Stock Market Today, June 9: Aurora Innovation Falls After Uber Block Sale Weighs on Autonomous Trucking Stocks

Aurora Innovation (NASDAQ:AUR), a self-driving hardware and software developer, closed at $6.16, down 1.60%. Shares are reacting to ongoing pressure from Uber (NYSE:UBER)’s recent block sale and broader weakness in autonomous-driving names. Investors are also watching execution on driverless truck deployments and platform launches.
Trading volume reached 59.8 million shares, coming in about 132% above its three-month average of 25.8 million shares. Aurora Innovation IPO'd in 2021 and has fallen 38% since going public.

How the markets moved today

The S&P 500 (SNPINDEX:^GSPC) slipped 0.26% to close at 7,386, while the Nasdaq Composite (NASDAQINDEX:^IXIC) declined 0.97% to close at 25,679. Among self-driving technology peers, Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) closed at $364.26 (+0.26%) and Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) closed at $396.68 (-3.00%), underscoring mixed sentiment across autonomous-vehicle players.

What this means for investors

Aurora Innovation shares have been under pressure for almost a month since Uber, its largest shareholder, announced it was raising capital and using some of its Aurora ownership as collateral. Aurora shares are down 25% since May 14.

Uber also sold a block of 67.5 million Aurora shares at $7.10 per share on June 2. Uber still owns over 258 million shares, though, representing about 15.6% ownership of Aurora.

It also hasn’t helped that investors have been moving away from various types of tech stocks recently, including self-driving technology names. Neither transaction should be viewed as a change in Uber’s confidence in Aurora’s technology. But investors should expect volatility in a speculative name like Aurora.

Howard Smith has positions in Alphabet and Tesla. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Tesla, and Uber Technologies. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.