u/Mathhasspoken

Disclaimer: Not financial advice. Do your own research.

Most folks have covered the numbers by now. I think there's agreement on the growth story.

The good surprises for me:

-My sales estimates were much higher than consensus, but BE beat even those. (For full year, I had already previously expected 3.6B, and now increased further.)

-GAAP profits much higher than I expected.

-Operating expenses came in lower than I thought due to better efficiency on sales than I expected. Makes a lot of sense since fewer bigger customers are driving accelerated revenue.

-Share count was lower than I expected so that helped EPS. (This is one of the big variables that has huge impact on sell side analyst estimates, but is less predictable as it can depend on many factors.)

The not so good for me:

-Q1 gross margins were worse than I expected. So it surprises me when street keeps talking about Q1 margins being higher than expected. I expected that better factory loading would help Q1 margins more.

-Even less visibility and transparency from management.

-CEO speaks like he's the CEO of a private startup rather than CEO of a public company. Good public companies are more specific, direct, and transparent.

-The previously announced 1GW to 2GW expansion already implied >200 MW capacity ramp every quarter. And eventual 5GW is not helpful at all since that was already known as well. So the new language doesn't help those who want to anchor estimates.

Neutral things:

-Taxes were a surprise for me: they paid almost none. Likely because of historical tax losses that they carried as credit. So that helps earnings now, and maybe through 2026, but probably not beyond. I definitely missed that and that increased GAAP profits further than I expected. I think that they'll have to start paying more typical tax rate beyond that.

-Sales for the past 2 quarters are reported slightly differently. Actually last 3 quarters, but the oldest one impact was minimal. BE reports revenue using the standard practices (and probably required method as far as I understand) based on customer acceptance. But the JV with Brookfield changes things a bit. Based on my understanding, accounting rules mean that those sales can be counted once product is ready because BE itself is a part owner of the JV receiving the product. (If I'm wrong please please comment!) So some sales are POTENTIALLY pulled forward ahead of delivery. After 2 more quarters, this will be the normalized so all the YoY growth will include this. But currently YoY might be a bit skewed. These were the notes I saw: "Including related party revenue of $373.3 million, $574.2 million and $2.8 million for the three months ended March 31, 2026, December 31, 2025, and March 31, 2025, respectively."

Looking at how I think about this compared to Morgan Stanley, my 2 year sales remain higher than MS. But I diverge on long term. Now it's all about magnitude, longevity, pace, and valuation.

I think I mostly have a valuation difference, due to perhaps share count assumptions, and growth expectations in 2028 through 2030, and margin differences. I don't see their mid-2030s, and beyond mid-2030s if they do model that (I'm modeling that growth normalizes in the mid-2030s).

Based on the changes they made to their new model vs prior model, seems like the current beat of their estimates just flowed through all their quarters: their new went up 22% for 2026, 21% for 2027, 21% for 2028, then 36% for 2029, and 36% for 2030. To me it seems like they did a "year X+1 is Y% higher than year X", and after updating the near term deliveries, increases flowed through without much nuance? I think lots of analyst do that, but I personally think it would be better to apply more discretion. So I guess I have some skepticism in how they model future years which is where the company's value comes from. The analyst that covers BE at MS changed 6 months ago or 9 months ago I think?

My 2026 base case fair value went from around 205 to around 225. But it's sensitive and if I tweak some assumptions can get to around 280 for my EoY fair value. Given sensitivity here, context is my base case EPS for 2029 is $5. So a $300 stock would mean 60x my 2029 earnings.

I'll revise up if I see hotbox data from MTAR (I estimate 65% of BE's hotbox supply) that they are accelerating their manufacturing beyond previously disclosed plan (which runs into 2028 and includes a new facility). Another potential for additional upside I haven't modeled: if BE is able to increase power generation per hotbox.

What I'm thinking, and diversification

I certainly acknowledge that I'm on the more conservative side despite being very bullish on BE. My risk tolerance and ability to absorb volatility also potentially much lower than many other folks.

Given lack of transparency for forecasting ("trust me bro" isn't enough for me), controversies that management has had in the past (although now maybe they've moved from overpromising to sandbagging), and upcoming shareholder vote on something about "management exculpation" that seems to give very very broad protection to management from lawsuits (vote failed last year) I now have a bad taste at current price levels given how much growth is needed to meet expectations.

Maybe that clause that about management exculpation is something that's standard now, but I still don't like seeing it.

So, to help manage the crazy stress levels I have because of BE volatility, I've been looking to diversify.

Started positions in FTAI and SNDK ( SNDK price is painful, but I figure that just because I hesitated before and missed the big pump, no reason to miss on potential future performance). Debating whether to stay, exit quickly, or rotate further into.

FTAI thoughts and questions

Wondering if anyone has looked at FTAI? I really liked their earnings call this morning. While they do gas combustion (so more pollution than Bloom), I see some similarities to Bloom's playbook:

  • Their business today is servicing plane engines (which in itself was really interesting and seems like it had potential), and a financial arm that does lease backs. Based on the call the current business model looked interesting. And the company is already GAAP positive for the past couple years. But this is not what interested me.
  • What drew me to look at the company is their new datacenter power business.
  • They're converting some of their jet engine assets to aeroderivative gas engines. And starting at the end of this year they plan to start delivering the converted engines to customers.
  • Management said: loads onto a truck and can be installed in 2 weeks (!!), modular deployment that makes service easy, 10+ year service contracts.
  • Management said they will imminently be sold out for 2027. And are already well into booking 2028.
  • I believe target for 2027 was 2 GW capacity based on what they said in previous earnings but I'd need to go back again.
  • While they are new in stationary power and don't have a power generation track record, their work in jet engine servicing is likely helpful here. They are using aircraft engines that have been around for a long time (management claims the model, CFM56 is one of the most reliable engines ever). And it's also standard gas combustion rather than "new tech".

The business only start at end of 2026, and 2027 target was around 2 GW of generation capacity. But I'm new to the stock and so I don't know the company or quality of management. Anyone have any thoughts on it?

SNDK thoughts and questions

Also, SNDK crushed earnings and just keeps printing money. Their EPS guidance looks insane to me. Revenue was over 20% higher than consensus. Just reported quarter were $23/share (ahead of consensus $15/share). Guiding to over $30/share for next quarter (vs expected $23/share). So at $1000, the stock is just 20x of the past 2 quarters alone, and not even the full year! So if next 2 quarters after that are the same as the last 2, then that would me it's trading at a 10x multiple. I understand that memory is historically boom and bust and can crash hard because it's highly variable, but I don't see how demand slows given datacenters, and their historical competitors (Samsung, SK) who'd usually flood the market are focused on higher value products for datacenters. Maybe Western Digital could be a risk? But I think SSDs have advantages over standard hard drives. So if the opportunity is durable to do market, and more predictable (their have new contract model that forces customers to pay even if they change their mind should, and I think they said 1/3 of new contracts were using this model?), then why is SNDK trading at a trough multiple? Can anyone explain this one to me? (And why is SNDK down after hours! Expectations maybe were higher than consensus? Or maybe because there's lower expectation of beat and raise with more predictability?)

Disclaimer: not financial advice. do your own research.

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u/Mathhasspoken — 13 days ago