Tesla deliveries fall short; BYDD closes the gap

Tesla deliveries fall short; BYDD closes the gap

Today January 2, Tesla (TSLA) reported a big miss on fourth quarter deliveries. And an overall yearly drop in deliveries. For 2024, Tesla delivered 1.78 million vehicles, missing analyst estimates for 1.8 million, and a total below 2023’s 1.8 million vehicles delivered. It was the first year-over-year drop for Tesla. Shares fell 6.08% in the regular session on January 2. Meanwhile, China’s BYD (BYDDY) reported global deliveries of approximately 4.3 million passenger cars in 2024. Though 2.5 million of those were hybrids, BYD’s pure EV total was around 1.76 million for the year. Certainly within knocking distance of Tesla. The causes?

Ukraine halts Russian natural gas shipments, cold weather spell looms in U.S.

Ukraine halts Russian natural gas shipments, cold weather spell looms in U.S.

And on the subject of natural gas.

On Wednesday, January 1 Russian energy company Gazprom said it was no longer sending gas across Ukraine because that country had decided it would not renew a deal allowing Russian gas to transit its territory. The action ends an energy supply route that dates back some 60 years.

About 5% of the supply of Europe’s natural gas flows through Ukraine. Despite the ongoing Russian invasion,Ukraine had continued to allow Russian oil and gas to cross its territory to serve its European neighbors. That generated revenue for Kyiv and Moscow to use in funding that war. This moves comes as the United States is facing a major cold wave that could persist into mid-January

S&P 500 finishes up 23% in 2024

Here comes Santa Claus?

Trading was thin for Christmas weeK. So time for Santa to put in an appearance on Wall Street? The Standard & Poor’s 500 finished near session highs, up O.79% to 5974. And Nvidia (NVDA), up 3.69%, and Meta Platforms (META), up 2.49%, helped drive an index of the “Magnificent Seven” megacaps up almost 1.5%.

Buon Natale from Venice

Last days for 2024 tax-loss selling

More than time to make the sells to harvest tax losses for 2024. It’s especially important if the volatility in some of 2024’s favorite stocks. like Nvidia (NVDA) let you to sell and then re-buy and then make sell again in 2024. Keep in mind the “wash sale” rule. The wash sale rule prohibits claiming a loss on a security if you buy the same or a “substantially identical” security within 30 days before or after the sale. Which is only a difficulty if you think that a stock you’re selling today is likely to have a huge rally by February 1. I think there are quite a few sell candidates where the shift in policy from the out-going Biden Administration to the incoming Trump Administration make getting caught in a regret rally is extremely unlikely.

Consumer confidence falls in December

Consumer confidence falls in December

The Conference Board’s gauge of costumer confidence decreased to 104.7, data released Monday showed. It was the first drop in the survey in three months. The reading of 104.7 was well below the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists. More troubling to me, the survey’s measure of expectations hit a five-month low.