Elon Musk attends a panel discussion during the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in Cannes, France, June 19, 2024.
Mark Piasecki | Getty Images
A day after its biggest rise since 2013. Tesla Stocks headed to their highest close in more than a year on Friday as investors and analysts continued to praise the electric car company's third-quarter results.
Tesla shares rose 2.8% on Friday morning to $267.79, putting the stock on track for its highest close since September 2023. With two days of gains, the stock erased its losses for the year and is now up about 8% in 2024, still lagging The Nasdaq index rose by 24%.
Analysts at Piper Sandler were the latest to boost their price targets following Wednesday's earnings report. The company, which already has a buy rating on the stock, said it was increasing its 12-month stock price forecast to $315 from $310 “to reflect higher deliveries and higher margins.”
Tesla shares on Thursday rose 22%, their second-best performance since the company's IPO in 2010. That came after Tesla reported revenue of $25.18 billion, which missed analysts' expectations of $25.37 billion, but rose 8%. Compared to the previous year. . Tesla reported adjusted earnings per share of 72 cents, beating analysts' average estimate of 58 cents.
Tesla's profit margins were boosted by $739 million in revenue for environmental regulatory credits, which JPMorgan Chase analysts noted in a report as a “potentially unsustainable driver” of earnings and cash flow. The results were also boosted by $326 million in revenue from FSD, the company's supervised full self-driving system.
CEO Elon Musk said on the earnings call that his “best guess” is that vehicle growth will reach 20% to 30% next year, citing lower-cost vehicles and “the rise of autonomy.” Analysts surveyed by FactSet were expecting delivery growth of about 15% for 2025.
However, when it comes to independence, Musk has consistently missed his own deadlines for getting products to market. Musk has a “long history of being overly optimistic about FSD,” Bernstein analysts wrote in a post-earnings note, adding that research shows that “Tesla still lags significantly behind competitors” in robotics.
Musk also said on the call that Tesla plans to begin production of its recently unveiled Cybercab, a robotaxi with butterfly doors and no steering wheel or pedals, by the end of 2026. He said Tesla will pilot a driverless ride-hailing service in California and Texas after that. year in its current cars, which are currently not safe to use without a human driver ready to steer or brake at any time.
With the two-day rally, Musk increased his paper wealth by about $30 billion, bringing his total net worth to about $274 billion, according to Forbes. This puts him $60 billion ahead of the second richest person in the world. oracle The founder is Larry Ellison, a former Tesla board member and a good friend of Musk.
However, Tesla stock is still about 35% below the all-time high it reached in 2021. The company has had a tough first quarter of 2024, with deliveries declining year over year and consumers flocking to electric vehicles from a host of competitors. .
Competitive risks remain.
In China, companies such as BYD and Geely, along with a new generation of automakers such as Li Auto and Nio, have increased sales. In the United States, legacy automakers such as Ford and General Motors have begun selling more electric cars, despite backing away from their previous commitments to electrification.
Watch: Tesla's price war is over
