UBER'S STOCK SURGES ON POSITIVE TRENDS DESPITE BIG Q2 LOSS

Uber’s effort to meld its pioneering ride-hailing service with food and freight delivery showed progress during the past quarter even though the company sustained a huge loss stemming from a sharp decline in its outside investments.

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Looking past Uber’s second-quarter loss of $2.6 billion announced Tuesday, Wall Street celebrated a significant milestone that raised hopes that Uber is on the verge of becoming a self-sustaining business.

The good news arrived this week in the form of a key metric known as free cash flow. Uber generated $382 million in cash during the April-June period, the first quarter in the company’s 13-year history that it didn’t hemorrhage money.

Uber has now been profitable for four consecutive quarters under a financial yardstick called EBIDTA, or “adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.”

By that measure, Uber earned $364 million during the second quarter, breezing past industry analyst projections of $277 million, according to FactSet Research.

Uber still sustained a massive loss that translated into $1.33 per share primarily caused by declines in Uber’s stake in Aurora, a self-driving car company, and a Singapore transportation service called Grab.