Tesla's Q4 Results Were 'Nothing New' To Investors

Tesla Motors Inc TSLA is down more than two percent in after hours trading, but investors shouldn't be too alarmed. "There's nothing really new in the report," Cody Willard, chairman of Scutify (a financial social network), told Benzinga. "The bears can find little things they can put their teeth into. The bulls can hang their hat on 2015 projections and long-term projections, just like they have been anyway. Nothing new." When asked about Tesla's slight decline, Willard advised investors to see how the stock performs tomorrow when the market opens. "After hours action, especially in a $250 stock, who knows what someone's doing?" Willard questioned. "It doesn't take much to move that after hours. You'll want to see what that does tomorrow anyway if you're a short-term trader. I wouldn't think a three percent pullback after hours is necessarily indicative of how it will trade tomorrow."

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'Terrible' Expectations

Sean Udall, CIO of Quantum Trading Strategies and author of The TechStrat Report, wasn't overly impressed by Tesla's results. "But again, expectations are basically terrible," he told Benzinga, noting that Q4 had been written off as a bad quarter anyway. "The revenue number looks about $90 million light." Udall said that Tesla tends to move on things like vehicle delivery guidance and new car production. Thus far, the stock has not moved much in after hours trading. "The stock is basically flat," said Udall. "They guided for full-year delivery of 55,000 Model S and Model X. I don't really know what people were expecting on the full-year 2015 delivery number. But my guess is that since the stock is not crashing, it's probably viewed as okay." Udall said that he isn't sure there's much downside to the report, however. The miss is reportedly due to manufacturing inefficiencies. If those issues have been corrected, it shouldn't impact Tesla's Q1 results.

Reiterated Success

Willard said that Tesla's latest estimate (approximately 55,000 cars will shipped in 2015) is "part of what the bulls are hanging their hat on after hours." "Tesla had already said they thought they can do 55,000 cars this year," he said. "They still think they can. That would be huge growth. It's a very impressive number." Willard then noted an interesting discussion he had with someone on Trading With Cody. He was asked, "Are we gonna look back on Tesla one day and think it's a battery company that once dabbled in cars?" "That might be the thought to keep in mind," said Willard. "No matter what you're looking at for the near-term for Tesla and its cars, is there a battery revolution that they're driving? Good question." Disclosure: At the time of this writing, Louis Bedigian had no position in the equities mentioned in this report.