Biz Break: Tesla's record-breaking ride, Facebook's Instagram-sized target
Posted: 05/09/2013 03:49:25 PM PDT
Today: Tesla stock reaches all-time highs on profits and
praise for Model S, Facebook reportedly
considering paying up to $1 billion for Waze, and Google (GOOG)
adds premium YouTube channels.
The lead: Tesla hits record highs after earnings report,
Consumer Reports review
Tesla added a couple extra scoops of good news on top of the
first profitable quarter in its
FILE - In this June 22, 2012
file photo, Tesla workers cheer on the first Tesla Model S cars sold during a
rally at the Tesla factory in Fremont, Calif. The Tesla Motors Inc. Model S
electric car has tied an older Lexus for the highest score ever recorded in
Consumer Reports magazine's automotive testing on Thursday, May 9, 2013. (AP
Photo/Paul Sakuma, File) ( Paul Sakuma )
The Consumer Reports review was extremely laudatory to the company's Model S, an all-electric sedan that is Tesla's first offering it developed and manufactured from scratch. Consumer Reports bestowed a grade of 99 out of 100 on the car, only the
second time it has scored a car that high; none have scored 100.
"So is the Tesla Model S the best car ever? We wrestled with that question long and hard. It comes close. And if your needs are confined to the Tesla's driving range, it just may be," reviewer Eric Evarts wrote.
Investors joined Consumer Reports in lavishing praise on the Palo Alto company's efforts, with Tesla's stock opening with a 25 percent boost that grew even larger as the trading session wore on. Shares opened at $70.12 and moved as high as $75.77, 35.8 percent higher than Wednesday's closing price; a late dip left Tesla shares selling for $69.40 at the close, still enough to value the company at just shy of $8 billion.
After losing almost $1 billion in its quest to be the first successful U.S. automaker to launch in five decades, the company's first profitable quarter led to a market capitalization that values Tesla more than at least one established company in the sector: Bloomberg News points out that Fiat, which owns Chrysler, as valued at only $7.8 billion.
The company was congratulated far and wide, including by the scion of the man who invented the business.
"It's really hard to start up a company, particularly in the auto business, and be successful," Bill Ford, great-grandson of Ford founder Henry Ford, told Bloomberg News when asked about Tesla. "We've seen many who have not, and so the fact that they are off to a really good start and doing well, I think, is a real tribute to them."
Equities analysts rushed to change their thoughts on the stock, with the biggest change coming from Litchfield Hills research director Theo O'Neil, who became the first analyst to put a triple-digit price target on the stock. O'Neil's increase was shocking for the massive move it made from his previous price target of $38, and even he admitted it "looks crazy" before explaining further.
"Tesla is clearly taking more and more market share, the leasing opportunities are growing, it is shipping to Europe where the economics are far more compelling, it has a pipeline of new products and the Model S may be the 'perfect' car," he wrote in an email.
At least two other analysts increased their price targets Thursday, according to MarketWatch, but there are still doubters who question the rush to pick up a piece of Tesla.
"The stock is trading like it's 1999 and we're in the Internet bubble again," Maryann Keller, of consulting firm Maryann Keller & Associates, told Bloomberg. "It has nothing to do with Tesla's fundamentals. It has to do with pie-in-the-sky aspirations that don't reflect the realities of the auto industry."
SV150 market report: Facebook's interest in Waze, Google's
premium YouTube kickoff can't help stocks
Despite Tesla's wild ride, Wall Street took a break from its
own record-breaking run, as the Nasdaq and Standard & Poor's 500 indexes
broke five-session winning streaks and all
three major U.S. indexes declined slightly. The SV150 was unable to defy
that trend, dropping 0.2 percent as some of its biggest names dropped.
Facebook declined 0.3 percent to $27.04 as reports
of its next Instagram-sized acquisition surfaced. A report in an Israeli
newspaper said that the Menlo Park social-networking leader was in talks with a
company in that country called Waze on a deal that could reach the $1 billion
level Facebook originally pledged for Instagram. Waze, which uses satellite data
from users' smartphones to provide maps and traffic info, would add to
Facebook's mobile buildup, and anonymous sources verified the discussions to TechCrunch,
The
Wall Street Journal and AllThingsD.
Facebook may need that mobile talent: It's leader in Android development left the company to venture into venture capital, just as Facebook announced that 1 million people had downloaded the Home app he helped spearhead in just a month.
Google also suffered a slight drop, despite officially launching paid YouTube channels, which the company announced in a blog post after reports of the impending change earlier this week. The Mountain View search giant declined 0.3 percent to $871.48 after hitting another new all-time intraday high of $879.66 earlier in the session. The company hopes it can recognize more revenue from subscription pricing for YouTube channels from Sesame Street, UFC and more, but was unsuccessful in attempting to stay out of the Apple (AAPL)-Samsung court battle.
Apple didn't get a boost from the courtroom win over Google, dropping 0.9 percent to $456.77 despite boosting its popularity in China and a journalist's work to disprove descriptions of the iPad Mini's demise. Yahoo (YHOO), which has been on a tear lately, slowed down with a 0.6 percent decline to $27.24 while continuing to acquire mobile talent with the purchases of MileWise and GoPollGo.
Netflix (NFLX) was able to buck the trend, gaining 3.7 percent to $216.41 as CEO Reed Hastings was featured in the cover story of this week's Bloomberg Businessweek just as the company announced a new deal with Disney for original children's programming. And if that effort doesn't help, the Los Gatos video-on-demand company knows there's always money in the banana stand. The solar industry also had a strong day, bouncing back from weakness earlier this week, with San Jose's SunPower (SPWRA) gaining 6.3 percent to $16.32 and SolarCity advancing 9.6 percent to $26.47.
After hours, Santa Clara chipmaker Nvidia gained about 2 percent following its earnings report, which showed stronger-than-expected revenues, and San Jose-based Ubiquiti jumped 10 percent after earnings showed a turnaround.
Up: Tesla, SolarCity, SunPower, Netflix, Yelp, Workday, Advanced Micro Devices, Gilead, Oracle (ORCL), Cisco (CSCO), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Applied Materials, Intel (INTC), eBay (EBAY), Electronic Arts (ERTS), Juniper
Down: Ruckus, Adobe (ADBE), Intuit (INTU), VMware, Zynga, Apple, Splunk, Yahoo, Symantec, Facebook, NetApp, Google
The SV150 index of Silicon Valley's largest tech companies: Down 2.74, or 0.22 percent, to 1260.52
The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index: Down 4.1, or 0.12 percent, to 3,409.17
The blue chip Dow Jones industrial average: Down 22.5, or 0.15 percent, to 15,082.62
And the widely watched Standard & Poor's 500 index: Down 6.02, or 0.37 percent, to 1,626.67
Also in the news: Twitter's new digs, Amazon's 3D phone
Twitter making moves: San
Francisco-based Twitter locked
up its first South Bay location, in Sunnyvale, and celebrated with the
acquisition of Palo Alto-based Ubalo. ... Amazon
developing 3D smartphone: Amazon is working on several new pieces of
hardware including a smartphone with a 3D screen, The Wall Street Journal
reported. ... Box
goes shopping: Los Altos startup Box acquired San Francisco document-viewing
company Crocodoc. ... Petaluma
company goes public: Cyan pulled in $88 million in an initial public
offering, but shares did not receive a big pop in their debut. Microsoft taking
look at Nook? Barnes & Noble shot higher after reports
that Microsoft is looking at buying its Nook business, and The
Wall Street Journal also reported that Microsoft is working on a set-top box
for streaming video.
Check in weekday afternoons for the 60-Second Business Break,
a summary of news from Mercury News staff writers, The Associated Press,
Bloomberg News and other wire services. Contact Jeremy C. Owens at 408-920-
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