Investor's Corner
$TSLA action leading up to Tesla’s reveal of Master Plan, Part Deux
It has not been an easy two weeks for Tesla in the news. Lately all the news has been fairly negative:
- Negative response to the Tesla – SolarCity merger from the great majority of brokerage firms covering Tesla.
- First driver killed in an accident involved with a Tesla vehicle operating on autopilot.
- Start of preliminary evaluation from NHTSA of various Tesla accidents involving autopilot.
- Start of National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation, independent of the NTSA’s inquiry into the collision that killed 2015 Model S driver Joshua Brown.
- Start of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) probe over fatal autopilot crash and whether it was “material” and Tesla was at fault for failing to inform its shareholders prior to the last stock offering.
- Request by Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, for Tesla to “brief Committee staff on the details of this incident, including the technology that was in use at the time, Tesla’s actions in response, and the company’s cooperation with NHTSA.”
That mass of negative reporting would normally kill any stock. But what was the effect on $TSLA for the past couple of weeks? Not much.
We had one week of still higher highs on the stock, followed by flat “compression” last week. This week $TSLA stock is back up again, especially Wednesday ahead of the company’s release of its “Masterplan Part 2”. The stock shot up by $1 in the span of 10 minutes, after CEO Elon Musk tweeted that the plans would be released later in the day.
Now that the Master Plan Part Deux has been published, it will be interesting to see Thursday what will be the response to the Plan from the broad market.
Stock Action
Looking at the $TSLA stock chart for the past couple of weeks, the technicals are still greatly in its favor. The latest Heikin Ashi – MACD “swing” has provided already an upside of over $11 since the MACD crossed to the bulls on June 30. Anyone that pulled the trigger on that day on the buy side is now sitting happy on a nice gain. Anyone trading options is sitting happy on huge gains.
Right now $TSLA stock is all fired up: Heikin Ashi green for 13 out of the past 17 sessions, stock above the 200-day moving average, MACD positive and still crossed to the bulls.
Source: Wall Street I/O
By the way, the charts from Wall Street I/O have an unique “smart study” that back-calculates all the effects of indicators like the MACD over a period of time. As one can see from the chart above, $TSLA is a wonderful stock for MACD “swing” traders.
Master Plan 2.0
I, like everybody, am anxiously waiting for the street’s response to Tesla’s Master Plan 2.0.
Today Jim Cramer was quoted on TheStreet as saying that “Tesla’s New Master Plan Won’t Matter, the Stock is ‘Heavily Shorted’.”
“It doesn’t really matter — this stock is so heavily shorted ,” Cramer said on Wednesday. “It can’t be borrowed, thank you Doug Kass for giving me that information.”
Q2 2016 Financial Results Date
Lastly, on July 19 Tesla sent a letter to investors indicating that “Tesla will post its financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2016, after market close on Wednesday, August 3, 2016. ” According to the letter, “Tesla management will hold a live question & answer webcast that day at 2:30pm Pacific Time (5:30pm Eastern Time) to discuss the Company’s financial and business results and outlook.” These are the details of the Q&A Webcast:
What: Date of Tesla Q2 2016 Financial Results and Q&A Webcast
When: Wednesday, August 3, 2016
Time: 2:30pm Pacific Time / 5:30pm Eastern Time
Webcast: http://ir.tesla.com (live and replay)
Update: Early morning Thursday pre-market action
$TSLA stock is off by $3 at $225. The initial reaction to the second iteration of the master plan from Wall Street analysts “seems to have failed to assuage investor’s fears”, as reported by TheStreet.com.
Investor's Corner
Tesla is ‘better-positioned’ as a company and as a stock as tariff situation escalates
Tesla is “better-positioned” as a company and as a stock as the tariff situation between the United States, Mexico, and Canada continues to escalate as President Donald Trump announced sanctions against those countries.
Analysts at Piper Sandler are unconcerned regarding Tesla’s position as a high-level stock holding as the tariff drama continues to unfold. This is mostly due to its reputation as a vehicle manufacturer in the domestic market, especially as it holds a distinct advantage of having some of the most American-made vehicles in the country.
Analysts at the firm, led by Alexander Potter, said Tesla is “one of the most defensive stocks” in the automotive sector as the tariff situation continues.
The defensive play comes from the nature of the stock, which should not be too impacted from a U.S. standpoint because of its focus on building vehicles and sourcing parts from manufacturers and companies based in the United States. Tesla has held the distinct title of having several of the most American-made cars, based on annual studies from Cars.com.
Its most recent study, released in June 2024, showed that the Model Y, Model S, and Model X are three of the top ten vehicles with the most U.S.-based manufacturing.
Tesla captures three spots in Cars.com’s American-Made Index, only U.S. manufacturer in list
The year prior, Tesla swept the top four spots of the study.
Piper Sandler analysts highlighted this point in a new note on Monday morning amidst increasing tension between the U.S. and Canada, as Mexico has already started to work with the Trump Administration on a solution:
“Tesla assembles five vehicles in the U.S., and all five rank among the most American-made cars.”
However, with that being said, there is certainly the potential for things to get tougher. The analysts believe that Tesla, while potentially impacted, will be in a better position than most companies because of their domestic position:
“If nothing changes in the next few days, tariffs will almost certainly deal a crippling blow to automotive supply chains in North America. [There is a possibility that] Trump capitulates in some way (perhaps he’ll delay implementation, in an effort to save face).”
There is no evidence that Tesla will be completely bulletproof when it comes to these potential impacts. However, it is definitely better insulated than other companies.
Need accessories for your Tesla? Check out the Teslarati Marketplace:
- https://shop.teslarati.com/collections/tesla-cybertruck-accessories
- https://shop.teslarati.com/collections/tesla-model-y-accessories
- https://shop.teslarati.com/collections/tesla-model-3-accessories
Please email me with questions and comments at joey@teslarati.com. I’d love to chat! You can also reach me on Twitter @KlenderJoey, or if you have news tips, you can email us at tips@teslarati.com.
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) received a price target boost from analysts at Truist Securities, but it came with some criticisms based on a lack of information on several things that investors were excited to hear about regarding future vehicles and AI achievements.
Last night, Tesla reported its earnings from the fourth quarter of 2024, and while it had a very tempered financial showing, missing most of the Wall Street targets that were set for it, the stock was up after hours and on Thursday due to the details the company released regarding its plans for 2025.
CEO Elon Musk stunned listeners last night by revealing plans to launch unsupervised Full Self-Driving as a service in Austin in June 2025. It will be the first time Tesla will offer driverless FSD rides in public, something it has been working with the City of Austin on since December.
Tesla to launch unsupervised Full Self-Driving as a service in Austin in June
It also reiterated plans for affordable models to be launched this year, potentially catalyzing annual growth in deliveries, something it said it expects to resume in 2025.
Tesla was flat on deliveries in 2024 compared to 2023.
The positives during the call were enough for Truist Securities analyst William Stein to raise the company’s price target to $373 from $351. However, Stein’s note to investors showed there was something to be desired despite all the good that was revealed during the call:
Stein said there was “not enough ground-truth” during the call and too much of a focus on “cheerleading” the company’s potential releases this year:
“Too much cheerleading; not enough ground-truth. In Q4, TSLA’s ASP weakness drive revenue, GPM, OPM, & EPS below consensus.”
As previously mentioned, Tesla did report weak financials that missed consensus estimates. What saved the call and perhaps the stock from plummeting on these missed metrics was the other details that Musk revealed, especially the FSD launch in Austin in June.
There were also plenty of things related to the affordable models and other vehicles, like the fact that Tesla plans to include things like Steer by Wire, Adaptive Air Suspension, and Rear Wheel Steering, that helped offset negatives.
Stein saw this as a distraction from what should have been reported:
“While CEO Elon Musk played the role of cheerleader, calling for TSLA’s path to massive market cap by leading in autonomy, management was remarkably short on two critical details: (1) info about new vehicles in 2025 and (2) milestones for AI acheivements, especially FSD. We continue to ask ourselves ‘where’s the beef?’ CY26 EPS to $3.99 (from $4.87). DCF-derived PT to $373 (from $351).”
Tesla did detail some AI milestones, like its record-breaking miles per accident on Autopilot, which was a Q4-best of 5.94 million miles. The Shareholder Deck also outlined major upgrades to AI:
“In Q4, we completed the deployment of Cortex, a ~50k H100 training cluster at Gigafactory Texas. Cortex helped enable V13 of FSD (Supervised)1, which boasts major improvements in safety and comfort thanks to 4.2x increase in data, higher resolution video inputs, 2x reduction in photon-to-control latency and redesigned controller, among other enhancements.”
Tesla shares are up 2.11 percent on Thursday as of 12:05 p.m. on the East Coast.
Need accessories for your Tesla? Check out the Teslarati Marketplace:
- https://shop.teslarati.com/collections/tesla-cybertruck-accessories
- https://shop.teslarati.com/collections/tesla-model-y-accessories
- https://shop.teslarati.com/collections/tesla-model-3-accessories
Please email me with questions and comments at joey@teslarati.com. I’d love to chat! You can also reach me on Twitter @KlenderJoey, or if you have news tips, you can email us at tips@teslarati.com.
Tesla has released its Q4 2024 vehicle safety report. Similar to data from previous quarters, vehicles that were operating with Autopilot technology proved notably safer.
The Q4 2024 report:
- As per Tesla, it recorded one crash for every 5.94 million miles driven in which drivers were using Autopilot technology.
- The company also recorded one crash for every 1.08 million miles driven for drivers who were not using Autopilot technology.
- For comparison, the most recent data available from the NHTSA and FHWA (from 2023) showed that there was one automobile crash every 702,000 miles in the United States.
Previous safety reports:
- In Q3 2024, Tesla recorded one crash for every 7.08 million miles driven in which drivers were using Autopilot technology and one crash for every 1.29 million miles driven by drivers not using Autopilot technology.
- In Q2 2024, Tesla recorded one crash for every 6.88 million miles driven in which drivers were using Autopilot technology, and one crash for every 1.45 million miles driven for drivers not using Autopilot technology.
- In Q1 2024, Tesla recorded one crash for every 7.63 million miles driven in which drivers were using Autopilot technology, and one crash for every 955,000 million miles driven for drivers not using Autopilot technology.
Year-over-Year Comparison:
- In Q4 2023, Tesla recorded one crash for every 5.39 million miles driven in which drivers were using Autopilot technology and one crash for every 1.00 million miles driven for drivers not using Autopilot technology.
Key background:
- Tesla began voluntarily releasing quarterly safety reports in October 2018 to provide critical safety information about our vehicles to the public.
- On July 2019, Tesla started voluntarily releasing annual updated data about vehicle fires as well.
- It should be noted that accident rates among all vehicles on the road can vary from quarter to quarter and can be affected by seasonality, such as reduced daylight and inclement weather conditions.
Don’t hesitate to contact us with news tips. Just send a message to simon@teslarati.com to give us a heads up.
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