After more than a year since the beginning of the bear market, shares of companies such as Beyond Meat, Meta, Tesla, Eni, and Unicredit have been trying to hold their own against the negative sentiment and the macroeconomic situation with measures aimed at strengthening the foundation for the future.
The first tentative results are beginning to be seen, but the risks are not yet over, let’s look in detail at the companies that have stood out.
Stock analysis of Beyond Meat, Meta, Tesla, Eni and Unicredit
Beyond Meat Inc (BYND)
The company that vows to feed the world on plant-based and synthetic meat heavily sponsored in green circles and by Greta Thunberg’s movement, after some early years bucking the market trend, somewhat like what happened to Tesla, has gone through a physiological setback.
The stock trades at $15.54 a share with +$0.32 (+2.10%).
The company, just as happened to others in the last round of quarterly reports, failed to hit earnings by reporting revenues somewhat below analysts’ forecasts as well as earnings per share.
Earnings per share, stopped at -$1.60 against the -$1.13 expected by forecasts, but the figure that stands out most negatively is the one on revenues that deviated from expectations by as much as $30 million (expected at $114.27 million against the figure of $82.5 million U.S. dollars found).
Since the beginning of 2022, the company’s shares drop 19% but still manage to do better than the benchmark index, the Nasdaq, which gets a drop of about 33%.
The glass for Beyond Meat Inc is also half-full because of the analysts’ feeling that it has discounted everything there is to discount and one can look forward to future data despite the fact that this time the forecasts have not been released by insiders.
Meta (META)
Shares of Zuckerberg’s giant touched $114.22 with an appreciation of $1.20 and a +1.06% performance recovering from the abyss touched at the end of October.
The latest earnings, especially on the back of below-expected revenues and an obvious crisis in the advertising-based type of business, have forced the company to take a tear-and-blood cure to comply with the huge investments on the metaverse so much criticized by shareholders and the board of directors, which, nonetheless, remains a pet project of the founder.
One of the measures taken to secure the accounts is to implement mass layoffs for about 11,000 employees and many management figures within the upper echelons.
This move, together with a reorganization of the line of command, has allowed the company to enjoy immediate savings and put back on track an unsettling balance sheet after a very bad quarterly.
Meanwhile, new quarrels come from the old continent, the European Antitrust Authority has kicked off a formal complaint against Meta (Facebook, NASDAQ:META) over its use of user data and for the social network’s ad service along the lines of a lawsuit already filed in Texas and South America that saw the company forced to pay multimillion-dollar damages in both cases.
In the wake of the hype, an investigation by the UK competition agency also follows, which is investigating the same issue pending legal action.
The European Commission is hinting that the move to Meta is a warning to all other social and has been quick to ask Facebook’s competitors to remove confidential information from their communications to the regulator.
Give it a few days and more legal action will be taken against the other socials at least according to leaks from some insiders.
Tesla (TSLA)
Musk sees $190.95 per share with an excellent +2.56% today but is not smiling when looking back.
The stock is down 14% in the last month and the situation gets worse when looking back at the last half year (-25%) or even worse at the 12 months that see a 38% drop in the EV maker’s value.
Meanwhile, Tesla shareholders are on the warpath after the founder was granted $56 billion in stock options.
The disproportionate amount granted to Elon Musk as CEO by the board after this year’s underwhelming results when compared to past years has turned the company’s trustees’ noses up.
What is being challenged is the CEO’s lack of focus on the company having to divide himself now among too many companies of global and strategic scope.
The challenges have resulted in a lawsuit and Elon Musk could testify as early as this week being questioned on the issue by the prosecutor.
The legal action moved by the histrionic engineer predates the events that led to the acquisition of Twitter but this transaction lends credence to the shareholders and their motives.
Meanwhile, sensational rumors are circulating, Donald Trump is about to officially confirm his candidacy for the US presidential election and it seems that as his next competitor he will not find Biden but the real horse the other side is banking on instead of Biden will be Elon Musk himself, The CEO of Tesla would continue Biden’s political line with an eye to green and modernizing the country and for many he would be the only one able to counter the Trumpian leadership.
Meanwhile, Musk continues to make money and after the 6.9 billion returned in August, he sold more Tesla shares worth 3.95 billion US dollars, continuing the amortization of the 44 billion investment made on Twitter.
Eni (ENI)
Eni enjoys the expensive energy trend with a large endowment of cash in its coffers but closes the last session at a substantial breakeven 14.34 euros.
With a view to differentiating energy supplies, the country has been organizing for the future as early as the last year of the Draghi government in conjunction with the war events in Eastern Europe.
The Italian state-owned energy company has announced that the first cargo of liquefied natural gas (LNG) produced from fields in Mozambique is on its way to Italy and will soon be in our ports.
The cargo is part of a larger project called Coral South, a plan initiated with partners in Area 4 of the Rovuma Basin (ExxonMobil, Cnpc, Galp, Kogas and Eni) of which the cargo that left on Sunday, 13 November, directly from the Coral Sul Flng (Floating Liquefied Natural Gas) plant is just a first step.
Sending gas from Africa in this case from Mozambique is part of Italy’s plan to protect itself from the Russian gas stop after the invasion of Ukraine.
Claudio Descalzi, CEO of Eni, said:
“this first shipment of LNG from the Coral South project, and from Mozambique, represents a new and important step in Eni’s strategy which leverages gas as a source capable of significantly contributing to European energy security, also through the growing diversification of supplies, while supporting an equitable and sustainable energy transition. We will continue to work with our partners to ensure timely valorisation of Mozambique’s vast gas resources.”
Coral South started five years after its approval and had been studied even before the Russian events in Ukraine and despite the pandemic.
“This result was possible thanks to Eni’s particular phased and parallelized approach, effective execution planning, the strong commitment of all partners and the constant support of the Government of Mozambique. Coral Sul Flng has a liquefaction capacity of gas equal to 3.4 million tons per year and will produce LNG from the 450 billion cubic meters of gas in the Coral field.”
Unicredit (UCG)
The stock gains a timid 0.062% by registering a substantial breakeven at 12.88 euros per share, a favorable premise for a short-term upward trend.
Compared to the FTSE Mid Italia All-Share, it outperformed by 0.06% on the previous trading day showing more strength than the market.
Volumes are good and stop at 12,114,960 pieces traded, less than the previous session and also less than the weekly average, a signal of low investor interest preferring the stock to other racehorses and a sign of a possible beginning of a period of low volatility.
