Tomorrow will witness Uber's IPO, and thousands of "investors" will throw billions of dollars into Uber stocks.

Uber's IPO filing stated such gems as it has “incurred significant losses since inception” and expects its operating expenses to “increase significantly in the foreseeable future.”

Let's not forget, “Our historical net tangible book value as of December 31, 2018 was $(7,620) million or $(0.02) per share.” Which means that if Uber declared bankruptcy tomorrow and sold everything, they would still be $7.6 billion short.



“We may not be able to achieve or maintain profitability in the near term or at all.”

- Uber

And then there is this rare gem:



The assumed initial public offering price of $_ per share is substantially higher than the net tangible book value per share of our outstanding common stock immediately after this offering. If you purchase shares of our common stock in this offering, you will experience substantial and immediate dilution.

So not only can we say with confidence that this company will continue to lose money in the foreseeable future, but if you are foolish enough to buy our stocks on the day of IPO that you will certainly lose money.

"Maintaining and enhancing our brand and reputation is critical to our business prospects. We have previously received significant media coverage and negative publicity, particularly in 2017, regarding our brand and reputation, and failure to rehabilitate our brand and reputation will cause our business to suffer…"

-Uber

Doesn't that make you want to run out and buy some Uber stocks? No? Well, lots of people will anyway.

But wait. There's even more.



Uber’s prospectus offers only the vaguest picture of how it intends to achieve earnings that could justify a valuation of $90 billion or more.

So why buy? Wall Street’s guiding principle is that any investment’s value can be justified if one thinks that a greater fool can be tricked into buying it at that price or higher.

How has that been working out recently? Consider Lyft, Uber's main competition.



Lyft reported a huge loss for itsfirst quarterly earnings report as a public company Tuesday, but said it made strides in growing its active ridership. The stock fluctuated following the report but was down about 1% after executives' call with analysts...On a call with analysts following the report, Chief Financial Officer Brian Roberts said Lyft anticipates that losses will peak in 2019.

Lyft had a rocky start to trading, down more than 20% over the last month and nearly $13 off of its IPO price of $72 per share. The company debuted with a valuation topping $20 billion at the high end of its expected range, but its market cap has since sunk to about $17 billion.

So people that bought Lyft's IPO are down 20% so far.

Well, Uber and Lyft can always save money by cutting wages. Oops! That ship has sailed too.



Uber and Lyft drivers staged protests in some major cities to call attention to wages and work issues, but the effect on passengers was hard to judge.

...From 2013 to 2015, he said he earned $37 an hour, or about $3 per mile. Today, Parmar said he earns $1.15 per mile.

Now here's the good news. If you missed the Lyft IPO and you can't make Uber's IPO, there's still another great IPO "investment" coming down the pike - WeWork.



Neither the parent company (The We Company) nor its UK arms are profitable. In fact, their losses are massive. WeWork lost $1.9 billion in 2018 on revenue of $1.8 billion, according to an earnings presentation seen by Business Insider.