How to Buy Uber Stock (UBER)

Uber made its initial public offering in May 2019 as one of the largest tech IPOs ever, with a valuation of $82 billion. Ever since, the closely watched stock has taken investors on quite the ride.

How to buy Uber stock

You can buy Uber stock through a brokerage account. You'll need to add money to the account and then search within the brokerage's platform using the symbol "UBER." You can also buy Uber stock through Uber's direct stock purchase plan.

Here's the simple way to buy Uber stock:

1. Open a brokerage account.

2. Search for Uber stock within your brokerage account's platform.

3. Decide how much you want to buy, in dollars or shares.

4. Hit "buy."

» Check out the best brokerage accounts for stock trading

If you’re considering adding Uber to your portfolio, you may want to think about your purchase carefully. There are a lot of factors that go into buying a stock, and it's good to go in having done a little research. Here's the longer version of how to buy Uber stock.

1. Research Uber the company

Before you buy Uber, or any investment, it’s important to dig into the details.

Researching a stock means reading up on the company and scrutinizing everything — including its management team, its competition, namely Lyft, and its sources of revenue. (Uber isn’t just meal delivery and airport trips; the company also has a freight division, rents scooters and bikes, and even has a self-driving car business.)

You also want to look at the rideshare and transportation industry as a whole, including how the news affects the industry. For example, Russia's invasion of Ukraine led to rising gas prices in early 2022, which in turn led both Uber and Lyft to add temporary fuel surcharges.

» Learn the basics: How to research stocks

You can find info on Uber's stock history in the company's annual report, and its quarterly earnings, available on Uber's website. You can also do plenty of competitive research and read analyst opinions via your brokerage account.

2. Consider whether you should buy Uber stock

The next thing to consider is how Uber fits in with the rest of your portfolio. A general rule is not to have more than 10% of your total portfolio in an individual stock. Investing your entire portfolio in any single stock or single industry is considered risky; one run of bad luck and your whole investment could be at risk.

Diversifying your investments across many companies, industries and geographical locations can help reduce that risk. Investing advisors recommend that the vast majority of your portfolio, 90% or so, should be invested in low-cost index funds, which allow you to own public companies such as Uber alongside many others in a single investment.

Quick refresher on index mutual funds: With an index fund, you buy a chunk of the stock market — like the S&P 500 — instead of picking and choosing individual stocks. As such, you can forgo research into each company, though you still want to dig into the fund itself, looking at things like fees.

» View our list: The best-performing stocks

3. Make sure you have a brokerage account

We don't encourage market timing, but if you're keeping an eye on the stock, you need to be ready to buy shares when you determine the time is right. To do that you need a brokerage account.

Opening and funding a brokerage account is a quick and easy process — see our full guide to brokerage accounts here. Once the account is set up to receive funds, it's simple to transfer money from any checking or savings account.

And where should you open your brokerage account? Generally speaking, you want to look for a broker that offers low or no commissions — which is the cost you pay your broker when you buy or sell a stock like Uber — an account minimum you can meet and no or low account fees.

4. Set a budget for Uber stock

Before you order your Uber stock, set a ceiling on how much you’re willing to invest. A good investing guideline: Invest only money that you don’t need within the next five years. Money that you need for short-term goals belongs in an account where it’s liquid — that is, easily accessible — and safe, such as a high-yield savings account.

You should also consider whether you have enough cash saved in your emergency fund before investing. Financial advisors often suggest having enough to cover at least three months of living expenses.

You can make regular investments over time with dollar-cost averaging, a strategy that spreads out your stock purchases and helps ensure that you’re not dumping all your money in at a high point for prices.

See our general guide on how to buy stocks for additional details on making stock purchases, including a full breakdown of various order types.