Orders for the Fisker Ocean electric sport-utility vehicle are mounting up./(SUV) sits on display at CES 2020 in Las Vegas, Nevada
Bridget Bennett/Bloomberg
The electric-vehicle maker Fisker has no sales, so the financial results it reported Thursday evening are taking a back seat to news about coming car models.
The key focus is the blockbuster news Wednesday that the company that assembles iPhones for Apple (ticker: AAPL) is going to build a car for Fisker.
First the financial results. Fisker (FSR) generated no sales and lost a nickel a share. Wall Street was projecting a loss of 6 cents a share, so by that measure, the figures were fine.
What investors are far more interested in is the pipeline of new vehicles. The Fisker Ocean SUV is still on track for late 2022 delivery. That’s good news for investors, who don’t want time lines to slip. That vehicle is being manufactured by Magna International (MGA).
Reservations for the Ocean now top 12,000. That is progress: The number revealed in a December update was about 10,000 reservations.
Wednesday, the company announced a partnership with Foxconn, the company that assembles electronics such as iPhones. That sent shares soaring but details are thin. CEO Henrik Fisker tweeted out only a rough sketch Wednesday writing “It might be too futuristic for some!”
It will likely be Fisker’s second model, after the Ocean and is slated to hit streets in 2023. Pricing and styling aren’t known. Fisker might not want to tell investors much yet, but investors and analysts were expected to try, asking for details on the company’s earnings conference call Thursday evening.
Fisker stock was up about 4% in after-hours trading after dropping more than 4% Thursday. That trading action shouldn’t surprise investors. Things have been volatile for all EV stocks lately. Tesla (TSLA) stock, for instance, is down 14% for the month.
Thursday’s drop probably didn’t have anything to do with Fisker specifically. It was a difficult day for high-growth stocks. The S&P 500 dropped 2.5%. The Nasdaq Composite, home to many high-growth technology stocks, dropped even more, falling 3.5%.
Inflation fears appear to be the main culprit for the selloff.
Higher inflation leads to higher interest rates, which hurt stocks with high valuations more than other stocks. Fisker stock is worth more than $6 billion. That’s a big multiple on projected 2022 sales of about $440 million.
The yield on 10-year Treasury debt, a crude measure of inflation expectations, traded above 1.5% Thursday. It started the year yielding less than 1%.
Write to Al Root at [email protected]
