Introduction: Just as the so-called "want to wear the crown, you must bear its weight", the new energy sector "top seat", obviously not so easy to sit. After more than a year of soaring stock prices, the stock price of CATL has recently suffered many declines. "Ning Wang" is being re-examined by the capital market.
After a weekly loss of 240 billion yuan, evaporating a small Peng car, and cutting off almost one BYD in two months, the Ningde era was finally in a hurry. The statement is every day, and this time it is very different.
After a strongly worded statement, the world's largest power battery company began to fight back. Its stock price began to rebound strongly, starting from February 14, the stock price has ushered in three consecutive rises, from last week's close of 489.99 yuan / share, recovering the 500 yuan mark in one fell swoop.
Not only that, judging from the latest announcement of CATL, on February 14, Zeng Yuqun urgently conducted a "specific object survey" with more than 50 investors such as Hillhouse Capital, Hongshang Capital, Tencent Investment, Temasek, Sequoia Capital, Fidelity Fund, Warburg Pincus Investment, COSCO SHIPPING, KKR, GIC, CapitalGroup, etc., and explained the capital market's worries and uneasiness about the NINGDE era through more than 20 questions and answers.
As of the close of trading on February 17, CATL closed at 535 yuan / share, up 9.18% from the close on the 11th, and the market value increased by more than 110 billion yuan. What a statement of the most valuable, the most immediate research! A series of crisis public relations "combination punches", which seem to be working well at present, but is this really the case? There is an idiom in China called "empty wind".
1) Calm after madness
After the close of A-shares on February 11, 2022, CATL closed at 489.99 yuan per share, and the market value shrank by about 240 billion yuan in just one week. This thrilling day has been going on for a while. From the Ningde era to the high point of 692 yuan / share in early December last year to the present, it has successively walked out of seven or eight big yin lines, and they are all accompanied by high trading volume, showing a downward trend.
The author speculates that it is those fund institutions that bought a large number of shares during the crazy rise in the Ningde era, and sold a large number of Ningde stocks during this frustrating day. This is likely to be the direct cause of the decline in shares since last December. Even because the stock price fell sharply, the average loss of investors exceeded 1 million yuan, and the Ningde era also appeared on the hot search list.
What went wrong in the Ningde era? As far as the current public information is concerned, CATL itself has not released any news worth letting the stock price plummet, and its company's financial data has not exploded any thunder. According to the 2021 annual performance forecast released by CATL on January 28, 2022, the net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies in 2021 is expected to be 14 billion to 16.5 billion yuan, an increase of 150.75% to 195.52% over the same period of the previous year.
Then let's look at it from a fundamental point of view: in 2021, China's new energy vehicle sales will exceed 3.5 million units, and its market share will increase to 13.4%. In 2022, the industry generally expects that the sales of new energy vehicles will be between 4.5 million and 5.5 million, which is bound to drive the growth of battery sales; and the production and sales ends of the Cataline era are frantically attacking the city; at the same time, the company's work in reducing expenses and costs has also been effective, and even tens of billions of yuan of financing.
To some extent, the deep cause of the decline in stocks should not be blamed on CATL itself.
The author speculates that since December 2021, the main reason for the sharp decline in the stock price of the Ningde era is likely to be the correction after the sharp increase in the valuation of the stock price, and some investors have reduced their holdings and cashed out. At the beginning of August 2021, the company's price-to-earnings ratio was even close to 200, and it remained above 140 for a long time. Even as a growing enterprise in the Outlet of the Ningde Era, such a price-earnings ratio is really frighteningly high. After a long period of fanatical pursuit of new energy, it is also time for China's capital market to calm down and re-examine whether the valuation of the "leading big brother" in the new energy sector is reasonable.
Of course, the "King of Ning" could not have accepted his fate and been slaughtered at will. On the contrary, on February 13, CATL said in its "Solemn Statement" that a series of negative news about the NINGDE era being sanctioned by the United States, being excluded from the ChiNext weight index, and negotiating with Tesla are all rumors, so that people can see that the CATL era began to fight back in self-defense and preserve its trillion market value.
2) "Return of the King"?
The path of kings is not destined to be a smooth road. Although CATL itself is running well and has a bright future, it still faces the challenge of a gradual deterioration of the business environment.
The first is the cost pressure brought about by the current upstream lithium battery price rise, and at present, in order to compete for resources, Chinese companies have begun to roll inside, before the Ningde era on the high price of Hu Hu "lithium industry double male" to buy overseas assets, and finally Chinese companies spent a lot of money.
Secondly, after the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology canceled the white list of power batteries, it was under the pressure of peer competition such as Panasonic and LG Chem; and LG created an IPO record in South Korea after its listing, which will also attract overseas investors and distract the attention of the Ningde era.
Third, there is the potential threat of hydrogen fuel cells; in the Beijing 2022 key projects, hydrogen fuel cells have been mentioned as a very important position, and whether it is the Winter Olympics or policy support, hydrogen fuel cells are very noticeable. As a political and economic highland in the country, Beijing is optimistic about hydrogen energy, which may also bring demonstration and pattern changes to new energy in the future.
Fourth, some electric vehicle companies have begun to learn from BYD, develop their own batteries, or decentralize procurement, such as increasing the purchase of batteries such as Sunwoda, AVIC Lithium Battery, And Fu Neng Technology, thereby reducing the demand for the Ningde era.
...... These problems are often ignored when the market value is "bullish", but under the pessimism of the continuous decline in stock prices, it is likely to be amplified by cautious investors, which is not conducive to the stop and long-term recovery of stock prices.
For the Ningde era, the situation is indeed somewhat urgent, but there is no need to be overly pessimistic.
Known as the "battery brother", the Ningde era is a large buyer of lithium battery raw materials, and although lithium, cobalt, nickel and other raw materials may be oligopolistic, but compared with the oil resources concentrated in the Middle East and other regions, its market is still relatively scattered. Although the price of raw materials has risen sharply under the epidemic, considering the volume of the Ningde era itself, it may not be impossible to get a suitable price in the short term.
Although there is no policy obstacle for foreign counterparts to enter the Chinese market, since they dare to open up the market, they are not afraid of you, and in the face of the "Ning Wang" with a very high market share, what are the chances of winning? Looking back, hydrogen energy does have the advantage of large reserves and no pollution for lithium batteries. However, before hydrogen energy breaks through the difficulty of extraction, storage and high cost, it is too early to assert that hydrogen energy will become the main route of new energy.
Similarly, although many downstream electric vehicle companies have announced plans to produce their own batteries, after all, not everyone is BYD, and how many car companies can achieve the degree of BYD blade batteries.
In general, CATL is a company with good financial conditions and commercial prospects, and it is not difficult for its stock price to stop falling and rise in today's new energy vehicles. The key question is whether the capital market will change from blind pursuit of the new energy sector to a more rational review, as mentioned above. Although this will temporarily reduce the valuation of many related stocks, it is benign for industry and capital.
On February 13, the CATL launched a counter-offensive and issued a statement worth thousands of dollars. The next day, although the opening price was only 486 yuan / share, it was within a few minutes of the opening, the stock price was rapidly pulled up, the highest almost touched 513 yuan / share, and then after several twists and turns, but the stock price has not been lower than 500 yuan / share, and finally closed at 508 yuan / share, an increase of 3.68%. As of the close of 535 yuan / share on February 17, there is a great trend of comeback.
Whether the Ningde era can regroup, take advantage of the victory to pursue, and realize the return of the king, let us wait and see.