Story Stock

Sometimes a stock with a good story will be valued more highly than traditional competitors.  Consider Tesla.  Investors have pushed its worth higher than Ford and nearly the equal of General Motors.  Yet, Tesla lost $674 million last year, while GM made $9.4 billion.  PR practitioners should be skeptical of such enthusiasm for a company.  Fundamentals still apply.  A business that can’t make money consistently is headed for a fall.  Eventually reason returns and investors realize the the “king has no clothes.”  Only a few companies have been able to grow with marginal earnings and investor support.  Think Amazon.com, which deliberately took losses for years as it built out its distribution system.  Amazon, however, had and has strong sales.  Tesla is still proving it can turn out autos efficiently.  Let Tesla show the least weakness, and it will plunge in value.  Elon Musk is balancing on a needle point.