Shares of Lyft, the ride-hailing service, jumped 13% in pre-market trading. This rise came after Waymo announced plans to start a self-driving taxi service in Nashville next year, partnering with Lyft for the first time. Waymo’s approach varies by city. In some places, they use only the ‘One’ app, while in others, like Atlanta and Austin, they partner with Uber. Lyft’s stock initially rose over 20% but settled at a 13% increase when the market opened. The robotaxi concept is attracting a lot of market interest, leading to high valuations for companies in this field, including Tesla. However, the economics of such services are still untested, with issues around safety and large-scale cleaning unresolved. In Nashville, Lyft will manage Waymo’s fleet, ensuring the vehicles are ready, maintained, and operating smoothly. Waymo is part of Google, whose stock has reached $250 as it competes with ChatGPT and the new Nano Banana app. Despite Lyft’s positive news, Uber remains the ride-hailing leader with a market cap 25 times larger than Lyft. On September 17, 2025, Lyft’s stock surge caused a spike in implied volatility. This presents a good short-term opportunity for selling options premiums for those who think the initial excitement—responsible for the 20% rise—will soon fade. For example, implied volatility for short-term Lyft options has likely increased above 70%, offering chances to sell covered calls or credit spreads to benefit from time decay. While the Waymo partnership is a boost for Lyft’s long-term prospects, Lyft has faced challenges against its bigger rival. We’ve seen similar optimism before, with past spikes in 2024 that eventually declined as operational realities became clear. The path to profitable autonomous ride-hailing is long and will encounter regulatory hurdles and public perception challenges, similar to those experienced in San Francisco and Phoenix years ago. The news also presses on Uber, but its market leadership is significant. Uber has held around 75% of the U.S. ride-hailing market through 2024, making this single-city partnership with Lyft a minor concern. Some traders might consider buying puts on Uber as a hedge or part of a trade against a long position in Lyft. It remains essential to remember that the economics of robotaxis are still largely speculative, despite the market’s enthusiasm. The operational issues, such as fleet management, cleaning, and security, are the same challenges that faced early autonomous vehicle rollouts back in 2023. Therefore, long-term bullish strategies, like buying long-dated call options on Lyft, should be treated as highly speculative bets on a model that hasn’t yet proven itself. For Google, this partnership is a small detail amid its extensive scale and recent achievements. The company’s stock is more influenced by broader advertising trends and its AI competition than by the details of a single city’s Waymo fleet. As a result, we don’t expect this development to significantly affect options activity for GOOGL.

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