The difference between two of America’s most popular stocks, Apple Inc. and Tesla Inc., stood out abruptly Wednesday.
Apple AAPL,
they reported a quarter position, with $ 111.4 billion in quarterly revenue, a jump of 20%, driven by strong demand for its products for work and learning from home, into the iPhone 5G 12. Apple shares fell nearly 3% after hours, but held on to the stratospheric market cap of around $ 2.41 trillion.
An interesting fact in the quarter is the fact that iPhone sales of $ 65.6 billion went up beyond Wall Street’s expectations of $ 59.5 billion. And the new iPhone wasn’t even available during the entire holiday quarter. Dan Ives, a Wedbush Securities analyst, said the quarter is a “jaw dropper” that has overcome even bullish whiskey expectations among analysts.
Nonetheless, analysts seemed a little concerned about whether Apple can keep up with this growth rate, amid ever-increasing numbers. Toni Sacconaghi of Bernstein Research asked Apple CEO Tim Cook on the company’s conference call what he thought was a “reasonable revenue growth rate” for the next five years.
“Toni, as you know, we take a bit of color on the current quarter but no further than that in terms of growth rates,” Cook said. “So I’ll pound on that part of your question. In his preview note on Apple’s earnings, Sacconaghi asked, “The ring looks reasonably strong, but at 31x [times fiscal 2021] earning [estimates], what now? ”
Cook said Apple still has “a fair amount of room” for market share expansion in many areas, especially in some emerging markets such as India. Another notable player was the company’s services industry, which set a full-time record. Apple also has a quarterly quota of 82 cents, and an ongoing stock purchase plan for investors that will help ensure its high value.
Tesla, on the other hand,
which has risen to new heights in recent months, which disappointed investors by losing Wall Street expectations, even though it managed to post a sixth consecutive quarter of profit out. But again, Tesla achieved that quarter of profit through regulatory credits of $ 401 million, a point that is widely debated among investors.
“My fourth quarter estimates take in about $ 550 million in increases from energy credits and surprises, which could result in most, if not all, of profits. ‘Tesla – as has happened in each of the last five quarters,’ wrote Vicky Bryan, founder and CEO of Bond Angle, in a preview note on Tesla ‘s earnings.
Read more about how Tesla plays fog and mirrors with profits.
Since October, its stock has more than doubled, at one point hitting $ 880 a share. It currently has a valuation of approximately $ 837 billion. On Wednesday, its shares plummeted by about 5% in after-hours trading, while CEO Elon Musk attempted to rally the troops on the company’s employment call and in the seasonal sliding deck of employees. sections.
“2020 was a special year for us on many levels,” said Musk. “Despite a challenging environment, we have reached a significant milestone in the manufacture and delivery of half a million cars. He said Tesla would deliver almost as many cars as it did.
But depressed for investors, Musk & Co. also noted in their shareholders ’letter that they were simplifying management because of the large number of products the company makes. “Over a multi-year horizon, we expect to achieve an average annual growth of 50% in vehicle delivery,” said Tesla. “In some years we expect to grow faster, and we expect this to be the case in 2021.”
That guidance was not as detailed as before. For example, in the third quarter of 2020, Tesla said it had the capacity to deliver 500,000 vehicles, which is the company ‘s target for 2020.
Musk was also asked about the bullish predictions he made that Tesla would achieve full Level-5 independence in 2021. He has also predicted that the company would have self-driving robo-taxis before the end of this year.
“This is happening fast because we have so much training data with every car in the field and the software is improving a lot,” Musk said. He added that the sacred pageantry is currently “auto labeling” of the video processed by the vehicles, but did not comment on time or progress. “We’re moving everything towards leaflets,” he said.
Last month, Tesla entered the venerable S&P 500 SPX,
a move that automatically places the stock in a large variety of index assets based on that list of established growth companies. But disappointment can lead to a move out of stock, and those with high ratings like Tesla are even more at risk.
Ultimately on Wednesday, the established Apple confirmed its mettle, while Tesla once again raised more questions about its high climb.