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Lucid misses Wall Street expectations, narrows production guidance

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Lucid misses Wall Street expectations, narrows production guidance


Brand new Lucid electric cars sit parked in front of a Lucid Studio showroom in San Francisco on May 24, 2024.

Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

DETROIT – Lucid Group missed Wall Street’s expectations for a second consecutive quarter as the all-electric vehicle maker continues to address problems with the launch of its new flagship Gravity SUV.

The company, for a second consecutive quarter, also cut the high end of its annual production guidance to around 18,000 vehicles from a previous forecast of between 18,000 and 20,000 units. Its original target for this year was 20,000 units. It also reduced the low end target of its capital expenditures by $100 million to between $1 billion and $1.2 billion.

Here’s how the company performed in the third quarter, compared with average estimates compiled by LSEG:

  • Loss per share: $2.65 adjusted vs. a loss of $2.27 expected
  • Revenue: $336.6 million vs. $379.1 million expected

Lucid reported a net loss for the quarter of $978.4 million, or $3.31 per share, compared with a net loss of $992.5 million, or $4.09 per share, in the same period last year. Adjusting for one-time items including restructuring, the company lost $2.65 a share.

The company’s adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization was a loss of $717.7 million vs. an expected loss of $597.4 million, according to estimates compiled by StreetAccount. That loss widened year-over-over by 17%. Its quarterly revenue increased roughly 68% from $200 million a year earlier. 

Its quarterly revenue increased roughly 68% from $200 million a year earlier.

In addition to releasing its third-quarter results, Lucid said it has agreed to increase a delayed draw term loan credit facility from $750 million to roughly $2 billion from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, the company’s largest shareholder.

The company reported total liquidity of $5.5 billion to end the quarter, including the undrawn credit line. Its cash and cash equivalents were roughly flat from the end of last year at $1.6 billion, with a total financial runway into the first half of 2027, the company said.

Lucid also said it continues to evaluate finance and liquidity options outside of the PIF as it launches its Gravity SUV and develops an upcoming midsize vehicle, which isn’t expected to start production until at least late next year.

An autonomous robotaxi from Uber’s partnership with Lucid and autonomous vehicle startup, Nuro.

Courtesy: Nick Twork | Lucid

Regarding Gravity, Lucid interim CEO Marc Winterhoff said the company “remains intensely focused on ramping up production and addressing the significant supply chain disruptions impacting the entire industry.”

During the company’s last quarterly results in August, Winterhoff admitted there were problems with Gravity, saying the company planned to significantly increase production during the second half of the year.

Winterhoff told investors Wednesday that the company continues to believe it can achieve a significant increase in Gravity deliveries during the fourth quarter, despite the supply chain issues and an industrywide slowdown in EV demand.

Lucid CFO Taoufiq Boussaid said Gravity production increased quarter-to-quarter but remains at an unmeaningful level.

The earnings results come roughly a month after Lucid reported third-quarter vehicle deliveries of 4,078 units, which increased from a year earlier but also fell slightly short of Wall Street expectations.

Lucid has made several partnership announcements this year. In July, it signed a $300 million deal with Uber that included the ride-hailing platform acquiring and deploying more than 20,000 Lucid Gravity SUVs over the next six years that will be equipped with autonomous vehicle technology from startup Nuro. More recently, it announced an expanded partnership with Nvidia for autonomous vehicle technologies.

Lucid’s results are in stark contrast to fellow pure EV company Rivian Automotive, which on Tuesday reported third-quarter earnings and revenue that topped Wall Street expectations and drove the stock price up during intraday trading Wednesday.

Shares of Rivian — following near-record gains Wednesday — are up roughly 16% in 2025, while Lucid remains off more than 40%, including a 1-for-10 reverse stock split this summer.



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Piyush Goyal Dismisses Rahul Gandhi’s Farmer Meet Video, Rebuts ‘Fake Narrative’ On India-US Trade Deal

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Piyush Goyal Dismisses Rahul Gandhi’s Farmer Meet Video, Rebuts ‘Fake Narrative’ On India-US Trade Deal


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The minister offered a detailed reality check to counter what he termed ‘Rahul ji’s fakery’

Goyal reiterated that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s policies are intrinsically linked to farmer welfare. (File Photo: PTI)

Goyal reiterated that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s policies are intrinsically linked to farmer welfare. (File Photo: PTI)

Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal has accused Congress leader Rahul Gandhi of orchestrating a “fake narrative” aimed at provoking India’s farming community. Responding to a video released on social media by the Leader of the Opposition on Friday, Goyal dismissed the interaction as a stage-managed performance featuring Congress activists masquerading as genuine farmer leaders. He asserted that the dialogue followed a predetermined script designed to mislead the public regarding the safeguards in the recent India-US trade deal.

Rahul Gandhi has alleged that “any trade deal that takes away the livelihood of farmers or weakens the food security of the country is anti-farmer”. He was pointing to the recently concluded India-US framework agreement for bilateral trade, which is expected to be signed after tweaks by the end of March.

Piyush Goyal offered a detailed reality check to counter what he termed “Rahul ji’s fakery”, placing on record that the Narendra Modi government has fully protected the interests of annadatas, fishermen, MSMEs, and artisans. The minister categorically clarified that sensitive crops like soyameal and maize have been granted no concessions whatsoever in the agreement, ensuring that domestic farmers remain shielded from competitive pressure. He criticised the opposition for repeating “baseless allegations” in an attempt to instill unnecessary fear among the rural population.

Addressing specific claims regarding apple and walnut imports, the minister provided a technical breakdown of the protectionist measures in place. He noted that while India already imports approximately 550,000 tonnes of apples annually due to high domestic demand, the new US deal does not allow unlimited entry. Instead, a strict quota has been established, far below current import levels, and subject to a Minimum Import Price (MIP) of Rs 80 per kg. With an additional duty of Rs 25, the landed cost of US apples will be roughly Rs 105 per kg—significantly higher than the current average landed cost of Rs 75 per kg from other nations—thereby ensuring Indian growers are not undercut. Similarly, for walnuts, the US has been offered a modest quota of 13,000 metric tonnes against India’s total annual import requirement of 60,000 metric tonnes, making it impossible for the deal to harm local producers.

Goyal also took a swipe at the historical record of the Congress party, pointing out the irony of its current stance. He reminded the public that during the Congress-led UPA era, India imported nearly $20 billion worth of agricultural products, including dairy items, which the current administration has strictly excluded from the US pact. He challenged Rahul Gandhi to explain his “betrayal of farmers” and questioned how much longer the opposition intended to peddle fabricated stories.

Concluding with the slogan “Kisan Surakshit Desh Viksit”, Goyal reiterated that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s policies are intrinsically linked to farmer welfare. He maintained that the India-US agreement is a balanced framework that opens new markets for Indian exports like basmati rice and spices while keeping the nation’s agricultural backbone secure.

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AI disruption could spark a ‘shock to the system’ in credit markets, UBS analyst says

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AI disruption could spark a ‘shock to the system’ in credit markets, UBS analyst says


Mesh Cube | Istock | Getty Images

The stock market has been quick to punish software firms and other perceived losers from the artificial intelligence boom in recent weeks, but credit markets are likely to be the next place where AI disruption risk shows up, according to UBS analyst Matthew Mish.

Tens of billions of dollars in corporate loans are likely to default over the next year as companies, especially software and data services firms owned by private equity, get squeezed by the AI threat, Mish said in a Wednesday research note.

“We’re pricing in part of what we call a rapid, aggressive disruption scenario,” Mish, UBS head of credit strategy, told CNBC in an interview.

The UBS analyst said he and his colleagues have rushed to update their forecasts for this year and beyond because the latest models from Anthropic and OpenAI have sped up expectations of the arrival of AI disruption.

“The market has been slow to react because they didn’t really think it was going to happen this fast,” Mish said. “People are having to recalibrate the whole way that they look at evaluating credit for this disruption risk, because it’s not a ’27 or ’28 issue.”

Investor concerns around AI boiled over this month as the market shifted from viewing the technology as a rising tide story for technology companies to more of a winner-take-all dynamic where Anthropic, OpenAI and others threaten incumbents. Software firms were hit first and hardest, but a rolling series of sell-offs hit sectors as disparate as finance, real estate and trucking.

In his note, Mish and other UBS analysts lay out a baseline scenario in which borrowers of leveraged loans and private credit see a combined $75 billion to $120 billion in fresh defaults by the end of this year.

CNBC calculated those figures by using Mish’s estimates for increases of up to 2.5% and up to 4% in defaults for leveraged loans and private credit, respectively, by late 2026. Those are markets which he estimates to be $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion in size.

‘Credit crunch’?

But Mish also highlighted the possibility of a more sudden, painful AI transition in which defaults jump by twice the estimates for his base assumption, cutting off funding for many companies, he said. The scenario is what’s known in Wall Street jargon as a “tail risk.”

“The knock-on effect will be that you will have a credit crunch in loan markets,” he said. “You will have a broad repricing of leveraged credit, and you will have a shock to the system coming from credit.”

While the risks are rising, they will be governed by the timing of AI adoption by large corporations, the pace of AI model improvements and other uncertain factors, according to the UBS analyst.

“We’re not yet calling for that tail-risk scenario, but we are moving in that direction,” he said.

Leveraged loans and private credit are generally considered among the riskier corners of corporate credit, since they often finance below-investment-grade companies, many of them backed by private equity and carrying higher levels of debt.

When it comes to the AI trade, companies can be placed into three broad categories, according to Mish: The first are creators of the foundational large language models such as Anthropic and OpenAI, which are startups but could soon be large, publicly traded companies.

The second are investment-grade software firms like Salesforce and Adobe that have robust balance sheets and can implement AI to fend off challengers.

The last category is the cohort of private equity-owned software and data services companies with relatively high levels of debt.

“The winners of this entire transformation — if it really becomes, as we’re increasingly believing, a rapid and very disruptive or severe [change] — the winners are least likely to come from that third bucket,” Mish said.



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Without Rera data, real estate reform risks losing credibility: Homebuyers’ body – The Times of India

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Without Rera data, real estate reform risks losing credibility: Homebuyers’ body – The Times of India


New Delhi: More than 75% of state real estate regulators, Reras, have either never published annual reports, discontinued their publication or not updated them despite statutory obligation and directions from the housing and urban affairs ministry, claimed homebuyers’ body FPCE on Friday. It released status report of 21 Reras as of Feb 13.The availability of updated annual reports is crucial as these contain details of data on performance of Reras, including project completion status categorised by timely completion, completion with extensions, and incomplete projects. The ministry’s format for publishing these reports also specifies providing details such as actual execution status of refund, possession and compensation orders as well as recovery warrant execution details with values and list of defaulting builders.FPCE said annual report data is not only vital for homebuyers to assess system credibility, but is equally necessary for both state and central govts to frame effective policies, design incentivisation schemes, and develop tax policy frameworks.“Unless we have credible data proving that after Rera the real estate sector has improved in terms of delivery, fairness, and keeping its promises, we are merely firing in the air,” said FPCE president Abhay Upadhyay, who is also a member of the govt’s Central Advisory Council on Rera.As per details shared by the entity, seven states — Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Goa — have never published a single annual report since Rera’s implementation, and nine states, including Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Telangana, which initially published reports, have discontinued the practice.Upadhyay said when regulators themselves don’t follow the law, they lose the legal right to demand compliance from other stakeholders. “Their failure emboldens builders and weakens the very system they are meant to safeguard,” he said.



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