DoorDash

DoorDash just delivered a monster quarter. Orders jumped 27% to 933 million in three months, revenue grew 33% to 4 billion dollars, and the total value of stuff sold on their platform hit 31.6 billion dollars, up 37%. Even stripping out their new Deliveroo acquisition, the underlying business still grew orders 16% and revenue 21%. That's an incredible pace for a company already this big, especially when most restaurant chains are seeing their sales shrink. Profits before certain costs hit 754 million dollars, up 28% from last year.

The really exciting story is how sticky DoorDash has become. They just hit a record number of paying members on DashPass and an all-time high in monthly active users. People aren't just trying it once, they're signing up for the subscription and ordering more often. New customer signups in groceries hit a record too. They're also rolling out a single global tech platform that should make the whole company run more efficiently, and their Deliveroo acquisition in Europe is already growing faster than expected in the UK, France, and Italy.

Here's the catch. While orders and revenue are flying, profits are actually moving the wrong way. Net income dropped 5% to 184 million dollars compared to last year, and it's down 14% from just last quarter. Their take rate, meaning the cut they keep from each order, slipped from 13.1% to 12.8%. Free cash flow also fell 15% from a year ago. They're spending heavily on integrating Deliveroo, building new technology, and a 50 million dollar gas relief program for drivers next quarter. Growth is great, but investors want to see those profit numbers go up, not down.

The stock is still trading at a steep premium. With a market value around 73 billion dollars on roughly 16 billion in annual revenue, you're paying about 4 to 5 dollars for every dollar of sales, and the company carries a beta of 1.87 meaning it swings nearly twice as hard as the overall market. Amazon is also pushing aggressively into same-day grocery delivery in over 2,000 cities, going right after one of DoorDash's fastest-growing categories. Any stumble on guidance or a market pullback could hit this stock hard.