Shares of Tesla Inc. charged higher to a fourth-straight record close Monday after even the most bearish analyst on Wall Street analyst lifted his price target following the electric vehicle maker’s blowout deliveries results.
The gain adds to a huge run-up in the electric-car maker’s stock recently. Shares are up 218% year to date and nearly 40% in the last five trading days alone. Electric cars are beating the downward trend of US automobile markets due to robust sales in China.
Ironically Trump administration is trying its best to hurt China’s growth and trade. Mike Pompeo even hinted that US may consider banning Chinese App, TikTok, apparently to express support for India’s desperate moves against China after facing humiliation in the recent standoff in Ladakh.
Jaw-dropping increase comes off a forecast revision
The stock’s move higher on Monday was likely driven primarily by an analyst’s decision to raise his 12-month price target for the stock to $1,500.
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Tesla rival Nio Inc.’s also soared, in the wake of the China-based EV maker’s upbeat June sales report. Meanwhile, among other EV makers, shares of Workhorse Group Inc. pulled back after a record 11-day win streak and Nikola Corp. was headed for a fourth straight loss.
Tesla price target lifted to $2,000 at Wedbush, making it highest on Wall Street https://t.co/VXQOVwj7Bu
— MarketWatch (@MarketWatch) July 2, 2020
Tesla’s stock shot up a record $162.92, or 13.5%, to $1,371.58. The stock has soared 42.9% over the past five days, the last four of which were record closing prices.
Analyst Ryan Brinkman at JPMorgan raised his stock price target by 7.3% to $295, but that was still 78.5% below current prices. Brinkman’s target remained the lowest of the 32 analysts surveyed by FactSet.
Solid sales results help buoy Tesla stock price
The price target increase follows Tesla’s report Thursday that it delivered 90,650 vehicles in the second quarter, well above expectations of 72,000.
Evidence that Tesla can sell cars for more than it costs to produce them has transformed the mood around the company — and with it Tesla’s stock price https://t.co/8CFuBrQxdL
— Bloomberg Opinion (@opinion) July 6, 2020
Tesla’s recently reported better-than-expected delivery total in the second quarter has one analyst revisiting his expectations for the growth stock. The company’s 90,650 deliveries during the period (compared to analysts’ average forecast for about 72,000) highlight its strong momentum relative to the rest of the auto industry, the JMP Securities analyst says.
Read more: Tesla cybertruck orders near 150,000 just days after chaotic launch
Brinkman said that the deliveries data-led Chief Executive Elon Musk to imply Tesla’s second-quarter report, due out on or about July 22, could produce a surprise break-even result. But he cautioned investors that any “substantially better results” could include items that are “one-time or somewhat one-time in nature,” such as zero-emission regulatory credit sales or the release of deferred revenue associated with autonomous driving features.
Price increases creates “Tesla Millionaires”
Tesla’s meteoric rise is making a lot of employees and executives very rich — but none richer than Elon Musk, who is seeing his personal wealth skyrocket.
Like most other tech companies, Tesla is offering stock options and grants as part of its compensation packages. But unlike most automakers, the company is offering stock compensations for all employees throughout the organization, including production associates and sales staff, which is rare in the auto industry.
Read more: Elon Musk tweet may cost him job as Tesla CEO
With the recent major increase in stock price (more than 200% this year alone), Tesla stocks creating a bunch of new “Tesla millionaires.” For some of the top executives, we can actually know how rich exactly since they have to disclose their holdings in the company.
Tesla’s growth in China helped it outperform the Industry
The electric-car pioneer seems to finally have hit its stride. Despite the coronavirus pandemic, its sales are holding up fairly well, with growth in China and other overseas markets offsetting a slowdown in the United States, where the virus remains a serious drag on the economy.
After it reported a profit and sizable cash balance in the first quarter, analysts have grown increasingly confident that Tesla will come out of the pandemic stronger than automakers that have vastly larger sales and production.
The decline was considerably smaller than many analysts expected and much better than the numbers reported by established automakers. General Motors, Ford Motor and Fiat Chrysler said this week that their U.S. sales had fallen 30 percent or more in the second quarter.
Read more: Tesla gets $520 mn funding for first Chinese plant
Tesla appears to have made up for the shutdown in Fremont by ramping up deliveries in China, where it recently began producing Model 3 sedans at a factory in Shanghai. The new plant allowed the company to sell cars in China, the world’s largest market for electric cars, without paying import duties that had previously limited its sales there.
Tesla, Inc. (formerly Tesla Motors, Inc.) is an American electric vehicle and clean energy company based in Palo Alto, California. The company specializes in electric vehicle manufacturing, battery energy storage from home to grid-scale and, through its acquisition of SolarCity, solar panel and solar roof tile manufacturing.
Tesla’s recent gains have made it the most valuable car company in the world, based on market capitalization.