TrueCar Plunges On Worse-Than-Expected Q4, Wall Street Turns Incrementally Bearish

Shares of TrueCar Inc (NASDAQ: TRUE) were trading lower by more than 15 percent on Friday after the company reported its fourth quarter results.

TrueCar said that it lost $0.06 per share in its fourth quarter on revenue of $63.6 million. Wall Street analysts were expecting the company to lose $0.04 per share on revenue of $65.43 million.

Net loss for the quarter worsened to $27.4 million from a net loss of $9.8 million in the same quarter a year ago. Net loss for the full fiscal year also worsened to $64.9 million from a net loss of $48.4 million in 2014.

TrueCar noted that a record 750,108 cars and light trucks were sold to its user base by Certified Dealers in 2015, marking a 23 percent gain from a year ago.

Looking forward, TrueCar guided its first quarter sales to a range of $60 million to $62 million and full year sales of $270 million to $275 million. Both of the company's guidance figures fell short of the $69 million and $309.8 million the Street had already come to expect.

While TrueCar experienced challenges last year, "these challenges are the result of some shortcomings in the ways in which the company has executed its business model in the past, not the fundamentals of the model itself," Chip Perry, President and Chief Executive Officer said. "Our focus is squarely on seizing these opportunities for improvement so we can get this company back on a path to high revenue growth with healthy margins."

Wall Street Reacts

Analysts at Cowen & Company maintained a Market Perform rating on TrueCar with a price target lowered to $4 from a previous $7.

Analysts at JMP Securities downgraded TrueCar to Market Perform from Market Outperform

Analysts at JPMorgan maintained a Neutral rating on TrueCar with a price target lowered to $6 from a previous $10.

Analysts at B. Riley maintained a Neutral rating on TrueCar with a price target lowered to $3.50 from a previous $4.