Again in 2020, EV automaker Tesla (Nasdaq: TSLA) and its CEO Elon Musk had been on high of the world.
TSLA’s share costs had been surging larger and better. Musk’s tweets had been making every day headlines. And the corporate’s Mannequin 3 was rapidly changing into one of many hottest vehicles in America.
However even at TSLA’s peak, Musk knew precisely how fragile his firm’s future was.
In a now-famous interview, Musk defined that traders had been keen to pay such excessive costs for TSLA shares as a result of they anticipated future earnings would make it worthwhile.
“If, at any level, they conclude that’s not going to occur, our inventory will instantly get crushed like a soufflé below a sledgehammer!” Musk ominously went on to say.
Properly, it looks like the day of the sledgehammer could have lastly arrived.
In yesterday’s earnings report, the mega-cap market darling introduced that automotive income declined by 7% year-over-year. Earnings had been down by 42%!
And diving deeper into the report solely yields extra unhealthy information:
- Annual charge of gross sales progress fell from a peak of 73% in Q2 2022 to 10%.
- Annual charge of earnings progress fell from 678% in Q1 2022 to fifteen%.
- Gross revenue margin (as a share) fell from 32% to 22%.
- Working margins have been slashed by greater than half, from 17% in Q1 ’23 to 7.8% at the moment.
- Present Earnings per share (EPS) is 54% decrease than the identical quarter a yr in the past.
This may be extraordinarily troublesome information for any firm to take care of…
However after final yr’s huge run-up in “Magnificent Seven” shares, TSLA’s valuation is stratospheric. The corporate is at the moment promoting at an eye-watering 69.2 P/E ratio.
Meaning right now’s TSLA traders are paying a particularly steep premium for shares of a enterprise that’s now in speedy decline.
You possibly can see that decline mirrored within the firm’s Inexperienced Zone Energy Ranking too:
(Click on right here for Inexperienced Zone Energy Ranking)
This is essential information for YOU, even should you’re not a TSLA shareholder.
As a result of TSLA is a serious element of the S&P 500, it accounts for almost 2% of the index by weight, making it the sixth largest inventory within the index.
Meaning should you personal any shares of index funds or ETFs that monitor the index, then you definitely’re not directly a TSLA shareholder.
And TSLA can be the standard-bearer for the continued EV mega pattern. The place TSLA goes, different EV producers will quickly observe.
So right now, we’re diving in deep to see whether or not this newest information is only a short-term “breakdown” or if TSLA is now a “lemon” …
A Reckoning Lengthy Overdue for Tesla
Longtime readers will know I’ve by no means been shy about sharing my ideas on TSLA and Elon Musk.
I give Elon credit score for doing one thing nobody else had executed earlier than him.
He lastly made electrical vehicles cool.
But it surely was at all times apparent to me that the logistical difficulties of the EV enterprise would finally meet up with Musk’s massive desires and greater celeb attraction.
I’ll be the primary to confess — it was irritating to observe TSLA keep its sky-high share costs once I knew {that a} disappointment just like the one we obtained yesterday was … inevitable.
However within the immortal phrases of John Maynard Keynes, “Markets can stay irrational longer than you possibly can stay solvent.”
Certainly, it looks like TSLA has been caught up in each main investing “zeitgeist” over the previous couple of years.
From photo voltaic roofs to self-driving vehicles to accepting bitcoin as fee, Musk did a masterful job of retaining his firm’s identify within the headlines (although few of those tasks ever make it to market).
However nothing lasts perpetually.
Historic inventory market research have discovered that fortunes can shift quickly. The most effective-performing shares of the final decade virtually by no means change into the best-performing shares of this decade.
That’s as a result of the market is at all times evolving and adapting to new international “themes,” one thing the chart beneath from Visible Capitalist captures completely:
This actually helps put TSLA right into a “massive image” context.
Buyers believed EV investing could be one of many main themes for the market this decade, in order that they had been keen to pay a premium to spend money on a market chief.
However now that Tesla’s shortcomings have gotten clearer and clearer, we will anticipate to see some sledgehammer-and- soufflé motion within the close to future…
Adapt to Thrive and Multiply Your Wealth
TSLA’s present woes are half of a bigger transformation we’re starting to see within the inventory market.
With inflation retreating and the Federal Reserve now on monitor to slash rates of interest, traders are scrambling to take earnings on mega-cap “Magnificent Seven” shares.
And so they’re re-investing that money into a complete new vary of alternatives … alternatives which have been largely ignored these previous two years.
I recorded a particular video presentation overlaying all the small print of this rising pattern — together with how you should utilize it to multiply your portfolio over the following few years. You possibly can watch it HERE.
To good earnings,
Adam O’Dell
Chief Funding Strategist, Cash & Markets