Pilbara Minerals Ltd (ASX: PLS) shares are having a tough finish to the week.
In morning trade, the lithium giant's shares are down a very disappointing 8.5% to $4.68.
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Why are Pilbara Minerals shares sinking?
Investors have been selling down the company's shares this morning for a couple of reasons.
One is the broad market weakness caused by a sell-off on Wall Street overnight. The other reason is the release of the company's FY 2023 results.
Although those results revealed that Pilbara Minerals delivered explosive year-on-year revenue and earnings growth, it wasn't quite as strong as the market was expecting.
For the 12 months ended 30 June, Pilbara Minerals posted a 242% increase in revenue to $4,064 million and a 329% jump in underlying profit after tax to $2,276.3 million. This was driven by a 68% increase in spodumene concentrate sales volumes to 607.5kt and an 87% lift in the average realised price to US$4,447 per tonne.
Falling short of expectations
According to a note out of Goldman Sachs, its analysts were forecasting revenue of $4,261.9 million and net profit of $2,414.5 million from Pilbara Minerals in FY 2023.
As you can see, this means that the company has missed on both metrics, which explains some of the weaknesses we are seeing in Pilbara Minerals shares today.
However, one positive is that while its earnings missed expectations, its dividend for FY 2023 was larger than expected.
The Pilbara Minerals board declared a fully franked final dividend of 14 cents per share. This lifted its full-year dividend to 25 cents per share, which compares favourably to the 22 cents per share dividend that Goldman Sachs was expecting.
