Market indexes were mixed on the day, following a nice leg up in Tuesday’s regular trading session and virtually flat on Monday. The Dow gained +0.71%, +249 points, while the S&P 500 dipped a minute -0.06%. The Nasdaq saw the tech sector getting hit hard again, even with
Twitter
TWTR
rebounding slightly, and the small-cap Russell 2000 came in +0.37%.
The big news this afternoon once again has to do with Elon Musk, but this time with regard to a company he actually owns, for a change.
Tesla
TSLA
easily surpassed expectations on both top and bottom lines in the EV leader’s Q1 report: earnings of $3.22 per share sped past the $2.15 in the Zacks consensus, while revenues of $18.76 billion zoomed beyond the $17.28 billion expected. A very good quarter for the now-Austin, TX-based company.
Looking under the hood, Tesla’s Q1 performance is even sweeter: to say +29.1% margins for an automaker in one quarter is rare is to vastly understate things. Tesla continues to look on paper more like a tech name than an auto manufacturer. Ex-government credits, Tesla’s gross margins reached +30.0% in the quarter. Clearly, whatever supply-chain issues hitting the company are being passed along to the consumer with little static.
On the conference call — which Musk announced he will be on, virtually inviting questions regarding his potential deal to acquire Twitter — Tesla will need to address the issue of production in China. Tesla’s biggest market had undergone massive Covid shutdowns during Q1, and deliveries in Shanghai may be projected to come up short of earlier estimates. Shares of Tesla are +3% on the earnings beat, but still down -15% year to date.
Transportation major
CSX
CSX
also beat estimates in its Q1 report after the closing bell today, though not as impressively as Tesla: earnings of 39 cents per share topped expectations by a penny, with $3.41 billion in quarterly sales above the $3.29 billion analysts were looking for, +21% year over year. Revenue per unit increased +24% in the quarter, slightly offset by -2% in overall volume.
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