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Stocks

Tesla Surges 14% on FSD Approval in China: Key Win for EV Giant Amidst Rising Competition

Tesla (TSLA) $193 up 14%

Good news for Tesla – Musk’s China visit seems to have paid off. The markets and the street love it and it’s great for those of you who had the patience to hold on to it. 

One of the key reasons for the approval seems to be the collaboration with Baidu, plus China was very keen for a win. Nonetheless, this is good for the market. Two heavyweights Apple and Tesla are seeing support.

Read on from Barron’s today.

https://www.barrons.com/articles/tesla-stock-price-news-china-elon-musk-8476fa2e?mod=BRNS_ENG_NAS_EML_BULLETIN_AUTO_NAH

Tesla Stock Soars on FSD Approval in China. 

3 Reasons the News Is a Big Deal.

According to Barrons “The win does a few things for Tesla. For starters, better driver-assistance products can mean more demand for Tesla vehicles in China. Second, it demonstrates the company can navigate complicated government regulations related to driver-assistance technology. And third, it shows that Tesla has increasing confidence in the quality of its self-driving car technology.”

“We expect this announcement to lead to a near-term uptick in FSD attach rates—which we currently model at about 10%—and improve the offering longer-term,” wrote Baird analyst Ben Kallo in a Monday report. Attach rates refer to how many people buying Tesla vehicles also buy FSD. “We also view this announcement as a potential pathway for Tesla to follow for entering new markets.”

“While the long-term valuation story at Tesla hinges on FSD and autonomous, a key missing piece in that puzzle is Tesla making FSD available in China which is now a done deal,” added Ives. “This is a key moment for Musk as well as Beijing at a time that Tesla has faced massive domestic EV competition in China along with softer demand.”

To help win Chinese approval for FSD, Musk needed to assuage regulators’ concerns about data security risks. To that end, he agreed to use navigation and mapping functions provided by Chinese firm Baidu BIDU 5.77%, the Journal said.

Baidu’s American depositary receipts, or ADRs, were up 4.1% in early trading at $104.65 apiece.

Categories
Enterprise Software

Rubrik’s IPO: Evaluating the Potential of a Microsoft-Backed SaaS Player in Data Security

Rubrik’s IPO is priced at $32 per share. Microsoft is backing this company.

SaaS business – data and data-centric security – this is a growing business with overall industry growth in the low twenties, from migration of on-prem to cloud.

Co-founder is Ex Nutanix

Company-wide revenue growth was only 5%, and the company is still in an early growth stage to have decent profitability but has shown a lot of promise with declining losses last year. Sales and marketing expenses take away a lot of revenue – they’ll need to keep this high to convert pure license customers to SaaS customers, at least 2-3 years.

Net Retention Rate at 133% is good for SaaS customers but this number drops over total revenue because of the large license revenue base.

A lot of big competitors in this industry, including Dell EMC and IBM.

Overall, given the slowing revenue growth, I would prefer to wait. I suspect the valuation is coming in too hot at an estimated 8x sales without the growth. Let’s keep an eye out, it has promise but I think we’ll need a better price.