Plug Power (PLUG +1.80%) plans to grow its revenue 30% per year from 2025 through 2030, with Wall Street forecasting the hydrogen fuel cell company will do $2.1 billion in business and earn a profit that year.
Lucid Group (LCID 1.79%) has two of the top 10-ranked electric vehicles in this month's edition of Car & Driver, and essentially infinite financial ammo in the form of backing from the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, its majority shareholder (according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence).
Boeing (BA 0.63%) is bouncing back from its troubles with the 787 Dreamliner, doorless 737 MAX, and astronaut-less Starliner spacecraft. As the calendar flips from 2025 to 2026, Boeing's on course to earn its first profit after eight years of losing money, and is finally a winning investment.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
These are the kinds of arguments analysts use to argue in favor of buying stocks like Plug, Lucid, and Boeing. But if you ask me, they're all bunk. Despite operating in widely differing industries, all three of these companies look like losers to me. If you were to invest $100,000 into them, I'd say your chances are greater of seeing that investment go to zero than ending up a millionaire.
And now I'll tell you why.
1. Plug Power
NASDAQ: PLUG
Key Data Points
Let's begin with Plug Power, which I personally consider the weakest stock of this group. The problem with Plug basically boils down to a conflict between promises and delivery. You see, both Plug and its supporters on Wall Street have a long history of over-promising but under-delivering.
As far back as 2013, for example, Plug Power was promising to break even on earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) by 2014. That didn't happen. Nor did Plug report positive EBITDA in 2015, 2016, 2017, or 2018.
EBITDA was reported as profitable in 2019 and 2020. However, those were unusual years for Plug, marked by at least one earnings restatement and the highly unusual occurrence of negative revenue being reported in 2020. Whether you believe the 2018/2019 numbers or not, Plug promptly resumed reporting EBITDA losses in 2021, and has continued doing so ever since.
All of which is to say, when Plug promises it's going to do something even as soon as one year in the future, take that promise with several shakers full of salt.
2. Lucid Group
NASDAQ: LCID
Key Data Points
Lucid Group is another stock I've got serious concerns about. There are more red flags flying around this one than on a public beach in the middle of a hurricane.
Examples? Sure. Let's start with the fact that Lucid stock is down 65% from its price on the date of its SPAC IPO back in July 2021 -- the very definition of a broken IPO. That alone should give investors pause about investing in the stock. By July 2025, just four years after its IPO, Lucid's stock had sunk so low that Lucid had to announce a 1-for-10 reverse stock split to help avoid a Nasdaq delisting.
Even this didn't solve all Lucid's problems, however. The company was still short on cash and burning what cash it had left at a furious pace -- about $3.4 billion per year. With only $2.3 billion left in the bank (against $2.8 billion in debt), Lucid announced last month that it would sell $975 million worth of convertible senior notes.
This is debt that will probably convert into shares at some point, diluting the company's shareholders, and sinking Lucid's stock further. I don't know it will render Lucid's stock worth exactly "nothing" -- but it'll be closer to nothing than the stock costs today, that's for sure.
3. Boeing
NYSE: BA
Key Data Points
Last but not least, we come to Boeing. On the one hand, I'd agree Boeing's probably the strongest of the three stocks on this list today -- as evidenced by the fact Boeing's managed to survive for more than a century in an intensely competitive marketplace. On the other hand, I've serious concerns about the company's ability to survive another hundred years, at least in its current form.
Boeing's grown its revenue 28% year to date, and its losses are down 25% from this time, last year. The company's still losing money at the rate of $8 billion a year, however, and will probably miss analysts' forecast for "only" $6.2 billion in FY2025 losses. The chance that Boeing will swing to a $2.9 billion profit next year, as the same analysts forecast, seems slim to me.
This risk of back-to-back earnings misses, moreover, seems a poor reason for Boeing stock to be up 20% this year, and beating the S&P 500.
Although I expect Boeing will eventually work out the kinks in its 737 and 787 programs, the company is facing increasing competition from Airbus, and from China's COMAC, in civilian airliners. Its defense division remains iffy, with a big win on the F-47 contract unlikely to reverse a long-term slide in defense market share to rivals Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. Meanwhile, Boeing's space division is simply a basket case, exemplified by Starliner's recent exclusion from NASA-crewed spaceflight missions.
Boeing stock probably won't go to zero, but I expect the Boeing of the future will be a lot smaller than the Boeing of today.
