Lucid’s (NASDAQ:LCID) Q3 Sales Top Estimates, Stock Soars

Looking ahead, sell-side analysts expect revenue to grow 87.3% over the next 12 months, an improvement versus the last two years. This projection is admirable and shows the market thinks its newer products and services will catalyze higher growth rates.

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Operating margin is a key measure of profitability. Think of it as net income–the bottom line–excluding the impact of taxes and interest on debt, which are less connected to business fundamentals.

Lucid’s high expenses have contributed to an average operating margin of negative 553% over the last five years. Unprofitable industrials companies require extra attention because they could get caught swimming naked when the tide goes out. It’s hard to trust that the business can endure a full cycle.

On the plus side, Lucid’s annual operating margin rose over the last five years, as its sales growth gave it operating leverage. Still, it will take much more for the company to reach long-term profitability.

Lucid’s operating margin was negative 385% this quarter. The company’s lack of profits raise a flag.

We track the long-term change in earnings per share (EPS) for the same reason as long-term revenue growth. Compared to revenue, however, EPS highlights whether a company’s growth was profitable.

Although Lucid’s full-year earnings are still negative, it reduced its losses and improved its EPS by 57.9% annually over the last four years. The next few quarters will be critical for assessing its long-term profitability. We hope to see an inflection point soon.

Like with revenue, we analyze EPS over a more recent period because it can give insight into an emerging theme or development for the business.

For Lucid, its two-year annual EPS growth of 8.3% was lower than its four-year trend. This wasn’t great, but at least the company was successful in other measures of financial health.

In Q3, Lucid reported EPS at negative $0.28, in line with the same quarter last year. This print beat analysts’ estimates by 9.7%. Over the next 12 months, Wall Street expects Lucid to improve its earnings losses. Analysts forecast its full-year EPS of negative $1.18 will advance to negative $1.11.

We were impressed by how significantly Lucid blew past analysts’ volume expectations this quarter. We were also glad its EPS outperformed Wall Street’s estimates. Overall, we think this was a decent quarter with some key metrics above expectations. The stock traded up 6.8% to $2.37 immediately following the results.

Lucid put up rock-solid earnings, but one quarter doesn’t necessarily make the stock a buy. Let’s see if this is a good investment. We think that the latest quarter is just one piece of the longer-term business quality puzzle. Quality, when combined with valuation, can help determine if the stock is a buy. We cover that in our actionable full research report which you can read here, it’s free.