Facepalm: Typos do happen, but some are more costly than others. Lyft, for example, accidentally added an extra zero to one of its figures in the company's quarterly report, causing its stock to soar more than 60% before crashing back down.

Lyft's quarterly results on Tuesday stated that the company would improve adjusted earnings margins by 500 basis points, or 5 percentage points, in 2024 compared with the previous year.

The ride-hailing giant's release sent its stock soaring to $19.70, its highest price since August 2022.

Unfortunately for Lyft, the reported figure was an error. Chief Financial Officer Erin Brewer said on a call with investors that the increase was actually 50 basis points, not 500, representing an increase of 0.5% instead of the reported 5% – a difference that could equate to hundreds of millions of dollars.

"This is actually a correction for the press release," Brewer said.

News that the company made a huge error in its margin expansion (calculated as a percentage of gross bookings) wiped out much of the share price's gains, falling from a 60% rise to about 16%. That represents more than $2 billion being wiped off the company's market cap.

Lyft's shares haven't performed well since the company's initial public offering in 2019, having lost 80% of their value since that time.

There were several welcome, and hopefully accurate, elements in Lyft's quarterly report. Brewer said 2024 is expected to be the company's first full-year of positive free cash flow. Meanwhile, gross bookings were up 17% to $3.7 billion, while revenue was up 4% to $1.2 billion.

Last week brought news that Lyft rival Uber had turned a profit for the first time ever.

Given the scrutiny that big companies' financial results are put under, not to mention the large number of people who check and confirm the figures before the reports are released, it's certainly surprising that the typo ended up in the final document.

Other famous typos over the years includes the one in the Aliens: Colonial Marines code that made the game's AI so bad. There was also the case of 46 million Australian $50 notes printed with a typo. More recently, Razer apologized and offered a $10 discount code for a keyboard packaging typo. Asus also said sorry and offered compensation after it spelled Evangelion incorrectly on its branded motherboards.