Tesla Motors (TSLA) Stock Slips, First Solar(FSLR) Spikes on Earnings Beat

Tesla Stock

Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) shares are down in after-hours trading Wednesday after the company reported light numbers for its second-quarter earnings results.

The electric car maker posted non-GAAP EPS loss of ($1.06), $0.41 worse than consensus estimate of ($0.65). Revenues came in at $1.56 billion, up 30.5% from a year ago, but below views for $1.65 billion. Q2 GAAP net loss was $293 million, or a loss of $2.09 per share.

Importantly, Tesla said it delivered 14,402 vehicles consisting of 9,764 Model S and 4,638 Model X during the quarter, which was slightly higher than what the automaker announced in July.

“Production and demand are on track to support deliveries of 50,000 new Model S and Model X vehicles during the second half of 2016, with automotive gross margin improvement,” management said on Wednesday.

“Vehicle production efficiency is improving rapidly and we are now increasing our weekly production rate even further. Barring any further supply constraints, we plan to exit Q3 with a steady production rate of 2,200 vehicles per week, and plan to increase production to 2,400 vehicles per week in Q4.”

Tesla also said that total Q2 net new vehicle orders rose 67% from a year ago.

On Monday, the company formally announced its intention to acquire SolarCity (SCTY), the largest residential solar energy installer and generator in the US, after first proposing the acquisition in June. The move suggests Tesla is trying to move from being an electric car company to a broad sustainable energy business.

Tesla stock is currently down $1.56 to $225.64. The name prints a one year loss of 12.61%.

TSLA has underperformed the market, falling 6% this year as the S&P 500 climbed by 4%.

TSLA chart

First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ:FSLR) gained $0.36 to $49.60 in after-hours trading after it reported fiscal results for the second-quarter.

In its quarterly report, the solar energy technology vendor said it earned $0.87 per share, well above the $0.55 per share analysts were expecting. Revenue rose 4.2% to $934 million, above views for $862.68 million.

First Solar credited the higher sales to “module only sales, the sale of the Kingbird project and revenue recognition across multiple systems projects, partially offset by lower revenue from the Silver State South and Stateline projects which reached or neared completion in the quarter.”

Saying that the company’s operational execution in 2016 “continues to be strong”, CEO Mark Widmar noted that First Solar’s “lead line module efficiency exited the quarter at over 16.6%, and we further lowered our module cost per watt. We sold our Kingbird project in Q2, and our steady execution across our portfolio of systems projects resulted in significant cost reductions. With our recent decision to reallocate capacity to focus on our Series 5 assembly capabilities we continue to position the Company for future success.”

First Solar also offered guidance for the second quarter, saying revenue should be somewhere between $3.8 billion and $4 billion, as compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.86 billion. The management also gave its bottom line range of $4.20 to $4.50 per share, against projections of $4.19 per share.

First Solar stock currently prints a one year return of more than 9 percent, and a year-to-date loss of around 28 percent.

FSLR chart

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