What happened
Ballard Power Systems (BLDP 0.35%) stock is down 7.1% as of 1:10 p.m. EDT, one day after the company reported Q3 2019 financial results that missed on both sales and earnings.
Expected to report a $0.03 per share loss on sales of $25.6 million, Ballard instead reported a bigger $0.04-per-share loss on sales of only $24.8 million.
Image source: Getty Images.
So what
Ballard blamed its bad news on the "loss of investment in joint venture & associates...primarily attributable to the establishment of operations of the Weichai-Ballard JV," as well as "an impairment loss on trade receivables for amounts owed to Ballard for product shipments to Wrightbus."
Nevertheless, CEO Randy MacEwen insisted that "the global megatrend toward zero-emission mobility is accelerating and putting increased momentum behind fuel cell-based power for motive applications, including buses, commercial trucks, rail, marine and cars." He added that Ballard still has "a solid order book going forward" and, accordingly, reiterated his "expectations for the full year."
Now what
As for what those expectations might be, however...well, MacEwen didn't give any specifics on that score. To the contrary, the company's "2019 business outlook" hosted on its website states that "given the early stage of hydrogen fuel cell market development and adoption and the uncertainty of timing in contract awards and program deliveries for 2019, we are not providing specific financial performance guidance for 2019" (emphasis added).
About the most management deigns to say there is that "we continue to expect total revenue in 2019 to be relatively flat compared to 2018." That would be consistent with Wall Street's expectations, which call for Ballard to end this year with sales up less than 1% at $97.1 million -- and losses of $0.13 per share.
