The electric-vehicle start-up $Lucid(LCID.US)$ reported its third-quarter financials, plus extra data on vehicle reservations, giving the stock another lift despite recent eye-popping gains.
Lucid stock was up about 2% in after-hours trading, building on a gain of 2.2% during the regular session. The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average were both flat.
The company reported meager sales and a loss, but earnings don't matter much now. The company is on the cusp of delivering significant numbers of cars. The stock, simply put, is being driven by other things.
Lucid reported sales of about $232,000 and a loss of 43 cents a share, but the sale weren't from vehicles delivered to customers. Shipments started after the quarter ended. The money came in from the use of Lucid's battery-pack technology in the Formula E racing series.
Wall Street was expecting a loss of 25 cents a share from about $1.3 million in sales, but at this point, any earnings "miss" isn't important. Wall Street expects $1.7 billion of sales for all of 2022.
The company said that as of the end of the third quarter, it had reservations for 13,000 cars, representing about $1.3 billion in potential sales, and that the total has risen to 17,000 reservations since then. That implies they are in line to reach the $1.7 billion in sales Wall Street expects for next year. That's good news for investors.
Lucid also said it ended the quarter with about $4.8 billion on the balance sheet.
Investors might have expecting the stock to fall after earnings. The adage "Sell on the news" could certainly apply to a stock up more than 80% over the past month.
Two main elements are behind the month's gains. First, Lucid has begun making deliveries, allowing it to book sales. Another item on the positive list is investors' strong response to the $Rivian Automotive(RIVN.US)$ initial public offering. Rivian sold shares to the public at $78, but the stock was above $149 on Monday.
At current prices, Lucid is trading at roughly 40 times estimated 2022 sales.
Lucid management scheduled a conference call for 5 p.m. Eastern time to discuss the results. Investors and analysts will be interested in hearing about the process of ramping up production, as well as the outlook for deliveries in the fourth quarter and early in 2022.
Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com
Comment(2)
Fly soon
GGPI IS already delivering. I dont get it
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