Author Archives: Scalper1

Tesla Motors Gets Its Own Little Dot-Com Boom; CEO Musk Comments

Tesla the electric car maker appears to have finally shifted an important element of its business out of “park,” and CEO Elon Musk elaborated on it late Saturday on Twitter ( TWTR ). Finally, the Tesla.com Web address clicks to the website of Tesla Motors ( TSLA ). The 2003 California car startup has just acquired , according to reports, the domain name that was created in 1992 — it’s updated as of Feb. 17, under the brand-protection registrar MarkMonitor. Typing Tesla.com into a Web browser and hitting “enter” now redirects you to TeslaMotors.com. Stu Grossman, reportedly a fan of electrical inventor Nikola Tesla, used to own the site. Musk said Saturday night in a Twitter tweet: “Just wanted to thank Stu G for tesla.com. Know it meant a lot to you. Will take good care.” Just wanted to thank Stu G for https://t.co/7FlnbruWpL . Know it meant a lot to you. Will take good care. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 21, 2016 “It has long been a question on many Tesla (Motors) enthusiasts’ minds: When would the company acquire the Tesla.com domain name?” Andrew Allemann, editor of Domain Name Wire, wrote in a blog post Thursday. “It became more important when Tesla announced it was expanding beyond autos and into home batteries with its Tesla Powerwall. TeslaMotors.com doesn’t make much sense for selling non-motors batteries.” Allemann added that he’s sometimes typed in Tesla.com when he’s meant to go to the car site. Have you? Tesla.com attracted 50,341 visitors in December, according to an estimate by Web traffic tracker Compete. TeslaMotors.com drew 1.34 million. James Iles, a writer for domain name site NamePros, spoke with former Tesla.com holder Grossman . “Basically, I realized that I would never have the time to use the domain in a productive manner. Between family, work and other obligations, there just isn’t enough of me left over to devote any time to a web site,” the post quoted Grossman as saying, while detailing his travails in coping with people trying to reach Tesla Motors’ site, and noted that terms of the shift of Tesla.com to Tesla Motors were not disclosed. The last time there was some significant domain-name excitement was just back in January, when Apple ( AAPL ) was found to have registered Apple.car, with a backstory that tied to Google’s restructuring as Alphabet ( GOOGL ). Tesla Motors got its name in homage to the achievements of inventor Nikola Tesla. An old post on TeslaMotors.com says as much, noting that “we’re confident that if he were alive today, Nikola Tesla would look over our 100 percent electric car and nod his head with both understanding and approval.” Besides Wikipedia.org and Biography.com, dedicated Nikola Tesla fans can try clicking on TeslaSociety.com, a site run by the Tesla Memorial Society of New York. “Tesla’s A.C. induction motor is widely used throughout the world in industry  and household appliances,” the latter notes of the inventor born in 1856. “Electricity today is generated,  transmitted and converted to mechanical power by means of his inventions.”

Fitbit Q4 Earnings Report Could Be Catalyst For Beleaguered Stock

Fitbit ‘s ( FIT ) fourth-quarter earnings report on Monday could be an opportunity for the maker of wearable fitness devices to get investors interested in its story again. Piper Jaffray analyst Erinn Murphy said Fitbit’s Q4 report is “likely a catalyst” for its shares. She reiterated her overweight rating on the stock but slashed her price target to 24 from 60 on reset expectations for the San Francisco-based company. Fitbit went public on June 18 at 20 and climbed as high as 51.90 on Aug. 5. The stock cratered after a disappointing showing at the CES consumer electronics trade show in Las Vegas in early January. On Friday, Fitbit stock fell 2.5% to 15.60 after rival Garmin ( GRMN ) announced two new fitness wearables that will ship in the second quarter. Garmin introduced the Vivofit 3 daily activity tracker and Vivoactive HR smartwatch. The Vivofit 3 starts at $99.99 and features one-year battery life and automatic activity detection. The Vivoactive HR is a GPS smartwatch with wrist-based heart-rate tracking and costs $249.99. “While Fitbit has clearly been a very challenged stock year-to-date, we remain overweight on the stock into the Q4 print,” Murphy said in a report. “As we are now past the share lockup period, investors should begin looking at fundamentals again.” Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expect Fitbit to earn 25 cents a share excluding items on sales of $648 million in the December quarter. Sales in the year-earlier period were $370 million. For the March quarter, Wall Street is modeling for Fitbit to earn 23 cents a share on sales of $485 million. In Q1 2015, Fitbit reported sales of $337 million. “We view fiscal 2016 favorably, given already announced new product launches (with more to come), the opportunity on the corporate wellness side, and an attractive multiple entry point into shares,” Murphy said. Fitbit’s newest products, the Blaze smart fitness watch and Alta fitness wristband, are set to go on sale in March. Fitbit faces a host of competitors in addition to Garmin. They include Apple ( AAPL ), Fossil ( FOSL ), Microsoft ( MSFT ) and Under Armour ( UA ). On Wednesday, Pacific Crest Securities analyst Brad Erickson reiterated his overweight rating on Fitbit but cut his price target to 31 from 47. “Demand appears steady after the holiday, but days of inventory are higher,” Erickson said. “Our upside bias to numbers remains and valuation is compelling, but we are tempering our expectations for multiple expansion, given inevitably slowing growth in 2016, even as corporate wellness remains a free call option in the name.” RELATED: Fitbit 2016 Outlook An Exercise In Worry For Investors? Fitbit Gets Fashionable With Alta Fitness Wristband .