TSLA Stock Price Soars on Q4 Model S Sales Announcement

The key word to keep in mind when contemplating TSLA share prices, is “Volatile”. It is now going up, because before it was going down. It is going to take years for TSLA share prices to stablize. It won’t be until well after the release of the GEN III chassis before we stop seeing these sort of price swings. Meanwhile, I fully expect lots of controversy every time there is a quarterly report released by Tesla. There will continue to be a large difference between GAAP and non-GAAP profits. This is because of continued one-time costs, like opening new stores/markets, building new Supercharger stations, and launching new models (Model X). On top of that, the income doesn’t get booked each time Tesla “leases” a car, until each monthly lease payment is received. This effectively delays a large portion of their profits for 36-39 months under the GAAP accounting model. Meanwhile they have to report 100% of the expenses for building the car in the quarter it was built. No other car company has to report GAAP profits this way, because they shift all that off to another company they own. The most famous being GM shifting off leases to GMAC… Read more »