Max Knoblauch
4/17/25
The market’s going hog wild about rental cars for the second straight day
With tariffs slamming the auto industry, investors continue pouring into rental car companies.
On Wednesday, news that Bill Ackman’s investment firm Perishing Square scooped up 12.71 million shares of Hertz sent the stock soaring up 56% at close.
The trend continued Thursday, with Hertz shares up more than 50% intraday. Rival Avis was up more than 16%, seemingly on the same principle: that rental fleets will become more valuable as new vehicles get pricier (and, therefore, fewer sell). There’s also a line of thinking that as people buy fewer new cars, they’ll rent more often.
In the meantime, automakers like Ford appear to be working out the math on when to begin their tariff price hikes.
