metric sank last quarter for the first time since 2022, the Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed.

US labor productivity fell 0.8% year over year in Q1, lower than the 0.7% analysts expected, and a steep decline from the 1.7% growth rate in Q4. For context, productivity grew 2.8% in 2024 overall.

The culprits were a 0.3% drop in output combined with a 0.6% increase in hours worked. That’s why unit labor costs, which measure how much employees are paid to produce one unit of any given product, rose 5.7% last quarter—higher than the 4.8% expected, and a huge jump from 2% in Q4.

What does this all mean?

We won’t lie—the numbers look bad. When worker productivity rises, the economy gets stronger. When you get a lower output from more hours worked, coupled with higher expenses to produce goods and services—like we did this quarter—that can indicate some serious economic issues.

But some economists think these numbers aren’t nearly as bad as they seem. Their reasoning is that the data has been somewhat distorted by the surge in imports since the end of Q4.

“The productivity black eye reflects disruptions to net exports caused by the imposition of tariffs and heightened policy uncertainty rather than genuine weakness in output,” explained EY Chief Economist Gregory Daco. He pointed out that manufacturing productivity rose by 4.5% in Q1, due to a 5.1% increase in manufacturing sector output and only a 0.5% increase in hours worked, going against the narrative the headline numbers suggest.

But a broader economic slowdown is still expected, given tariff confusion is not likely to dissipate anytime soon. “Swings in both output and employment as the tariff shock works its way through the economy probably will make the productivity data harder to read over the rest of this year, but we generally expect the underlying rate of growth to slow somewhat,” wrote senior U.S. Economist for Pantheon Macroeconomics Oliver Allen in a note yesterday.

So, if you didn’t have a very productive week at the office, you’re not the only one.—LB

• So it begins: The first freighters carrying Chinese goods with 145% levies arrived in the US today.
• China’s exports surged 8.1% last month, well above expectations of 1.9%, while its shipments to the US plunged 21%.
• Who wants to buy BP? Everyone, apparently.
• 24-hour trading is becoming a reality.
• Palantir broke into the top 10 most valuable tech companies on the market.
• UnitedHealthcare Group was sued by shareholders claiming the company didn’t properly adjust its earnings outlook following the death of CEO Brian Thompson.

The week starts slow but quickly gains steam, with both the NFIB small business optimism index and the latest CPI report on Tuesday. Thursday is absolutely packed, with PPI, initial jobless claims, a couple of Fed manufacturing surveys, and the home builder confidence index. We’ll wrap things up on Friday with the import price index, housing starts, and a preliminary look at consumer sentiment.

Earnings ease off the gas a bit next week, but there are plenty of big names that you should still be keeping an eye on.

Monday: Hertz Global Holdings, Dole, Fox, Rigetti Computing, DaVita, and, of course, monday.com

Tuesday: JD.com, Under Armour, Intuitive Machines, Oklo, and Petrobras

Wednesday: Cisco, Ibotta, and Boot Barn

Thursday: Walmart, Alibaba, Cava, Take Two Interactive Software, Deere, and Birkenstock

Friday: Flowers Foods

Headline of the day: A crypto founder faked his death. We found him alive at his dad’s house.

The Great Salt Lake is drying up, and its disappearance will do an incredible amount of economic damage.

Much has been written about Warren Buffett’s investing record. So instead, here it is in charts.

7 cheap stocks that just raised dividends, plus the full list of 31 companies that have pushed dividends higher this earnings season.

How much cash should you keep in your checking account? It’s probably less than you think.