🎯 Tesla's core business is struggling

Plus a look a Gold's recent surge, and Meta's FTC disclosures.

Welcome back to another issue of Trendline! Lets dive into today’s charts 👇️

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1) Tesla’s core business is struggling: Tesla’s core business is selling electric cars and that’s not been going well. Revenue from car sales has declined 12% in the last 15 months, from $80.6B in Dec’24 (trailing 12 months) to only $70.7B in Mar’25 (trailing 12 months). Revenue in US has grown modestly in this time period, however, Tesla is struggling in other markets: Total revenue has declined by 5% in China and 10% in other geographies (mainly Europe) in the same time period.

While Elon Musk’s political involvement may be driving a negative shift in sentiment, competition from Chinese EV makers like BYD, both locally in China, as well as in European markets, is a big reason behind Tesla’s struggles.

However, there is not all bad news for the company. While still very nascent, its energy storage business line has grown 87% from ~$6B in Dec’24 (trailing 12 months) to ~$11.2B in Mar’25 (trailing 12 months).

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2) People spend more than 50% of their time on Facebook watching videos: Meta is fighting the FTC on Anitrust case - so there are lots of interesting data and disclosures from those documents. Sharing a chart I found interesting below - Almost 55% of time spend on Facebook is watching videos - up from little over 10% in 2015. That’s a 5x jump in 10 years.

Will be sharing more interesting content from the disclosures in upcoming issues as I make my way through the docs. If you are in a hurry, have a look at this link, especially if you want to see how Mark Zuckerberg thinks about social.

FTC disclosures

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3) Gold surges past S&P 500: For most of the past five years, gold trailed behind equities. But that dynamic has flipped recently.

As shown in the chart below, gold (tracked via the GLD ETF) has now outperformed the S&P 500 (SPY) in cumulative 5-year returns—up 66.9% versus 54.7%.

What’s caused this recent surge in gold? In one word - uncertainty. Investors are trying to make sense of short and long term impact of US’s tariffs and that has led to investors pulling money away from equities (and indeed bonds too) and moving to safe haven assets like gold.

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Important Disclaimer: The content in this newsletter is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered financial or investment advice. Always do your own research or consult a professional before making financial decisions.