Gene Munster Talks Tesla's Energy Business, Apple's Trade War Risk And Facebook Libra

Loup Ventures founder Gene Munster recently joined PreMarket Prep co-host Joel Elconin for the sixth episode of the "Frontier Tech With Gene Munster" podcast. The two talked about the latest news related to several popular tech stocks, including Tesla Inc TSLA, Apple Inc. AAPL, Facebook, Inc. FB and NVIDIA Corporation NVDA.

Tesla Energy

Munster said Tesla’s auto business gets most of the headlines, but the company’s energy business is flying mostly under-the-radar as a potential growth opportunity.

Today, Tesla’s battery and energy business generates only about 6% of its total revenue, but over time it could grow to become as large as its auto business. Musk also said the new Tesla Cybertruck could potentially increase Tesla’s addressable vehicle market by 18%.

“This company can grow at 15 to 20% for potentially five-plus years, and when you start to compound that it builds a stronger case that this should be a bigger company,” Munster said.

Apple's Trade War Risk

Munster said Apple has successfully navigated the difficult trade war environment up to this point, but there's still significant trade war risk in the near-term given the new tariffs that are set to go into effect on Dec. 15. In the longer-term Munster said he’s optimistic that Apple’s recently launched streaming video service can e a major growth driver for Services revenue.

“It’s a great opportunity for Apple over the longer term, probably their biggest opportunity in Services over the next few years, just to get people experiencing it, and for free essentially by giving it away, and then start to slowly inch up the price over time as they build more content, Munster said.

Facebook Crypto

Munster said Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency is a “juicy opportunity” given the current “friction” related to fiat currencies, but Facebook’s size and reach is predictably worrying some governments around the world.

“The takeaway here is that Facebook is committed to this. Libra will take time, I think that eventually they will get there. It will probably be a couple of years away,” he said.

Munster said he’s not a big fan personally of the negative impact he believes Facebook has on the world, and he is ok with missing the stock as it likely trades higher.

Finally, Munster said Nvidia is a very expensive stock based on its fundamentals but the stock has been hurt in 2019 due to the drop in demand for processors used in cryptocurrency mining.

Listen to the full podcast in the clip below: