Morning Blast: EV Stocks Soar (Mostly)

Pre-market action Tuesday morning has the three major U.S. indexes trading slightly higher: the Dow is trading up 0.02%, the S&P 500 is up 0.12%, and the Nasdaq Composite is 0.18% higher.

Monday was a good day for most EV makers. Fisker Inc. (NYSE: FSR) announced a $340 million debt offering before markets opened and managed to turn a premarket share price drop of around 6% into a one-day gain of more than 17% by the closing bell. Fisker’s stock has added more than 22% in the past month but remains down nearly 25% for the past 12 months.

Rivian Automotive Inc. (NASDAQ: RIVN) is up 84% in the past month but down more than 20% for the past year. Lucid Group Inc. (NASDAQ: LCID) has added nearly 28% in the past month but remains 60% below its year-ago level. Rivian shares gained about 3.3% on Monday, and Lucid stock jumped 6.44%.

The most impressive one-month gain has been put up by Nikola Corp. (NASDAQ: NKLA). The share price has more than doubled in the past month, while the stock is still down 73% from a year ago. Nikola’s stock added 4.61% on Monday.

Of the three U.S.-exchange-traded Chinese EV makers, only Nio Inc. (NYSE: NIO) managed to post a gain, but it was a sharp jump of 7.91%. Nio’s stock price is down more than 50% over the past 12 months.

What has changed? For one thing, sentiment. Virtually every forecast for new car sales indicates that U.S. EV sales are on track to account for 30% of new car sales by 2030. In China, new EVs are expected to account for 50% of new car sales by 2030.

Fisker’s convertible debt offering is another sign of change. Not only did the deal not take the stock down, existing investors were excited at the prospect. The basis conversion price was set at $7.80. That was 30% above the stock’s closing price last Friday. So even if the unnamed institutional investor converts the debt to stock down the road, the dilution to existing shareholders was avoided at the beginning. Or, if not avoided, at least made tolerable.

One more thing about the capital raise: Fisker didn’t necessarily need the money. The company had $655 million in cash and equivalents at the end of its first quarter. That’s easily enough to fund operations for another year. Fisker raised the money because it could, and the investor was satisfied with the terms.

Separately, Lucid plans to raise $3 billion in a secondary offering that includes a boost of $1.8 billion from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. The Saudi fund owns about 60.5% of Lucid’s stock, for which it has now paid around $9 billion.

What about Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) and General Motors Inc. (NYSE: GM)? The two legacy car makers manufacture EVs as well. Ford stock is up 9.68% over the past month and up nearly 30% for the past year. GM shares are up 9.4% in the past month and up 22.6% for the past 12 months. Ford added 0.6% on Monday, and GM closed essentially flat.

Oh, and Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA)? The stock closed down 1.76% on Monday, but has added about 10.3% in the past month, and is up 22.4% over the past year.

Here’s a look at how U.S. markets fared Monday.

Seven of 11 market sectors closed higher Monday. Industrials (up 1.39%) and healthcare (up 0.81%) posted the day’s largest gains. Communication services (down 0.92%) and utilities (down 0.42%) lagged. The Dow closed up 0.52%, the S&P 500 closed up 0.24%, and the Nasdaq Composite closed up 0.18% on Monday.

Two-year Treasuries slipped by 9 basis points to end the day at 4.85% on Monday, and 10-year notes fell by 5 basis points to post a rate of 4.01%. In Tuesday’s premarket, 2-year notes were trading at around 4.85%, and 10-year notes traded at about 3.97%.

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