2 ms·

They were expecting to lose even more money this quarter, so that headline is slightly misleading.

by gok 9y ago

pavlov 9y ago
What do you mean? It’s still their biggest loss ever, regardless of what they predicted.
- adsfasdfsad111 9y ago
  guidance matters a lot.
- ChuckMcM 9y ago
  Investors look at what management expected versus how they performed to gauge how well they know their business and market. When they say "We expect to lose $100M this quarter." and "only" lose $90M, even though it may be the most they have ever lost, it was less than they were expecting. So perhaps the business is better than they know.
- gok 9y ago
  The headline makes it sound like bad news. This was actually better than expected news. This would be like having a headline of "Sports Team Scores Least Points This Season" burying the lede that they actually won the game. To be sure, there is plenty of mediocre to bad news in this quarterly report. They still can't make cars at nearly the rate they expected. They're not even mentioning the the autonomous stuff any more. But the loss itself wasn't really bad news.
  - pavlov 9y ago
    If I was going to lose $675 million of someone else’s money, I might be tempted to cushion the news by first predicting an even bigger loss, then putting a positive spin when things didn’t turn out as bad as predicted - “clearly things are turning around”. You anchor down and focus on the improvement.
  - rdiddly 9y ago
    The most neutral way to put it would be to say "Tesla Reports Loss of $675.4 in 4th Quarter." So yes, there's some hyping going on, to get the clicks from all the Musk haters. However, this isn't a team that won the game; it's a team that lost $675M in 3 months. That's not wonderful good news that got manipulated and twisted around by the media. Not even if you use that trick where you make up a number ahead of time and then the reality looks good by comparison.[0] [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring Some will say it's an "investment" of $675M. That will become true if it pays off, but currently it's a loss, and will remain a loss unless/until it makes money. Investments vs. "bad investments" (losses) are defined retroactively in other words, and we dont know yet.
bryanlarsen 9y ago
Still not good news: they lost less money than planned because they spent a lot less money building a lot fewer model threes than planned.

They were expecting to lose even more money this quarter, so that headline is slightly misleading.

by gok 9y ago

They were expecting to lose even more money this quarter, so that headline is slightly misleading.

pavlov 9y ago

What do you mean? It’s still their biggest loss ever, regardless of what they predicted.

adsfasdfsad111 9y ago
guidance matters a lot.
ChuckMcM 9y ago
Investors look at what management expected versus how they performed to gauge how well they know their business and market. When they say "We expect to lose $100M this quarter." and "only" lose $90M, even though it may be the most they have ever lost, it was less than they were expecting. So perhaps the business is better than they know.
gok 9y ago
The headline makes it sound like bad news. This was actually better than expected news. This would be like having a headline of "Sports Team Scores Least Points This Season" burying the lede that they actually won the game. To be sure, there is plenty of mediocre to bad news in this quarterly report. They still can't make cars at nearly the rate they expected. They're not even mentioning the the autonomous stuff any more. But the loss itself wasn't really bad news.
- pavlov 9y ago
  If I was going to lose $675 million of someone else’s money, I might be tempted to cushion the news by first predicting an even bigger loss, then putting a positive spin when things didn’t turn out as bad as predicted - “clearly things are turning around”. You anchor down and focus on the improvement.
- rdiddly 9y ago
  The most neutral way to put it would be to say "Tesla Reports Loss of $675.4 in 4th Quarter." So yes, there's some hyping going on, to get the clicks from all the Musk haters. However, this isn't a team that won the game; it's a team that lost $675M in 3 months. That's not wonderful good news that got manipulated and twisted around by the media. Not even if you use that trick where you make up a number ahead of time and then the reality looks good by comparison.[0] [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring Some will say it's an "investment" of $675M. That will become true if it pays off, but currently it's a loss, and will remain a loss unless/until it makes money. Investments vs. "bad investments" (losses) are defined retroactively in other words, and we dont know yet.

bryanlarsen 9y ago

Still not good news: they lost less money than planned because they spent a lot less money building a lot fewer model threes than planned.