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☆ GM overtakes Ford as second best-seller of EVs in U.S. but still trails Tesla by a wide margin
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-04 | by ( Michael Wayland | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

DETROIT – General Motors pulled ahead of Ford Motor to become the country's second best-seller of all-electric vehicles during the first quarter, trailing only industry leader Tesla . 2 last year, reported EV sales Tuesday of 10,866 over the same time frame. GM still significantly trails Tesla in EV sales. Motor Intelligence estimates Tesla, which does not report sales by region, sold 161,630 EVs in the U.S. during the first quarter. Both GM and Ford have said they plan to overtake Tesla in EV sales in the years ahead, however Elon Musk's company is targeting significant expansion of its own EV production.

☆ How Ford and VW's multibillion-dollar self-driving car project failed
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-22 | by ( Robert Ferris | In | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Ford Motor bet a billion dollars on a startup called Argo AI to catch up to flashy tech companies like Google , Uber and Tesla . Volkswagen , the second-largest automaker in the world, signed on as a backer in 2019, investing $2.6 billion Argo AI at a valuation of more than $7 billion. By 2021, Argo AI was valued at $12.4 billion and counted 2,000 employees, with offices on two continents and self-driving tests underway in seven cities. There were plans to bring a self-driving taxi service to market by 2021, rivaling those by Waymo and Ford's larger Detroit rival, General Motors . But in October 2022, Argo AI shut down.

☆ UBS sees a $60 billion opportunity in EV charging infrastructure. How to play it
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-23 | by ( Jesse Pound | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

The continued adoption of electric vehicles in the United States will create more winners for investors than just automakers, according to UBS. We see EV adoption and the build out of the charging network as one of the pillars of this theme," the note said. The automaker has its own charging network, but recently agreed to make at least 7,500 of its chargers compatible with other EVs by the end of 2024. There are also companies that specialize in chargers that could benefit from the next wave of EV adoption, including ChargePoint and Blink Charging . The firm has buy ratings on Sempra and Exelon and said they have "high EV adoption."

☆ Electric vehicle stocks roar back to life in 2023 — Wall Street's favorite plays from here
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-08 | by ( Michelle Fox | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

The average analyst price target calls for at least a 10% gain in the next 12 months, per FactSet. It also has 82% upside to the average analyst price target. Rivian Automotive has a whopping 90% upside to the average analyst price target. Lastly, General Motors has nearly 15% upside to the average analyst price target, with 54% of analysts covering the Cadillac maker rating it a buy. While a majority of the analysts covering the stock rate it a buy, the average price target implies 1% downside.

☆ Ron Baron, who runs one of the best-performing funds, says Tesla could hit $1,500 a share by 2030
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-07 | by ( Yun Li | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Longtime investor Ron Baron said he's standing by his growth darlings, unfazed by the volatility in the stock market, especially in the tech sector. "I'm not really worried about the stock market," Baron said on CNBC's " Squawk Box " Tuesday. Elon Musk's Tesla has a 30% portfolio weighting in Baron's fund, the biggest holding in the portfolio. Last year, he revealed that this biggest purchases of 2022 included $100 million worth of SpaceX private investments. "It used to cost you $100 million to get to space, $200 million more for a satellite.

☆ Ron Baron, who runs one of the best-performing funds, says Tesla could hit $15,000 a share by 2030
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-07 | by ( Yun Li | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Longtime investor Ron Baron said he's standing by his growth darlings, unfazed by the volatility in the stock market, especially in the tech sector. "I'm not really worried about the stock market," Baron said on CNBC's " Squawk Box " Tuesday. I'm thinking $15,000 a share by 2030," Baron said. Last year, he revealed that this biggest purchases of 2022 included $100 million worth of SpaceX private investments. "It used to cost you $100 million to get to space, $200 million more for a satellite.

☆ Ford is set to report results after the bell. Here's what Wall Street expects
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-02 | by ( Michael Wayland | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

DETROIT – Ford Motor is set to report its fourth-quarter earnings after the bell Thursday. Here's what Wall Street is expecting, according to Refinitiv consensus estimates:Adjusted earnings per share: 62 cents62 cents Automotive revenue: $40.37 billionIn October, Ford confirmed its prior full-year guidance of adjusted earnings before interest and taxes of between $11.5 billion and $12.5 billion. Wall Street expects Ford's full-year 2023 adjusted earnings per share outlook to mark a nearly 16% decline from 2022, according to Refinitiv estimates. That's despite forecasting full-year revenue up 3.4% year over year to more than $151 billion, signaling lower operational profit compared with recent years. The automaker also forecast stronger-than-expected 2023 results, including adjusted earnings before interest and taxes of $10.5 billion to $12.5 billion and adjusted earnings per share of between $6 and $7.

☆ Asia-Pacific markets set to trade mixed after Nasdaq extends gains backed by technology
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-10 | by ( Jihye Lee | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

People pass along Ameyoko shopping street as they do end of year shopping on December 30, 2021 in Tokyo, Japan. Asia-Pacific markets were set to trade mixed after the Nasdaq Composite extended gains for a second day on Wall Street. Technology stocks helped the index skirt losses Monday as traders added to bets that inflation may be easing. The Nasdaq was the only major index to end the day up, boosted by a nearly 6% rally in Tesla . The Nikkei futures contract in Chicago was at 26,220 while its counterpart in Osaka was at 26,190 against the Nikkei 225's last close at 25,973.85.

☆ Bill Miller doubles down on Amazon after a rough year, while shorting Tesla increasingly
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-06 | by ( Yun Li | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Value investor Bill Miller said he's doubling down on Amazon after a brutal year, and growing his short position on Tesla . Miller said he recently bought more Amazon shares. His hedge fund Miller Value Partners held 695,000 shares, worth about $78.5 million, at the end of the third quarter. "I think it's one of the easiest names in the market," Miller said on CNBC's " Closing Bell " on Friday. AWS, Amazon's cloud-based segment, is worth almost the whole price of Amazon, Miller said.

Ram 1500 Revolution BEV electric concept pickup truck Stellantis"This is a vision, or a glimpse, into the future of Ram Trucks," Ram CEO Mike Koval Jr. told CNBC. The electric Ram truck is expected to enter an increasingly crowded segment of electric pickups that already includes the GMC Hummer EV, Ford F-150 Lightning, Lordstown Endurance and smaller Rivian R1T. Ram 1500 Revolution BEV electric concept pickup truck StellantisKoval said Ram isn't worried about being late to the segment. Ram 1500 Revolution BEV electric concept pickup truck StellantisThe design of the concept electric Ram pickup appears to be more of a lifestyle pickup rather than a traditional work truck, but executives said the production vehicle will serve both purposes. "The TRX (a performance version of the Ram 1500) has that in spades," Gilles told CNBC.

☆ The biggest losers of 2022 are bouncing back to start the new year — with one notable exception
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-03 | by ( Jesse Pound | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Many of the worst performing stocks of last year are poised to start off 2023 on the right foot as Wall Street looks to rebound. Major stocks that were down more than 50% or more were nearly all moving higher in premarket trading on Tuesday. The electric vehicle stock, which fell almost 70% last year, was down another 3.8% in premarket trading. Tesla fell below $119 per share in premarket trading. To be sure, premarket trading of stocks tends to be thin, and Tuesday's moves could reverse once the market opens.

Once high-flying mega-cap technology stocks tumbled in 2022, but some investors are willing to bet on Amazon and Alphabet in 2023, a new Delivering Alpha investor survey suggests. Betting on energy Energy stocks rallied in 2022 as the world grappled with supply constraints fueled by the conflict in Ukraine, but some investors aren't giving up on it just yet. When asked which areas they plan to focus on at the beginning of 2023, 41% of respondents highlighted energy stocks. Fundstrat's Tom Lee told CNBC last month that energy stocks can more than double next year even if the market stays flat . As uncertainty lingers, survey respondents also said they plan to look beyond the U.S. in 2023 toward opportunities in emerging markets.

☆ California cuts payments to homeowners for solar panels feeding energy back to the grid
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-15 | by ( Emma Newburger | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

The California Public Utilities Commission on Thursday passed a proposal that will reduce compensation provided to households for the surplus electricity their rooftop solar panels contribute to the electric grid. Utilities and consumer groups have argued the incentive payments have unfairly favored wealthier consumers and harmed poor and low-income households. But solar companies and renewable advocates have said that lowering the compensation would slow solar installations and hinder the state's goals to address climate change. More than 1.5 million homes, businesses and other utility customers in California have rooftop solar panels. The utilities commission estimates that these installations can collectively produce 12 gigawatts of electricity.

☆ Short Hills Capital Partners' Stephen Weiss would rather short Tesla than own it
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-08 | by ( Carmen Reinicke | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Stephen Weiss, the chief investment officer and managing partner of Short Hills Capital Partners, is very bearish on Tesla stock. Currently, Musk is running SpaceX, the Boring Company, Tesla and Twitter, which Weiss added is a "complete nightmare." Headwinds for Tesla, EVs In addition, he sees rising competition, a lack of infrastructure and a weak economy as major headwinds for Tesla going forward. "Now you look in a garage, you look anywhere, and you see tremendous cars that make Teslas look like Model Ts," he said, pointing to models from Ford and Porsche. Beyond his views on Tesla, Weiss recently sold Dick's Sporting Goods and Honeywell for profit in a rough environment to make money.

☆ Jack Dorsey’s Block backs bitcoin mining company that wants to bring 25-cent electricity to rural Africa
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( Mackenzie Sigalos | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +8 min

So in February, she began spitballing creative solutions with two friends, and the three of them landed on a sort-of counterintuitive idea: bitcoin mining. The new 533 kilowatt site in Kenya where 300 kilowatts will be used for bitcoin mining. We're not doing bitcoin for bitcoin," said the lead for bitcoin mining and wallet at Block, Thomas Templeton. Block is also working on a project to make bitcoin mining more distributed and efficient. Making the mining process more accessible has to do with more than just creating new bitcoin, according to Templeton.

☆ China EV maker XPeng pops 12% despite posting wider than expected loss; deliveries expected to fall
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( Arjun Kharpal | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

However, Xpeng shares jumped 12% in premarket trade in the United States as the company signaled it could see a bottom to falling deliveries. Net loss: 2.38 billion Chinese yuan versus 2.09 billion yuan expected. That was wider than the 1.59 billion net loss posted in the same period last year, but narrower than the second quarter. A number of analysts have cut their target share price for the company. Instead, XPeng will offer "incentives" to customers to buy cars in a bid to regain some lost market share, Gu said.

☆ Ron Baron runs the best mutual fund of the last five years — Here are his top picks
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-18 | by ( Yun Li | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Longtime investor Ron Baron's mutual fund has been the the biggest winner over the last five years as his top growth picks reaped outsized returns. The fund is focused on U.S. companies of any size with significant growth potential. The top holding of the fund by far is Elon Musk 's Tesla, with a 52% portfolio weighting at the end of the third quarter. Baron has been a longtime bull in Tesla . A relatively new holding Baron bought in 2019 is Iridium Communications , a long-time provider of satellite communications to specialized phones.

☆ Elon Musk is now working out of Twitter headquarters, thanks employees for long hours
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-11 | by ( Lora Kolodny | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

On Friday, Twitter 's new owner Elon Musk sent a companywide email to employees of the social media giant thanking them for working long hours since he took over on Oct. 28. Two current Twitter employees told CNBC that they were fielding calls from colleagues and clients about all the changes to the platform. Two employees told CNBC that they have not gotten formal guidance from the company's human resources department on remote work. This week, Musk told Twitter employees that he was reversing the company's previous "work from home forever" policy which had been enacted by his personal friend and collaborator, former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. Here's the e-mail from Elon Musk to Twitter employees on Friday, transcribed by CNBC:

☆ This Chinese electric carmaker's stock could rally by more than 260%, Citi says
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-01 | by ( Ganesh Rao | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Citi says BYD is one of its "top" buy ideas among Chinese stocks and expects shares in the automaker to soar by more than 260% over the next 12 months. Jeff Chung, an equity analyst at Citi, reiterated his buy rating and price target on the stock after the company announced earnings on Oct. 28. Chung's price target for BYD is significantly higher than other analysts'. The median price target from six analysts covering the stock gives the stock a potential upside of 60.8%, according to FactSet data. Citi analysts recommended investors in China adopt a "barbell strategy" — a mix of conservative stocks to protect against downside risks and "high-conviction growth stocks" — in their base case scenario.

☆ Welcome to Elon Musk’s Twitter Free Speech Zone
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-28 | by ( The Editorial Board | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Fixing Twitter might be Elon Musk’s biggest challenge yet, and this is a guy who hopes to die on Mars. After a long, tempestuous takeover process, this week Mr. Musk closed the $44 billion deal, marched into Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco, and promptly cleared out the C-suite. Users now await Mr. Musk’s plans for the social site, which are hard to distill into 140 characters. A good first step would be to emphasize that dissenting views on political topics like Covid-19 or climate change won’t be throttled as “disinformation.” Mr. Musk could move the company to Texas, as he did for Tesla . Simply getting the site’s employees out of the San Francisco bubble might help.

☆ Twitter 'cannot become a free-for-all hellscape,' Musk tells advertisers
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-27 | by ( Lauren Feiner | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

"Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences!" Musk wrote in a message on Twitter he posted with the words "Dear Twitter Advertisers." Musk told advertisers in the note that most of the speculation about why he bought the platform "has been wrong." "There is currently great danger that social media will splinter into far right wing and far left wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide our society." "Fundamentally, Twitter aspires to be the most respected advertising platform in the world that strengthens your brand and grows your enterprise," Musk added.

☆ Portfolio manager names 3 investing themes to back and what to buy in a choppy market
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-26 | by ( Weizhen Tan | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Investors will look to corporate earnings and forward guidance during this peak reporting season, with tech firms set to report this week. He said the three themes his firm is going for now are: income, energy and small-cap stocks. Energy Petrides highlighted one "interesting play" in the energy market — Master Limited Partnerships (MLPs), which trade like stocks but are really a partnership interest. Small caps Petrides said small-cap stocks have been "one of the best-performing" asset classes on average since the 1950s. Some small-cap stocks can be described as value stocks, which are shares that appear to trade at a lower price relative to their fundamentals.

☆ South Korea, U.S. in 'intense conversation' over EV tax credits, trade ambassador says
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-25 | by ( Michael Wayland | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

SAVANNAH, Ga. – South Korean officials are working closely with the U.S. government to adjust restrictive regulations on electric vehicles under the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act, according to the county's trade ambassador Tuesday. "We are in very intense conversation at the moment," Cho said Tuesday following the groundbreaking of a $5.5 billion electric vehicle plant by Hyundai Motor Group near Savannah, Georgia. Under the IRA, plug-in electric vehicles much be produced in North America to qualify for the tax incentives. U.S. Deputy Secretary of Commerce Don Graves during the event on Tuesday called South Korea a strong trade partner, but did not comment on the Inflation Reduction Act. Last week, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai spoke with Korea's Minister for Trade Ahn Dukgeun about the IRA.

☆ Ford asks dealers to invest in EVs as it chases Tesla-like profit
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-14 | by ( Michael Wayland | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Ford CEO Jim Farley poses next to a model of the all-new Ford F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck at the Ford Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn, Michigan, April 26, 2022. Ford is offering its dealers the option to become "EV-certified" under one of two programs — with investments of $500,000 or $1.2 million. Dealers in the higher tier, which carries upfront costs of $900,000, will receive "elite" certification and be allocated more EVs, executives said. It's an effort to elevate Ford dealers as the company seeks to grow sales across its traditional and commercial businesses as well as EVs. Tesla and other electric vehicle startups sell directly to consumers without franchised dealers.

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