Rivian stock is falling. The EV maker came in short all over the place.

font size

electric truck start

Rivian Cars

mentioned Fourth Quarter Results Thursday afternoon. Sales and the end result Loss of street expectations.

This isn’t as big of a deal as the steering, which also feels light. Rivian (Ticker: RIVN) stock is down in post-closing trading.

Rivian reported a loss of $4.83 per share on sales of $54 million. Wall Street was expecting a loss of about $2 per share on sales of $64 million.

However, sales and profits don’t matter much at the moment. Rivian has just started shipping vehicles. Investors and analysts are more interested in increasing production at the company’s plant in Illinois.

The company delivered 920 vehicles in the fourth quarter. Rivian reported about 83,000 pre-orders as of Tuesday, up from about 71,000 in December.

Rivian plans to ship about 25,000 vehicles a year, compared to Wall Street forecasts of about 40,000.

The production ramp is simply moving slower than expected. Rivian manufactured 2,425 vehicles, again as of Tuesday, of which 1,410 were in 2022. Mizuho analyst Vijay Rakesh It was expecting about 4,000 units to be delivered in the first quarter. This estimate seems like a stretch now.

The management has commented the slow way on supply chain issues. “We need to talk to and pressure more [suppliers] “To make sure it scales up as quickly as the rest of our product line,” CEO RJ Scaringe said on the company’s conference call. “But ultimately, our ability to go up this year will continue to go up the slopes of suppliers.”

Rivian stock is down nearly 13% in the trading period after the close. The stock closed down by 6.4% in regular trading. The

Standard & Poor’s 500

And the

Dow Jones Industrial Average

It ended trading down 0.4% and 0.3%, respectively.

It was a tough day for many electric car producers.

Tesla

TSLA stock fell 2.4%.

NIO

(NIO) American Depository Receipts I finish approximately 12%. Oil prices have fallen about 14% over the past two days, which may ease fears that gasoline prices will continue to rise. Higher gas prices make electric vehicles appear more attractive on the margins than conventional vehicles.

Investors should be prepared for Friday’s stock volatility. options markets Implied Rivian stock will move about 18%, up or down, after earnings.

It may be difficult for investors to tolerate such moves, but the volatility outlook after Rivian’s earnings report likely won’t come as a surprise. Heading into Thursday, Rivan’s stock has moved more than 4%, up or down, in 11 of the past 13 trading sessions.

Moreover, as of the close of trading Thursday, Rivian stock is down nearly 60% year-to-date, down nearly 77% from a record high of Nearly $180 a share. Inflation, rising interest rates and the Russia-Ukrainian war have exhausted some of the investors’ desire to hold high-growth value stocks.

Rivian qualifies as one of those. The shares are trading at about 12 times the estimated 2022 sales.

Rivian itself deserves some of the blame for the recent declines in stocks, too. In early March, shares fell 13.5% after the company tried to To raise prices for their vehicles for current bookings. company Reverse Its decision after a day or two.

Management said on a conference call about its earnings that the company canceled the reservation after pricing was made. But after rolling back the price increases on existing bookings, “we’ve had huge re-orders and more than half of our customers have asked for them to be put back,” Scaringe added.

Overall, it looks like a tough quarter for a company going through some initial growth pains.

Corrections and amplifications:

Rivian shares are trading at 12 times estimated sales. An earlier version of this article stated that it traded at 12 times the estimated earnings.

Write to Al Root at [email protected]