Investor's Corner
Tesla (TSLA) starts recovering amid Outperform rating, $430 price target from Wall St firm
While Tesla stock (NASDAQ:TSLA) ended Monday’s trading at a nearly 18-month low, the electric car maker has nonetheless received an optimistic outlook from Macquarie Capital Inc. In a recently published note, the Wall Street firm gave the company an Outperform rating and a $430 price target, citing the electric car maker’s unique position to “lead in ecosystem platforms.”
Macquarie analyst Maynard Um wrote in a recent note that in the long term, Tesla would likely enjoy an edge against competitors due to the strength and integration of its vehicle hardware and software systems. The analyst pointed out that the auto industry is currently “on the precipice of a multi-decade transformation driven by disruptive innovation and technology.” Thus, companies focused on highly disruptive ecosystem platforms such as Tesla would likely be successful. Um also took a particular focus on Tesla’s real-world Autopilot data as pivotal in establishing the company’s place in the emerging autonomous driving industry.
The Macquarie analyst noted that in the short-term, he sees enough levers to fund Tesla’s debt maturity events, particularly if the company’s stock reaches $360 per share by 3/1/2019. Um did note, though, that it would be beneficial for Tesla to raise equity, as it would further strengthen the company’s longer-term outlook and provide a cushion for any unexpected events or periods of “economic softening.” The analyst also stated that there are two key demand drivers which provide comfort around Tesla’s sales.
“Our thesis is also predicated on TSLA having enough levels to get over the debt maturity hump including cash flow from ZEV credit (estimate potential for $500-$600 million in 2H 18) & Model 3 sales, access to $1.2 billion unused debt commitment, potential for credit amendments, et al. We see two demand drivers into year-end (key to achieving profits) that provide comfort around sales: 1) pent-up demand before the end of lifetime Supercharging on 9/18, and 2) pent-up demand before year-end when US subsidies diminish. TSLA appears on track for production targets & should be able to achieve profitability in 2H.”
The analyst concluded that ultimately, Macquarie’s Outperform rating and $430 price target for Tesla is driven by five primary factors – the electric car maker’s accelerating vehicle growth, the company’s “unique” potential among OEMs, its technology integration and differentiation, the expansion of its energy storage business, and its opportunity to lead in the autonomous driving field.
Amidst the release of the Macquarie analyst’s recent note, TSLA stock started showing some recovery, trading up 3.36% at $258.98 per share when markets opened on Tuesday.
The steep plunge of Tesla stock over the past week comes amidst the company’s improving fundamentals and even more accolades for its latest vehicle, the Model 3. Apart from showing impressive Q3 vehicle delivery and production results, Tesla has also been exhibiting signs that its ramp for the Model 3 ramp is getting even better. Since October began, for example, Tesla has registered more than 17,000 new Model 3 VINs, with the majority of the filings corresponding to Dual Motor vehicles. This Sunday, Tesla also shared an update stating that the NHTSA has found the Model 3 to be the car with the “lowest probability of injury” among the vehicles the agency has tested so far. Immediately following the Model 3 was Tesla’s two other cars – the Model S and the Model X.
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Tesla’s vehicle assembly line in Fremont, CA.
Admittedly, some of the stock’s volatility could be attributed to Elon Musk’s behavior on Twitter last Thursday. Less than a week after agreeing to a settlement with the SEC regarding the commission’s lawsuit over his “funding secured” tweet last August, Musk opted to troll the SEC on Twitter. Tesla was down 4.4% on Thursday, but after Musk’s tweets, TSLA fell by 2% more. Friday and this past Monday were equally unkind to Tesla stock.
Fellow billionaire and iconic philanthropist Richard Branson recently expressed his thoughts on what Elon Musk could do to reduce his stress in Tesla. While speaking to CNBC, Branson noted that it would be best if Musk, a hands-on leader who has a tendency to overdo his work, learns the art of delegation.
“I think he maybe needs to learn the art of delegation. It’s important that he’s got to find time for himself, he’s got to find time for his health, and for his family. He’s a wonderfully creative person, but he shouldn’t be getting very little sleep. He should find a fantastic team of people around him and still jump in on all the major issues. And I think the reason that I have such an enjoyable life – a long life – has been finding wonderful people to run our companies on the key issues I can then get involved. So if I was to sit down with him – I have talked to him about it – but I think learning the art of delegation better would be his one flaw,” Branson said.
As of writing, Tesla shares are trading up 5.24% at $263.69 per share.
Disclosure: I have no ownership in shares of TSLA and have no plans to initiate any positions within 72 hours.
Elon Musk
SpaceX Starship just nailed something it’s never done before
SpaceX’s Starship flew successfully Friday, landing both stages and deploying its first Starlink V3 satellites.
Starship’s thirteenth test flight delivered exactly what SpaceX needed with a clean liftoff, two successful stage recoveries, and the first real payload the vehicle has ever carried to space. Booster 20 and Ship 40 lifted off at 5:51 p.m. CT from Starbase, and by the time the mission wrapped roughly an hour later, both halves of the rocket had done exactly what they were supposed to do.
Booster 20 separated from Ship 40 a few minutes into the flight and stuck a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico about six minutes after liftoff. That is a meaningful turnaround from Flight 12 in May, when the booster lost several engines during its boostback burn before a hard water landing attempt.
Starship as seen from Starlink satellites pic.twitter.com/e2hvfmnewh
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 25, 2026
Starship 40’s performance was arguably the bigger win. The vehicle deployed the first 20 operational Starlink V3 satellites Starship has ever carried, then flew a suborbital arc to a landing in the Indian Ocean that SpaceX commentator Dan Huot called the company’s softest splashdown yet. “This is a dream scenario for this team that’s trying to get this heat shield data,” Huot said on the live broadcast, according to Space.com’s live coverage. “I’m a little over the moon right now. Wow. Lucky number 13.”
Unlike the mass simulators SpaceX flew on Flight 12, these were production Starlink V3 satellites, meant to extend solar arrays and antennas and attempt to link with the broader constellation before reentering minutes later. Getting real hardware through a full deploy sequence on only the second flight of the V3 generation keeps Starship on schedule for the payload work NASA is counting on for future Artemis lunar landings.
What an awesome launch, really seems like everything went super well and it was all incredibly smooth.
SpaceX is awesome. Very interested to see how the market will respond on Monday pic.twitter.com/KSHmyBfV55
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 25, 2026
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— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 25, 2026
The flight also arrives at a moment when SpaceX needed a win. SPCX has traded below its $135 IPO price since mid-July, as Teslarati reported when the mission slipped to Friday, and short interest has climbed to roughly a third of the tradable float. A clean flight will not fix a balance sheet, but it does answer the one question SpaceX absolutely needed answered this week: whether the fixes made after the July 16 abort would hold up under real flight conditions. They did, on both stages, on the first try after the redesign.
SpaceX has not set a target date for Flight 14, though the company has said it wants to push toward an orbital attempt on the next mission. After Friday, that goal looks a lot more within reach.
Tesla short sellers won big following the company’s massive fall on Wall Street after it reported subpar Earnings on Wednesday.
Tesla short sellers collected about $4.12 billion in single-day profits on Thursday, according to Bloomberg. Shares fell as much as 15 percent during Thursday’s session. It closed as one of the worst days for Tesla on Wall Street in the past three years.
Investors sold off the stock after Tesla said it would aggressively direct its spending toward AI and its Optimus robot project. The company had record revenues, which were driven by one of the strongest quarters in terms of vehicle deliveries in company history.
However, it missed EPS estimates by reporting just $0.33, a far cry from the $0.53 analysts expected.
S3 Partners reported that about 3 percent of Tesla’s outstanding stock is sold short. Managing Director at S3, Ihor Dusaniwsky, provided the short seller’s potential profit, as well as another figure: shorts have likely had paper gains of $8.92 billion this year, as Tesla shares are down 30 percent in 2026.
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Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
Tesla has burned short sellers many times in the past, but the company’s latest Earnings Call was a chance for those skeptics to taste some payback. Although the company gave some very transparent information regarding future projects, the rollout of Robotaxi, Optimus, and Semi, many investors took their profits on Thursday.
Notable short sellers like Michael Burry have been transparent about their skepticism around Tesla shares. Burry just revealed three weeks ago that he had opened up a new short on the stock, stating he shorted Tesla shares at $416.22. “Happy it jumped back to this level,” he said in a blog post.
At the time of publication, Tesla shares were down about 3 percent and the stock was trading at $309.92.
Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA) endured one of its sharpest single-day declines in years on July 23, tumbling approximately 14.5 percent and closing near $320 after opening the session around $374. The drop erased more than $140 billion in market value amid heavy trading volume and left the shares at multi-week lows.
The sell-off followed the company’s second-quarter 2026 results, released the previous evening. Tesla reported record revenue of $28.2 billion, up 26 percent year over year, driven by a Q2-record 480,126 vehicle deliveries. Energy storage deployments also rose strongly.
Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
Yet profitability disappointed sharply. Operating income fell 57 percent to $398 million, compressing the operating margin to just 1.4 percent. Non-GAAP earnings per share came in at $0.33, well below the roughly $0.53 analysts had expected. Free cash flow turned negative by $1.1 billion as capital expenditures surged 142 percent to $5.8 billion, largely tied to accelerated spending on artificial intelligence, robotics, and autonomous systems.
The losses on capex were expected, as Tesla said it would be spending heavily in 2026.
Investors also reacted to lingering uncertainty surrounding key product timelines. During the Earnings Call, management reiterated ambitions for Robotaxi deployment and the Optimus humanoid robot, but offered limited new concrete milestones, renewing questions about execution pace that have long accompanied Tesla’s ambitious roadmap.
The magnitude of the decline places it among Tesla’s more severe one-day percentage losses since its 2010 initial public offering. Historically, the two largest single-day drops (split-adjusted) remain September 8, 2020, when shares fell 21.1 percent amid broader market volatility and valuation concerns, and January 13, 2012, with a 19.3 percent plunge during the company’s early growth struggles.
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Other notable declines include an 18.6 percent drop on March 16, 2020, at the onset of pandemic-related market turmoil. Thursday’s move ranks roughly ninth on the all-time list but stands out as the steepest in more than a year.
Despite the short-term pain, Tesla’s long-term trajectory has repeatedly recovered from such volatility. The latest results underscore both the strength of its core automotive and energy businesses and the near-term costs of heavy investment in next-generation technologies.
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