Musk Trolls Shorts as Tesla's Value Hits Record, Passes Ford (bloomberg.com)

Tesla's Elon Musk poked fun at short sellers as his electric-car maker's stock surged to a record, vaulting its market value past century-old rival Ford. From a report on Bloomberg: "Stormy weather in Shortville..." the chief executive officer tweeted Monday, as Tesla shares climbed as much as 5.8 percent. The maker of Model S sedans and Model X crossovers saw its capitalization surge to about $48.2 billion, $3.1 billion more than Ford, the No. 2 automaker in the U.S. after General Motors Co. Tesla has long been a popular target by short sellers such as Jim Chanos, who famously bet early on energy company Enron's failure -- and was proved right. Short interest in Tesla has risen to 29 percent of its free float from a 52-week low of 20 percent in mid-October, according to Markit data. Tesla's move past Ford came one day after Musk's company reported worldwide shipments of 25,000 cars and SUVs in the first quarter, exceeding analysts' estimates. While Ford delivered about nine times as many vehicles in just the U.S. last month, its sales missed projections and the shares fell.

Comments

Re:I remember when you posted that about Google

[93 Escort Wagon]

If you "remember" it, why not link to it?

For every Google that came out of the first bubble, there were 1000 Kozmo.com's...

Re:Absurd

[Anonymous Coward]

Minor accounting error there. You're comparing market valuation and company assets. That ignores company debts. Ford has a whopping $150 billion debt. (Rough numbers; about $100 billion long-term and $50B short-term. Latter obviously varies). No wonder its market cap is "only" $45 billion. The total Ford company is worth about 200 billion. Tesla is valued at about a quarter of that, but since they're almost free of debt (~$7B) that translates almost entirely into market cap.

Re:I remember when you posted that about Google

[XXongo]

If you "remember" it, why not link to it?

http://www.lightreading.com/ethernet-ip/google-is-overvalued/a/d-id/622304
http://captaincapitalism.blogspot.com/2005/12/google-is-overvalued-period.html
http://forums.seochat.com/search-engine-optimization-28/google-stock-overvalued-14884.html
https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2005/11/23/buy-google-no-thanks.aspx
https://www.fool.com/investing/value/2005/12/06/much-ado-about-google.aspx

Re:Absurd

[PCM2]

Um, like, you mean like the same Ford that took a cozy hayride to Washington a few years back, with Chrysler and GM, to, like, ask the government for taxpayer money to pay for their mistakes, because they all were "too big to fail" . . . ? You mean, like, that Ford?

Except of the three, Ford didn't really need to be bailed out. It only asked to be included in the bailout because if it wasn't, it would be the only automaker of the big three that wasn't getting massive government subsidies, thereby forcing it to compete in an unfair market.