Mostly Borrowed Ideas
Equity Analyst at MBI Deep Dives
American demand for delivery makes DoorDash hard to bet against despite reports it may acquire Instacart. Analysts target over $250 against a $169 share price. x.comÂ
Potential buyout news involving DoorDash could fuel substantial upside for Instacart. It is finally starting to break out, and could easily double from here. x.comÂ
DoorDash may be seeking acquired growth because its market share looks to have peaked. Its interest in buying Instacart looks desperate given its poor platform, adding to the short-DoorDash side of the long-Uber pair. x.comÂ
Uber's potential Instacart acquisition could create valuable marketplace and route-density synergies. Scaled marketplace assets are rare; buying one would also keep competitors from consolidating grocery delivery, a sticky category with large average orders. Growth alone is not the measure of the deal, and tech buybacks are overrated. x.com x.com x.comÂ
Amazon, Uber, DoorDash and Costco will keep taking share because consumers want less friction. These are not delivery apps or retail formats but infrastructure for time-starved and money-starved households, and convenience is winning as consumers learn to manage food, fitness and health on their own. x.comÂ
DoorDash's EPS beat is mostly tax-driven, and the apparent discount on its Instacart purchase will take time to matter. Despite a strong quarter, $1.06 GAAP EPS at a 3.9% tax rate would be about $0.85 at 23%, roughly in line with consensus; organic GOV growth stayed at 23%. DoorDash is paying 11.7x annualized Q3 EBITDA for Instacart versus its own 16x multiple, but the $17B deal won't close until late 2027 or 1H28, and management plans to reinvest more than 100% of first-year synergies. x.comÂ
DoorDash is building the local infrastructure layer of a three-sided marketplace for all of local commerce, so heavy investment is expected and does not break the thesis. It is an incredible growth business run by excellent operators with an unlimited addressable market. Selling on worries about competitive intensity, earnings quality or the direction of the numbers misreads that. x.com x.comÂ
DoorDash is a bet on human laziness, which is foolproof. Per The Kobeissi Letter, the stock jumped over 15% after 33% year-over-year revenue growth and strong guidance. x.comÂ
DoorDash is a short on a roughly three-year horizon because personal AI agents will deal-hunt for users and drive its profits toward zero, as @citrini predicted. DoorDash's own new CLI lets agents search stores, find the best deals and check out directly, a sign this is in its third inning. If software is distributed headless through APIs and CLIs, it is unclear what distribution moats survive. x.com x.comÂ
DoorDash's clear accumulation makes its continued selloff look unjustified. The stock is still falling despite that buying. x.comÂ