The board of Instacart parent company Maplebear has authorized $500 million in share repurchases, the company said Thursday. Instacart stock jumped on the buyback news.
The company said in a regulatory filing that it had completed its previous allocation of $1 billion for share repurchases, approved in November 2023 and February 2024. The company bought back about 34 million shares with the funds.
On the stock market today, Instacart stock is up more than 8% at 33.59 in recent action.
Instacart Stock Performance Since IPO
Instacart has just under 265 million shares outstanding as of its March quarter. Its market capitalization is $8.8 billion, including Thursday's stock action.
Instacart closed the first quarter with $1.7 billion in cash and equivalents, "allowing us to continue to invest in growth while repurchasing shares," as Chief Financial Officer Emily Reuter told Bloomberg in a statement.
While Instacart stock slumped following its initial public offering in September 2023, shares are up 42% this year compared with a 12% gain for the S&P 500. CART shares are trading above their IPO price of 30. But the stock has yet to eclipse the high of 42.95 that it popped up to on its debut trading day in September, before settling lower.
Still, Instacart stock has a meager IBD Composite Rating of 14 out of 99, according to IBD Stock Checkup. The score combines five separate proprietary ratings into one rating. The best growth stocks have a Composite Rating of 90 or better.
IBD MarketSurge shows that Instacart stock is in a long cup-with-handle base on its weekly chart, with a buy point of 38.34.
