All Eyes Are On Tesla’s Q4 Earnings

In his podcast addressing the markets today, Louis Navellier offered the following commentary.

If you wish to listen to this commentary, please click here.

This is a very big week for earnings announcements and since this is supposed to be the trough of the S&P 500’s earnings, guidance will be more important than the actual fourth-quarter results for many companies.

Many big multi-international stocks have already posted mixed fourth-quarter results and/or issued lackluster guidance, including Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ), 3M Co (NYSE:MMM) and Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ). Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT) beat analysts’ consensus earnings expectations and then rallied on its growing cloud computing business, but then reversed on its cautious guidance.

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All Eyes On Tesla

All eyes are now on Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA)’s fourth-quarter announcement and its guidance sinceTesla just cut the prices of its vehicles.Tesla is going gung-ho to continue to expand. Theirsemitruck is going tobe built in northern Nevada, and thenmost of thoseelectric truck sales will be in California because California will be mandating those kinds of vehicles.

The problem iselectric truckscan’t carry as much as other trucks becauseit weighs more. There is an 80,000-pound weight limit on any semitrailer out there on the roads.

Locked And Loaded

I remain “locked and loaded” for the fourth quarter announcement season.Outside of energy and agriculture-related companies, it is pretty slim pickings out there for most investors. Essentially, our best defense remains a strong offense of fundamentally superior stocks. Outside of energy and agriculture-related companies, the other S&P 500 sectors are forecasted to post deteriorating earnings.

Redefining ESG

In the meantime, The Guardian on Tuesday has an article that predicted “environmental havoc” as the U.S. transitions to electric vehicles. Specifically, The Guardian said that the U.S alone would triple the worldwide demand for lithium “causing needless water shortages, Indigenous land grabs, and ecosystem destruction.” This is just one of many articles that may explain why ESG is being redefined to shun Tesla and battery suppliers.

The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday then had an article about how a natural graphite shortage for making batteries is now forcing the use of man-made graphite. Specifically, the WSJ states that “Most lithium-ion batteries use synthetic graphite, which is produced from a petroleum byproduct, mostly from China.

The WSJ then goes on to say that “using an energy-intensive, high-emissions process to produce graphite defeats the purpose of the batteries that power EVs and store renewable energy.”

According to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, which tracks the battery supply chain, the production of synthetic graphite can be four times more carbon intensive than that of natural graphite. Confused? We all are. As ESG gets redefined, it has the potential to blow your brain, since clean mining does not exist and making anything without significant carbon emissions is problematic.

Coffee Beans

A Maryland 9-year-old searching for shark teeth on a beach made her largest discovery to date — a 15 million-year-old megalodon tooth. Molly Sampson took her discovery to the Calvert Marine Museum on Solomon’s Island, where experts confirmed it was an ancient megalodon tooth. Sampson said she hopes to become a paleontologist when she grows up. Source: UPI. See the full story here.

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