Undeniably, Uber Technologies (NYSE: UBER) has ranked among the more disappointing names of 2026, with UBER stock down more than 15% since the beginning of January. Over the course of the past six months, the ticker has slipped in excess of 10%, suggesting deep-seated investor fears. They aren’t unjustified, given the rather fragile state of the consumer economy.
At the same time, such struggles represent a possible opportunity for discount-driven contrarians. It’s generally difficult to predict where a security may end up, especially for highly popular names. However, the job arguably becomes more manageable when there are specific conditions involved that may influence the price discovery process.
For example, it may be anyone’s guess what the first pitch of a baseball game might be. But when there are runners in scoring position, the upcoming arsenal of likely pitches may narrow. While this knowledge and circumstance don’t guarantee a positive outcome, they help improve the probabilistic outlook for the hitter.
So it is with UBER stock. On any given day, it will be extraordinarily difficult to just guess where the ticker may end up at the end of the upcoming November monthly options chain. But the beauty of UBER is that we’re not just entering the arena without any context. Instead, we know that the security is currently structured in an extremely bearish state.
In the last two months, UBER stock printed 10 weekly candlesticks on the technical chart — but only three of the candlesticks featured net positive price action (where the closing price of the week was higher than the opening price of the week). Such a condition naturally changes the immediate perception of UBER and, by historical inference, will likely alter its forward trajectory.
Based on past analogs of identical quantitative sequences over the trailing five years, my bullish argument is that speculative options traders may consider the 70/72.50 bull call spread expiring Nov. 20.
Why the $72.50 Target is Attractive for UBER Stock
From a mechanical perspective, the $72.50 strike price is one of the lowest that a trader can select within debit spreads for the November monthly options chain. At $70, the highest maximum payout available would only be 85.19%, which would be unfavorably asymmetric — you would profit a lower amount than what you put at risk.
At the lowest strike of $67.50, the highest payout comes in at a mere 35.14%. I’d argue that it’s just not worth your time.
However, the $72.50 target presents an intriguing idea. The aforementioned 70/72.50 bull spread features a maximum payout of nearly 127.3%. By paying a net debit of $110, you’re hoping that UBER stock rises through and triggers the second-leg strike on expiration. If it does, the max payout stands at $140 — that’s asymmetric in your favor.
Where a wrinkle is presented is the massive payout offered by the next leg up, the $75 strike. If you went aggressive and opted for the 72.50/75 bull spread (also expiring Nov. 20), the net debit drops to $86, but the payout soars to 190.7%.
When running an expected value (EV) calculation, the comparison becomes muddier. According to Wall Street’s implied probability distribution screener — stemming from order volume and a random-walk modeling architecture — the chance of UBER stock hitting $72.50 on expiration is 33.62%. Ultimately, that translates to an EV of $25.95 below parity or an expected return on capital (ROC) of -30.56%.
On the other hand, the chance of UBER stock hitting $75 on expiration is 24.9%. But because of the combination of a lower cash outlay and a higher payout, the EV for the spread comes out to $23.75 below parity. Yes, that’s still negative expectancy, but the more aggressive wager offers a superior ROC of -27.62%.
So, is the higher $75 play the more rational trade? From a risk-efficiency standpoint, you could make that argument — but that would only be justified if indeed UBER stock trades randomly.
A Random Walk Assertion Doesn’t Really Make Sense
I hate to break it to anyone who has some academic fascination with random-walk-based models such as Black-Scholes, but any “breakout” or “undervalued” -themed articles simply don’t make sense if the same author is also a proponent of the random walk.
Consider the common trope of “3 Stocks to Buy” in the financial publication space. What are these writers fundamentally asserting? That they have some kind of knowledge that the market will offer a greater return than what one would normally expect as a baseline performance reference.
That’s really the simplistic argument for UBER stock. At the current price of $69.29, it’s a “good deal” because I believe there is a case for it triggering the $72.50 strike on Nov. 20.
We know through past analogs that the current quantitative structure referenced — only three up weeks within the last 10 weeks — has materialized 16 times on a rolling basis over the trailing five years. Typically, the median response is for UBER stock to rise, enough so that the probability of hitting $72.50 on expiration may range between 37.5% at the low to 56.2% at the high.
As a rough average, the probability may be 48.43%, which is significantly higher than the Street’s implied probability of 33.62%. At this average, we’re looking at a potential EV of +$11.07 or an ROC of 10.06%.
Uber at $75 is Slightly Less Convincing
Now, the question becomes, what about the more aggressive 72.50/75 bull spread? Would its higher payout offer a superior EV when its probabilities are adjusted upward to account for its potential nonrandom-walk distribution?
Here, the answer may be disappointing. While UBER stock demonstrates a contrarian tendency following an extremely bearish quantitative state, the bulk of the responses tend to cluster around the +4.6% mark, which translates nominally to around $72.50. Ultimately, we would only expect about 37.5% of outcomes to hit the $75 level on expiration.
To be fair, this win probability does improve the 72.50/75 bull spread’s EV to +7.75, which would then translate to an ROC of +9.01%. That may not necessarily mean that the lower spread is holistically superior. Because Uber’s next earnings date is scheduled for Nov. 4, that event could swing volatility in either direction.
But if you want to play strictly by the numbers, the $72.50 spread does seem to be the mathematically rational idea.
