What happened
The U.S. Senate passed a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill last week, sending it to the House for further consideration. Funding for electric vehicle (EV) charging stations is contained in the bill, but investors continued the sell-off in EV charging network companies like ChargePoint Holdings (CHPT -1.47%) anyway. As of Friday morning, the company's shares look to close the week with a decline of more than 10%.
So what
The week's decline should really be put in the perspective of a larger timeframe. Stocks of electric vehicle names in general, and especially those focused on charging networks, have been on a steady decline since the end of June. Even the return from Tesla shares has trailed the S&P 500 index in that time period. But charging network names like ChargePoint, Blink Charging, and EVgo have plummeted 40%, 27%, and 41.5% respectively, since June 30.
A ChargePoint home charger. Image source: ChargePoint Holdings.
EV investors were hoping an infrastructure package would pass that includes money for the 500,000 additional charging stations President Joe Biden had previously touted. The bill in its current form includes approximately $15 billion for electric vehicles. But that's a small portion of the total bill, and it's unclear at this point what will specifically be geared toward charging infrastructure. Additionally, stocks in the charging sector had run up ahead of the bill's Senate passage. ChargePoint shares, for example, rose 37% in just May and June.
Now what
Even with the decline in shares, ChargePoint has a market cap of $6.7 billion. That is for a company that confirmed to investors in its first-quarter 2021 financial update that it expects just $200 million in revenue for the full year at the midpoint of its guidance. The company is growing, however, and first-quarter revenue increased 24% year over year.
ChargePoint will provide its next quarterly update on Sept. 1. Investors should pay close attention to any change in guidance, as continuing significant growth in revenue is already priced in the shares. Holders of the stock should know it is still a long-term, speculative holding at this point.
