What happened
Virgin Galactic Holdings (SPCE -11.74%) will report its financial results for Q4 2021 after close of trading tonight. With the company having just announced, a week ago, that it will reopen sales of tickets for space tourism flights (with prices starting at $450,000 per ticket), investors are naturally curious to hear more details about what's in store for Virgin Galactic.
Curious, but apparently not optimistic. As of 11:25 a.m. ET, Virgin Galactic stock is down 6.4% ahead of the results.
So what
With Virgin Galactic's spaceplanes having been grounded for the entirety of Q4, it's unlikely the company will have much to report in the way of sales or earnings tonight.
In fact, for all of fiscal 2021, analysts believe Virgin Galactic collected less than $3.4 million in revenue, and booked losses of probably $1.54 per share.
Image source: Virgin Galactic.
Now what
There's even the possibility that Virgin Galactic might miss those estimates, or give guidance suggesting it will miss estimates in 2022 (analysts forecast losses of $1.30 per share on revenues of $8.5 million this year) -- or both.
As TheFly.com pointed out late last week, despite the good news on ticket sales reopening, and despite the potential for good news tonight, traders actually increased their short positions heading into Virgin Galactic earnings. The "estimated short position on Virgin Galactic shares as a percentage of free float was up 2 percentage points to 22.7%" on Friday, reported the website, "the highest level in three weeks" as Virgin Galactic steps forward to report earnings.
In just a few short hours, we'll find out if the folks selling Virgin Galactic stock short were right to bet on a post-earnings sell-off.
