Recovering slightly from their 44% slide in October, shares of Canoo (GOEV 53.54%), an electric vehicle (EV) upstart, rose 13.1% last month, according to data provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence.

In addition to the company's reporting of its third-quarter 2023 financial results -- which included a more auspicious outlook for the remainder of 2023 -- investors celebrated an order that Canoo received for up to 550 vehicles.

Better-than-expected bottom-line results and a new order charged up the bulls' excitement

After trading mostly flat for the first two weeks of November, shares of Canoo popped after the company reported its Q3 2023 financial results on Nov. 14. The company reported $519,000 in sales for Q3 2023, failing to meet analysts' expectations of $610,000, but investors paid more mind to what they found at the bottom of the income statement. Whereas analysts had expected the company to report a $0.12 loss per share, Canoo reported an adjusted loss per share of $0.07.

It wasn't merely what the company addressed in the previous quarter, though, that garnered attention. Management said it now expects to report adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) of negative $85 million to negative $105 million for the second half of 2023 -- a less precipitous loss than the negative $120 million to negative $140 million in adjusted EBITDA guidance management projected in the second-quarter 2023 report.

A couple of days after the company reported earnings, investors received more auspicious news. On Nov. 16, Canoo reported that it had signed a contract for up to 550 of its lifestyle vehicles. The customer, Prime Time Shuttle, will use the EVs to provide ride-sharing services to customers in the Los Angeles metropolitan area.

Think twice before hitching a ride with this EV stock

Prior to the start of November, shares of Canoo had fallen 78% since the start of the year, so it seems that a lot of pessimism had already been baked into the stock price before the company reported Q3 2023 earnings and news of the order from Prime Time Shuttle.

While the stock is currently priced at a fraction of where it was trading hands after its initial public offering, EV enthusiast investors should continue to watch from the side of the road for the time being. A better course of action would be to wait and see if the company can succeed in delivering on the more than $750 million in orders that it has and confirm that it's driving closer to profitability.