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Tesla Posts Second Profitable Quarter Ever (bgr.com)
anderzole writes from a report via BGR: Tesla on Wednesday posted its earnings report for the quarter gone by and investors will have a lot to cheer about. While analysts on Wall St. were expecting Tesla to post a loss, Tesla during its September quarter actually posted a profit, and an impressive profit at that. When the dust settled, Tesla posted a quarterly profit of $22 million and EPS of $0.71. Revenue for the quarter checked in at $2.3 billion. Illustrating how impressive Tesla's performance was this past quarter, Wall St. was anticipating Tesla to post a loss amid $1.9 billion in revenue for the quarter. As far as deliveries are concerned, Tesla during the quarter boasted that it achieved record vehicle production, deliveries and revenue. More importantly, Tesla reaffirmed via a shareholder letter that the Model 3 is still on track for a late 2017 release. You can read Tesla's shareholder letter here.
To not forecast the profit very accurately, is a sign that the business is not in control.
In steady state - no. While plowing a large amount of money into massive factories to pump out the next generation of products - absolutely, yes.
"Fake Market", just as fake as the absurdly low gasoline tax in the US that promotes the use of gasoline, or the absurdly high subsidies for corn to be grown and then converted into ethenol?
I'm perfectly fine with industries being subsidized, especially new tech, especially tech that helps with energy independence (for security), especially tech that helps with (yes I know, not "solving") slowing and then stopping carbon emissions, especially tech that has socio-economic potential benefits to society at large and not just the employees and shareholders of a company(s).
Just admit that you don't like the fact that 19 of the 20 solar companies that the DOE gave grants to succeeded, so you like to grasp onto the one who didn't.
Just admit that you don't like the fact that a company ran by a guy you don't like is succeeding. I admit my biases, but do you?
Solyndra was a bet that silicon prices would remain high. It was a way to get more power out of less silicon. The bet was wrong. With the drop in price in silicon, their death was inevitable. They also had a weird design decision, going for the concentrator. It made sense (in the economics of the time) to go for either concentrators or CIGS, but not both.
That said, the government took way too much flak - politically motivated - over Solyndra. With any diverse profile of startup investments, you expect some to fail. Economists analyzing the ARRA post-facto have been by and large given it quite positive evaluations for its effects on the economy. The loans program office had already wiped out the Solyndra loss just two years later.
"99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
In steady state - no. While plowing a large amount of money into massive factories to pump out the next generation of products - absolutely, yes.
While taking money for cars they haven't started producing or buying components for: No.
Is it still a fun fact if it's neither fun nor a fact?
For the 9 months ending Sep 30 2016, they made $1,150,984,000 (1.1 billion) in revenue selling cars, of which $195,592,000 (0.1 billion) was from ZEV carbon credits.
In fact, they take OUT the carbon credits from their GAAP reporting numbers (what this article refers to) so that their results aren't skewed.
It's right there in black and white in the results: http://files.shareholder.com/d...
Tesla changes their accounting methods. Dumb money is excited that TSLA is profitable. Smart money has no idea what to make of these numbers but know something smells musky.
As far as I can tell (Yes, I am a forensic accountant) they sold a lot of now-obsolete cars at a big discount and did some other tricks to prop up sales and push Q4 revenue into Q3, Q3 expenses into Q4, etc.
Now, it really doesn't matter if they're profitable or not because they have plenty of money in the bank and $22 million is a rounding error. Except Tesla is trying to buy Solar City. Why? Basically to bail out Elon Musk since Solar City is a turd circling the drain and Elon has a lot of money tied up in it (directly and indirectly through his other company, Space X). A lot of Tesla stock holders recognize this shit for what it is. But if Tesla can eek out a profit, dumb money thinks Elon is a fucking genius and let him buy up Solar City.
I just want to point out that the OP is:
1) Claiming to be a forensic accountant
2) online
3) as AC.
4) Framing his position in emotional terms (dumb money, smart money)
5) While showing no specifics. (Tesla changed accounting methods? Using nebulously-defined "tricks"?)
6) For a company whose analysis is largely partisan.
I don't know why people bother reading up on Tesla, news and analysis is all over the map. Price points from $150 to $400 per share, negative/positive outlooks, baldfaced lies about specs, dangers, and recalls, and all absolutely certain of their analysis.
It's almost as if there are large groups of people who would personally benefit from Tesla's success or failure, and who are willing to lie and mislead to bring about that result.
We spent 2 trillion dollars and 4000 lives to protect the oil industry. Heck, overthrowing democratically elected leaders for oil companies is one root cause of the radicalization of the middle east.
I think I can cut clean solar/electric industries a little slack when i consider what we spend t help the oil industry.
Their subsidies are buried so deep in the government, they don't even look like subsidies any more.
But imagine if 5 years from now, Oil demand had dropped another 10% due to electric cars? We'd be a lot less tempted to get involved in foreign entanglements.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.