Tag Archives: apple

Tesla Stock Lifts As Model 3 Lines Stretch: How Many Orders Per Hour?

Would-be buyers lined up at Tesla Motors ( TSLA ) stores around the world Thursday to grab the first reservations, a $1,000 proposition, for the electric Model 3 that will be unveiled Thursday night. And Tesla stock rose 1.3% on the stock market today , to 229.77, after rising as much as 4.6%. Dozens of people lined up, and some camped out, at stores in Australia, where some of the first reservations were taken, according to reports. Tesla posted to Twitter clips of others waiting in Los Angeles and Bellevue, Wash. “While difficult to extrapolate too much from only a modest number of store visits, it is stunning to see customers line-up to place a deposit on a car,” Stifel analyst James Albertine said in a Thursday afternoon research note. “We estimate stores began the day at a pace of 30-40 orders per hour at the two locations we visited with lines stretching in the low hundreds.” At $1,000, Model 3 reservations set a far lower bar than the $5,000 reservations that were required for the Model S sedan and Model X crossover. Are Tesla Model 3 deposits refundable? Tesla says yes. Analysts predict that reservations will amount to billions of dollars in short order, but they’re divided on just how quickly reservations could reach 100,000. Wooooow! RT @BharathNA Not a small line in Bellevue. And it's only 7.30am #tesla #Model3 pic.twitter.com/2UiuwRRzQb — Tesla Motors (@TeslaMotors) March 31, 2016 The Model 3 is a crucial car for Tesla, which is expected to try to boost its annual sales pace by about 10 times to 500,000 vehicles by 2020. At $35,000 — half the price of the Model S and the Model X —  the Model 3 is seen competing with the BMW 3 Series and other gas-powered, entry-level luxury cars from the  Volkswagen ( VLKAY ) Audi brand and the Mercedes-Benz brand from  Daimler ( DDAIF ). It will also be competing against next-generation electric cars and hybrid cars from conventional automakers such as General Motors ( GM ) with its Chevrolet Bolt EV, and maybe eventually with a rumored Apple ( AAPL ) car, though the exact nature of Apple’s auto-related Project Titan  hasn’t been specified. Tesla Model 3 Reservations: Analyst Forecasts How many Model 3 reservations will Tesla get? Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry is a bull, predicting in a research note Wednesday that the “Tesla Model 3 will break all the records in Consumer Tech in dollar terms for pre-order bookings.” He says it is widely believed that bookings could reach 100,000 by the end of the weekend, amounting to “$3.5 billion worth of pre-orders.” Stifel analyst Albertine has predicted a slower ramp-up. “Though this is just a guess, we anticipate reservation figures in the days following the launch (if disclosed) would be in the range of 15,000-20,000,” he said in a research note in early March. He had been expecting 50,000 to 100,000 worldwide Model 3 reservations in six to eight months after Thursday’s launch. In a Thursday afternoon interview, Albertine indicated that the pace of pre-orders gives room for optimism that early reservations numbers could be stronger than expected. He notes that at just $1,000 each, “some attrition is expected” after people make reservations. Can Tesla Shift From Luxury Electric Niche To Mass-Market Model 3? https://t.co/lOUKNj6gDt pic.twitter.com/pTF7vjQMGx — Investors.com (@IBDinvestors) March 29, 2016 Tesla is not highly rated by IBD at moment, with a Composite Rating of just 28 out of a possible 99, factoring in earnings growth, stock performance and a variety of other measures. Tesla stock has risen 63% from February’s 27-month low but is down 4% for 2016. RELATED: Tesla Motors’ $30 Billion Question: Can Model 3 Outdo Big Car Brands? .

Can Struggling BlackBerry Show Improvements With Q4 Earnings?

Deep in a turnaround that aims to reverse a long deceleration in revenue, BlackBerry ( BBRY ) is set to report earnings before the market open Friday. The smartphone maker that once dominated the field prior to the Apple ( AAPL ) iPhone and Alphabet ’s ( GOOGL ) Android is pivoting to other areas. BlackBerry has made several acquisitions in the last two years, among them its $425 million purchase of software company Good Technology. The deal widely expanded BlackBerry’s security software platform to other smartphones and operating systems. BlackBerry will report fiscal fourth quarter earnings for the period that ended Feb. 29. The consensus estimate on revenue is $563.2 million — down 15% year over year but an improvement over the 31% drop in the prior quarter. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expect BlackBerry to report a loss of 10 cents per share. “While the company may currently be showing possible signs of a recovery, we note that much of this strength can be attributed to IP licensing sales of $53 million last quarter,” wrote Credit Suisse analyst Kulbinder Garcha. He has an underperform rating on BlackBerry and a price target of 6. BlackBerry stock closed at 8.09 Thursday, up 1%. Since hitting a low of 6.39 on Feb. 11, the stock is up 26%. “We believe the company is still faced with a challenging transition ahead,” Garcha wrote. “Despite strong software revenue last quarter of $162 million, we doubt the sustainability of the software business, as the IP licensing revenue seems unpredictable.”

Yahoo Preps Legal ‘Nuclear Weapon’: Report; Proxy Battle Looms

Yahoo ( YHOO ) is implementing “proxy access” — an increasingly used strategy making it easier for longtime shareholders to nominate a board member — as the company girds for what’s being called an epic proxy battle. “It is the nuclear weapon that is a measure of last resort,” Bess Joffe, head of corporate governance at major asset manager TIAA-CREF,  told the Wall Street Journal in January about why more companies are adopting the “proxy access” measure. Yahoo said that it had amended its bylaws to allow a stockholder or group of as many as 20 investors that hold at least 3% of its shares continuously for three years to nominate directors, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. The move goes into effect after Yahoo’s 2016 annual meeting, which is expected in June or July. Activist hedge fund investor Starboard Value has nominated its full slate of directors under Yahoo’s existing bylaws. The newly announced proxy-access change wouldn’t have affected Starboard’s ability to replace the directors even if proxy access had been in place for the upcoming meeting, Patrick McGurn, special counsel for proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services, told the WSJ. About 21% of S&P 500 companies have adopted proxy access, up from about 1% in 2014, according to ISS. Apple ( AAPL ) amended its company bylaws in December to make it easier for shareholders to make board nominations.  General Electric ( GE ) and AT&T ( T ) are among other companies that have instituted proxy access, said the WSJ, with 117 U.S. companies embracing the change last year. At the annual meeting, Yahoo shareholders will vote on whether to replace all nine board members with a slate nominated by Starboard, which wants to see change. Starboard  said last week that since Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer and others in the company’s leadership “have repeatedly failed shareholders,” the hedge fund wants to sweep out all of the ailing Web company’s directors and replace them with its own slate. Yahoo advisors have contacted potential buyers, including Verizon Communications ( VZ ), IAC/InterActivecorp ( IAC ) and Time ( TIME ), as well as private-equity firms TPG and KKR ( KKR ). Yahoo stock rose a fraction in the stock market today , to 36.81.