Argus analyst John Staszak downgraded Yum! Brands to Hold from Buy. The analyst notes that the stock has returned nearly 50% since his May 2017 upgrade, but he now expects its Pizza Hut sales to be hurt by competition from delivery services offered by GrubHub (GRUB) and UberEats (UBER) given its greater focus on off-premise orders. Staszak also contends that Yum! Brands' KFC business will be impacted by competition from Chick-fil-A and Popeyes while pointing to its rising G&A expenses. The analyst lowers his FY19 and FY20 EPS views by 5c and 10c to $3.75 and $4.20 respectively.

As previously reported, Loop Capital analyst Rob Sanderson initiated coverage of Instacart (CART) with a Buy rating and $46 price target. The firm is positive on the company's wide-margin leadership position in grocery delivery in the U.S. which has also been "gaining share". While competition from restaurant delivery networks DoorDash (DASH) and Uber (UBER) have been gaining traction with convenience and "top-up" items, they have not cracked the weekly shop use case, the analyst tells investors in a research note. Loop adds that the stock is trading at an "attractive" 40% discount to the average of gig-economy peers on 2025 EBITDA.

Serve Robotics (SERV), an autonomous sidewalk delivery company, announced the pricing of its underwritten public offering of 10,000,000 shares of common stock at a price to the public of $4.00 per share, for aggregate gross proceeds of $40 million, prior to deducting underwriting discounts and offering expenses. The offering includes the participation of one of Serve's largest stockholders and strategic partners, Postmates, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Uber Technologies Inc (UBER). Serve plans to use net proceeds from the offering to fund research and development of the next generations of Serve's robots, manufacturing activities, geographic expansion, and for working capital and other general corporate purposes. Aegis Capital Corp. is acting as the sole book-running manager for the offering.