Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tesla lost $38M in third quarter, stock tumbles over 12 percent

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 99 posts

Re: Tesla lost $38M in third quarter, stock tumbles over 12 percent

#31

Post by cs702 »

Tesla's stock price at present reflects and is driven primarily by the exuberant optimism of its shareholders, not by mundane financial details like how many millions the company lost or how many cars were sold last quarter.

Consider that despite today's drop, the stock price has gone up 4.6x this year (from $33.87 at year-end 2012 to around $155 right now), but over the same period the company's quarterly revenues have increased only 1.4x (from $306 million in Q4 2012 to $431 million in Q3 2013).[1]

The future of a young, highly innovative company like Tesla is so uncertain that shareholders have little choice but to rely primarily on speculation and emotion rather than on analysis of (limited) facts to estimate the present value of the business.

--

PS. I'm a HUGE fan of the company and Elon Musk, and want them to succeed beyond their wildest dreams.

--

[1] Quarterly financial results are posted on http://ir.teslamotors.com/events.cfm

--

Edits: added third paragraph; grammar.

Re: Tesla lost $38M in third quarter, stock tumbles over 12 percent

#32

Post by wooster »

nonchalance wrote: post #17
jonknee wrote: post #6

In one version of accounting... In another they made $16M. What's clear is Tesla has been dramatically more successful at selling an electric car than any other company.

The problem is that the current stock price implies that they will be dramatically more successful than any other car company (electric or otherwise). It's all relative to expectations.

Some market caps from Google Finance:

  TM, Toyota 203.72B
  VLKAY, Volkswagen AG 114.33B
  DDAIF, Daimler AG (USA) 85.52B
  HMC, Honda Motor Co 71.86B
  BAMXF, BMW 68.69B
  F, Ford Motor Company 67.33B
  GM, General Motors 51.52B
  NSANY, Nissan Motor  36.86B
  AUDVF, Audi 36.42B
  TSLA, Tesla Motors Inc 21.47B
  FIATY, Fiat  9.35B
So, no, I don't think Tesla is quite at those levels of expectations yet. (As full disclosure, I own some Tesla stock.)

Re: Tesla lost $38M in third quarter, stock tumbles over 12 percent

#33

Post by hackula1 »

cs702 wrote: post #31

Tesla's stock price at present reflects and is driven primarily by the exuberant optimism of its shareholders, not by mundane financial details like how many millions the company lost or how many cars were sold last quarter. Consider that despite today's drop, the stock price has gone up 4.6x this year (from $33.87 at year-end 2012 to around $155 right now), but over the same period the company's quarterly revenues h…

I hate to be the "revenues-dont-matter" guy, but stock prices could be based on the fact that they demonstrated that they are 4.6x more likely to succeed based on their performance this year. If stocks only followed revenues, trading would be pretty meaningless. A company like Tesla has a tipping point in value based on the viability of their model. I am in no way claiming that I think they will succeed, but this year has probably shown that they are more likely to hit a tipping point than last year. This matters a lot in highly speculative investments like Tesla.

Re: Tesla lost $38M in third quarter, stock tumbles over 12 percent

#35

Post by hackula1 »

jonknee wrote: post #9
noonespecial wrote: post #4

Or "Tesla spent $38 million on extended R&D involving extensively field testing its first production models". Take your pick.

More accurately, for R&D they spent $48 million on a non-GAAP basis and $56 million on a GAAP basis. Non-GAAP wise Tesla made money in the quarter to the tune of $16M. Their new leasing program and paying back the Department of Energy loan early helped lower the GAAP revenue fairly substantially. Cash was even better--$26 million of positive free cash flow.

I would imagine that paying back their loans will be worth quite a bit in PR.

Re: Tesla lost $38M in third quarter, stock tumbles over 12 percent

#36

Post by codex »

jonknee wrote: post #6

In one version of accounting... In another they made $16M. What's clear is Tesla has been dramatically more successful at selling an electric car than any other company.

Nissan will sell its 100,000th all electric LEAF early next year. They sell around 15,000 a quarter.

Re: Tesla lost $38M in third quarter, stock tumbles over 12 percent

#37

Post by foobarqux »

hackula1 wrote: post #33
cs702 wrote: post #31

Tesla's stock price at present reflects and is driven primarily by the exuberant optimism of its shareholders, not by mundane financial details like how many millions the company lost or how many cars were sold last quarter. Consider that despite today's drop, the stock price has gone up 4.6x this year (from $33.87 at year-end 2012 to around $155 right now), but over the same period the company's quarterly revenues h…

I hate to be the "revenues-dont-matter" guy, but stock prices could be based on the fact that they demonstrated that they are 4.6x more likely to succeed based on their performance this year. If stocks only followed revenues, trading would be pretty meaningless. A company like Tesla has a tipping point in value based on the viability of their model. I am in no way claiming that I think they will succeed, but this yea…

The point is that the price is disconnected from fundamental value. Remember you are buying something, you want to know how much you should pay, not whether the thing underlying the security is going to be "successful".

Re: Tesla lost $38M in third quarter, stock tumbles over 12 percent

#39

Post by codex »

wooster wrote: post #32
nonchalance wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that the current stock price implies that they will be dramatically more successful than any other car company (electric or otherwise). It's all relative to expectations.

Some market caps from Google Finance: TM, Toyota 203.72B VLKAY, Volkswagen AG 114.33B DDAIF, Daimler AG (USA) 85.52B HMC, Honda Motor Co 71.86B BAMXF, BMW 68.69B F, Ford Motor Company 67.33B GM, General Motors 51.52B NSANY, Nissan Motor 36.86B AUDVF, Audi 36.42B TSLA, Tesla Motors Inc 21.47B FIATY, Fiat 9.35B So, no, I don't think Tesla is quite at those levels of expectations yet. (As full disclosure, I own some Tes…

What complicates this analysis is the fact that these other companies sell in the millions--hundreds of times more cars than Tesla does in a year. Tesla's market cap is one million dollars per car to be sold in 2013.

Re: Tesla lost $38M in third quarter, stock tumbles over 12 percent

#40

Post by toomuchtodo »

foobarqux wrote: post #37
hackula1 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to be the "revenues-dont-matter" guy, but stock prices could be based on the fact that they demonstrated that they are 4.6x more likely to succeed based on their performance this year. If stocks only followed revenues, trading would be pretty meaningless. A company like Tesla has a tipping point in value based on the viability of their model. I am in no way claiming that I think they will succeed, but this yea…

The point is that the price is disconnected from fundamental value. Remember you are buying something, you want to know how much you should pay, not whether the thing underlying the security is going to be "successful".

> not whether the thing underlying the security is going to be "successful".

But that's exactly what determines how much you should pay. Fundamentals are "How much will this be worth in the future".

Post reply on HN