Apple no longer world’s most valuable company, GM moves to 52-week low, Rivian stock rises

Apple has been dethroned as the world's most valuable company after a rough start to 2022, GM and Ford receive analyst downgrades, and Rivian stock is up after mixed earnings results.

Video transcript

EMILY MCCORMICK: Welcome back. It's time now for our triple play, and I'll kick things off today with Rivian. Now shares of the electric vehicle maker are climbing after it reported better than feared quarterly results yesterday. Rivian's losses came out to $1.77 per share in the first quarter on revenue of $95 million. But it was Rivian's guidance that really has investors cheering this afternoon. The company reiterated its annual guidance of producing 25,000 vehicles this year, which was a welcome development as supply chain challenges continue to grip the broader auto industry.

Rivian also said it had more than 90,000 net preorders of its R1 vehicle from customers in the US and Canada as of May 9. Now, in response to these results, analysts have been pretty upbeat. Now Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said in a note, quote, "This quarter was not without issues, but it does finally appear that Rivian is on the right track." It's also worth noting that Nikola reported quarterly results last week and also reiterated its delivery guidance for the year. So these latest results do appear to show at least some EV makers are still managing to work through the latest stretch of supply chain disruptions, Dave.

DAVE BRIGGS: Wow, I'm shocked at the right track comment, because it doesn't feel that way to me. It feels like Ford has lapped them in a hurry. And today, they have a recall of 500 R1T pickup trucks. 500 may not sound like a lot. It's not for GM or Ford. It's 23% of the vehicles that Rivian has delivered that are being recalled today as of a faulty airbag if a child sits in the front seat. Just my particular take on the stock, it seems like a shocking result that it rose on news of a recall. But I guess they're still ingesting Q1 results. That Ford F-150 Lightning looks like it is well ahead in that field.

My play, speaking of cars, General Motors, who hit a new 52-week low today on news that they, along with Ford, were downgraded to underweight by Wells Fargo after close on Wednesday. Wells Fargo also cut the company's price target from $74 to $33 a share. Analyst Colin Langan adding, we are concerned that 2022 could be peak profits for GM. The stock has slid more than 40% year to date.

CEO Mary Barra says they plan to stop selling gas-powered vehicles by 2035 and take over the EV industry. But GM delivered fewer than 500 EVs in the United States last year. And shares at last check about 5% down on the day. They need to step it up in the EV category if they want to climb, Rachelle.

RACHELLE AKUFFO: I mean, you figure when you look at where Tesla already is and how much ground some of these companies have to make up, you really can't afford to then be slipping when it comes to production. But as we know, supply chain issues when it comes to things like semiconductor chips affecting a lot of the production and supply there for some of these EVs, so definitely one to watch. And staying in tech, my pick is Apple. Apple was probably asking where the love is. As with some of these other mega caps, it's off to the worst start of the year since 2008, down today, as you can see there, about 3 and 1/2%.

Now, this tech route is also bumping the iPhone maker off the top spot as the most valuable company, overtaken by Saudi Aramco, which is worth $2.43 trillion. Apple worth $2.37 trillion, according to FactSet. But to be fair, it's not an exact comparison because Saudi Aramco shares are only held by 2% of the public versus 84% of Apple's. But of course, you have inflation casting a shadow. We saw that Neil Campling of Mirabaud Security said investors will now worry if consumers' belt tightening will lead to lower appetite to buy the ultimate consumer accessory, the iPhone.

Now, of course, Apple is considered one of those staple investments, whether you're a retail investor or an institutional investor. The stock is down about 20% year to date. But if you step back and look at those last two pandemic years, the stock is still up more than 80%. Something that did cross, though, and it's regarding unions, apparently, Vice obtained a leaked document saying that the people could get a potential loss of career opportunities and promotions if they were to unionize. So that's a story that we'll have to keep watching and see how that affects Apple as well.

EMILY MCCORMICK: Well, Rachelle, this is a huge story to keep watching here because one of the things that analysts have been talking about is the fact that watching Apple is really a good bellwether for what sentiment is overall for the US stock market. It's such a major index component for the S&P 500. Just earlier this week, it had been outperforming.

But what Nicholas Colas, who's actually the co-founder of DataTrek, said in a note earlier this week is that when you start to see Apple break down, that could be a potential sign that we're nearing the bottom here. Of course, not necessarily a definitive sign, but because this is such a stalwart company, such an emblematic company, of course, the US stock market, US innovation, it is really interesting to see the breakdown in this share price, just in the past couple of days, and now with Apple down more than 20% from its all-time high.

DAVE BRIGGS: I would argue against Aramco in the short-term as the most valuable company in the world, but in the long run, has Apple peaked? Probably far from it, although it was interesting that that news came on the same day that Google rolled out their new wearable watch that's got the Fitbit technology and the competitor to the AirPods, which I think is a really underplayed debut that people didn't talk a lot about yesterday. But it came in well cheaper than the AirPods. And if those are as effective, that could be a big seller for Google and an interesting competitor.