Investor's Corner
Rivian stock outlook remains bullish despite narrow 2022 production miss
Despite a near miss on its production goal for 2022, institutional investors are maintaining their buy ratings for Rivian stock.
Rivian (NASDAQ: RIVN) went public only 14 months ago, and since then, it has not exactly had a great time of it. From its IPO peak, Rivian stock has fallen by over 80%, and the poor macroeconomic conditions of the past year have not aided that situation. Nonetheless, large institutional investors see the electric truck maker as an opportunity and have maintained high price targets and “buy” ratings.
Rivian reported its production numbers yesterday, and while the company was kissing its 25,000 vehicle production target for 2022, a goal many worried the company would never come close to, it missed the goal narrowly by just a couple hundred vehicles. Luckily, this near miss has been taken well by investors who have not exactly rushed to sell the stock. Rivian is only down today by less than a percent. This has been reflected by major investors maintaining high price targets and “buy” ratings.
Morgan Stanley is one such investor who remains bullish on Rivian. The prominent investor only lowered its price target by $5 to $55, still a 220% increase from its current share price.
Adam Jonas of Morgan Stanley explains the decision by pointing out Rivian’s relative production strength. “For a year that started tough with a cut to IPO production and delivery estimates, RIVN managed to increase both production and deliveries Q/Q throughout the year, with 4Q deliveries over 550% higher than that of 1Q,” says Mr. Jonas. “We expect to see RIVN continue to scale production next year and maintain our FY23 delivery estimate of 50k vehicles.”
Other large investors have echoed Morgan Stanley’s optimism, and some have even gone further. At the end of last year, Wells Fargo increased its price target from $32 to $35 and maintained its buy rating. As did Deutsche Bank, which increased its price target from $43 to $44 and maintained its buy rating. Overall, one would be hard-pressed to find an institutional investor bearish on the stock.
Perhaps the best synopsis of how investors are feeling regarding the truck maker was stated by an analyst at Motley Fool today. Regarding Rivian’s production report, Beth McKenna says that “investors should be satisfied.”
But that brings us to the question if so many are so optimistic about the Rivian stock, why has it continued to fall, and why has it not recovered to its IPO price? A couple of hurdles come to mind. Foremost, as the Federal Reserve has continued to increase interest rates to battle inflation in the United States, many anticipate some sort of recession in the coming months or year. And if this were to occur, it could easily damage high price products such as automotive sales.
But more specifically, regarding Rivian, the company still has a steep hill to climb before it can be considered a major player in the automotive market. While it has done wonders to take production from the single digits to the thousands they are producing now, other automakers, especially those in the truck space, produce by the millions annually. Frankly, catching up is still a daunting task.
Rivian has seen amazing growth over the past year, and there is no doubt that it is becoming an ever-more prominent player in the automotive market. And if institutional investors are to be believed, it may be the next major disruptor in an industry that legacy players primarily dominate.
William is not an investor in Rivian.
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Investor's Corner
Tesla gets its latest short from Michael Burry: ‘Happy it jumped back to this level’
Tesla short seller Michael Burry, the subject of the film “The Big Short,” where he was portrayed by Steve Carell, has revealed he has opened a new bet against the stock.
In a new update to his Substack newsletter in a post titled “Trading Post June 30, 2026,” Burry revealed a new set of bets against Tesla, Caterpillar, NVIDIA, Applied Materials Inc., and the iShares Semiconductor ETF.
In regard to Tesla, Burry wrote:
“And finally I shorted Tesla at 416.22. Happy it jumped back to this level.”
This means Burry likely opened his new short position after the company’s recent rally on Wall Street, which saw Tesla shares sink in mid-May, only to recover to well over the $400 mark. Currently, shares trade at around $427.
The company saw a big Tuesday as shares climbed considerably, over 10 percent. The size of the Tesla short was not provided, nor did Burry give any information on the position’s structure, the number of shares, dollar value, or whether options were used in the short.
The Tesla and SpaceX merger everyone is talking about is quietly building
Over the years, Burry has been one of the more vocal critics of Tesla, calling its share price “media inflated,” and saying it was “ridiculously overvalued” as recently as December.
The company has largely transitioned away from being known as an automotive company and instead is much more widely regarded as an AI play, mostly due to its Full Self-Driving efforts, Optimus robot development, and data collection related to both.
This has not pulled those skeptics away from being vocal about their distaste for how Tesla is valued, but there’s no denying that the company is a global force in many things, including sustainable energy, automotive, and AI.
Investor's Corner
SpaceX gets initial stock coverage from Tesla’s biggest bull
Wedbush Securities is initiating stock coverage on SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX), marking the first comments on the company since it went public several weeks ago. Wedbush and its analyst handling coverage, Dan Ives, are widely bullish on fellow Musk company Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA).
Ives wrote his first note initiating coverage of SpaceX shares on Wednesday with a $190 price target and an ‘Outperform’ rating. The firm believes the company is well positioned off of its IPO because of its wide array of projects, including AI compute power and infrastructure, connectivity projects, and launches.
“We view SpaceX as one of the most differentiated assets within the tech market with a strong footprint across its three core markets, with Starlink driving success with connectivity,” Ives wrote, “Starship launches leading to a demand flywheel and increasing deal flow for its Colossus clusters.”
Elon Musk called it Epic: The full story of SpaceX’s Starship Flight 12
Wedbush leans heavily on Starlink, which they say is the “profitability driver given the strength of its recurring revenue base of ~12 million subscribers as of June 5th.” Ives believes Starlink is still in the “early innings” of penetrating the global telecommunications and broadband market, as it only holds less than a 1 percent share. However, this number is sure to increase over time.
It also highlights the importance of Starship, which it says is an “essential layer” of SpaceX’s overall success. SpaceX developing and displaying the ability to reuse rockets is a major cost and reliability advantage “as it reduces the necessary hardware launch costs while generating a feedback loop for future flights to improve their launch flight rate without accelerating capex spend.”
Finally, SpaceX’s recent AI/Compute projects are also very elementary, Ives writes. It is worth mentioning Wedbush said its $190 price target is derived from a valuation forecast that sees the company yielding roughly $2.48 trillion of implied enterprise value.
There are also some factors that Wedbush did not take into account with its initial coverage. The firm wrote in the note:
“We note that there is optional value coming from Starship’s accelerating scale towards sub-$200/kg unit economics, orbital data centers, and enterprise AI monetization as these factors could drive meaningful upside but these face major hurdles, so we do not take that into account with our valuation.”
SpaceX shares are down just over 2 percent today, trading at around $167 at the time of publication.
Elon Musk
Tesla Phone? Not quite, but close: analyst
For years, there have been images and videos across social media platforms that have reminded me of when I was a 15-year-old kid teased by “Xbox 720” videos on YouTube. These videos are of the supposed “Tesla Phone” that Elon Musk was secretly developing in between leading Tesla with its electric cars and SpaceX with its reusable rockets.
Would you buy a Tesla phone ? pic.twitter.com/aaTwvvIJit
— Tesla Owners Silicon Valley (@teslaownersSV) October 6, 2023
Although Musk has put those rumors to bed several times, it was never completely out of the realm that he could get involved in cell phones in some capacity. Think outside the box and more macro-level, though. Instead of reinventing the computer, Musk reinvented connectivity by developing Starlink with SpaceX.
It could be something similar, TD Cowen analyst Gregory Williams said in a note last week, where he hinted SpaceX could be gathering some steam to acquire T-Mobile.
Williams said it would be the “clear choice” for SpaceX if it decided to go through with a network acquisition. He also suggested AT&T.
The move would be possible through selling more of its own stock, which would help SpaceX raise the money to purchase T-Mobile, which would cost roughly $300 billion. It could be one of the moves SpaceX makes post-IPO in terms of an acquisition: it already acquired Cursor AI for $60 billion.
Other analysts, like Dan Ives of Wedbush, believe SpaceX and Tesla will eventually merge into one anyway, and that conglomeration could come as soon as this year, some have said.
The implications of SpaceX purchasing T-Mobile are massive. A combined entity would create a truly ubiquitous network: T-Mobile’s terrestrial 5G towers and Starlink’s growing constellation of Direct-to-Cell satellites. This would essentially eliminate dead zones across the U.S. and potentially globally.
SpaceX would instantly become a full-scale facilities-based carrier with satellite differentiation; a huge advantage. This would pressure AT&T and Verizon heavily.
There are also concerns like a potential reduction in long-term competition, and of course, a deal of that size would face intense scrutiny from government agencies.
The strategic fit is compelling due to the existing Starlink–T-Mobile partnership and complementary technologies (space + terrestrial). It could create a dominant integrated communications player. However, the regulatory, financial, and execution hurdles are enormous — this remains highly speculative with no indication SpaceX is actively pursuing it right now.