After markets close Wednesday afternoon, Tesla Motors Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) is scheduled to report fourth-quarter and full-year 2014 results. Consensus estimates call for earnings per share (EPS) of $0.31 on revenues of $1.23 billion. In the fourth quarter of 2013. Tesla posted EPS of $0.33 on revenues of $761.34 million.

At the end of the third quarter, Tesla said that it was investing to ramp production to 2,000 vehicles a week by the end of 2015, and that the company expects 2015 production to increase by 50% over 2014 production and for that rate of increase to continue for several more years. Tesla delivered nearly 7,800 vehicles in the third quarter, leaving it about 2,000 units short of the announced goal of 35,000 units for the year.

Actual production and sales and profits have little to do with the company’s stock price. A look at the chart shows what makes Tesla’s share price move.

Options traders appear to be braced for a move of more than $10 in either direction for Tesla’s earnings reaction.

Tesla’s current share price is at an interesting point on the chart. The 50-day moving average is $212.12, just $2 above the price at the time this was written. Also, the 200-day moving average is all the way up at $229.30. The levels between $220 and $230 have acted as resistance since December, and they were support back in October.

To underscore the disconnect between appearance and reality, Tesla’s forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio is nearly 75 and its trailing P/E is negative. The price-to-book value on the stock is 29.30. Tesla’s market cap at the current share price is around $26.2 billion, more than 40% of the market cap of either GM or Ford.

In January, Tesla outsold every other all-electric vehicle on the U.S. market. It beat out the perennial leader from Nissan, the all-electric Leaf, with sales of an estimated 1,300 to 1,070 for the Leaf. Ford sold nearly as many pickup trucks (about 2,215) on every one of January’s 31 days as the combined monthly total of Tesla and Nissan all-electric cars.

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Tesla’s stock traded at $209.74 shortly before the noon hour on Wednesday. That was down about 3% on the day, in a 52-week range of $177.22 to $291.42. The consensus price target on the stock is around $271.00.

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