1200 Wednesday 30 January 2019

At the tail end of October, Tesla was finally able to produce a profitable quarterly report. While the net profit of $311.5m paled in comparison to the billions of overall costs of production, it was a symbolic milestone to analysts and investors that had held the company under a microscope following the ‘funding secured’ saga. All eyes will be back on Tesla this evening as they give their Q4 report after the bell.

Many are expecting the figures to come short of the Q3 report and this was highlighted in an email to employees from Elon Musk. This is understandable given the push the company made on the Model 3 vehicle in the previous quarter, and although he alluded to Q4 still being profitable, he went on to say “Looking ahead at our mission of accelerating the advent of sustainable transport and energy, which is important for all life on Earth, we face an extremely difficult challenge: making our cars, batteries and solar products cost-competitive with fossil fuels. While we have made great progress, our products are still too expensive for most people”.

According to estimates from analysts and financial executives, earnings of $2.02 per share are expected, with revenue between $7.03bn and $7.12bn. But some of the key data points analysts will be looking for are those of production and delivery of finished units, something that was boosted during Q3, but has been a significant snag in the past.

The report may mirror that of Apple’s in the way that it’s expected to be down, but how down will it actually be. While the stock has risen nearly 3.5% in the last five days, January has been a tough month for Tesla with the stock down 10% on a whole.

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