Investor's Corner
Tesla bull ARK loads up on TSLA shares amid stock slide
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) bull ARK Invest, headed by CEO and CIO Cathie Wood, loaded up on shares of the electric automaker’s stock as it has slid to lower prices over the past few weeks.
According to ARK’s Daily Trade Information, the fund bought 19,272 shares of Tesla, adding onto its massive holdings of the electric automaker’s shares. After the purchase on Friday, ARK now holds 3,566,628 shares of Tesla stock, which makes up 9.99% of its total portfolio. Square Inc. is ARK’s second-largest holding, with 6.28% of the portfolio being made up of the financial company.
ARK’s Tesla holdings are worth $2,132,665,212.60, according to the documents released on Friday.
The purchase of 19,272 additional shares supplements the addition of 130,000 shares in mid-February that were added to several different ARK ETFs. The ARK Innovation ETF bought 89,447 TSLA shares, while the ARK Next Generation Internet ETF added 29,508 Tesla stocks, and the ARK Autonomous Technology and Robotics ETF added 13,173 shares in February.
ARK is one of Tesla’s biggest bulls on Wall Street, holding tremendously high expectations for the electric automaker’s outlook over the next nine years. By 2030, ARK believes that Tesla’s Robotaxi fleet could generate more than $1 trillion in operating revenue, evidently remaining bullish on the automaker despite a recent slide in stock price.
Tesla is down 30.75% over the past month and down 18% on the year. The stock currently sits at $597.95, closing on Friday down 3.78% or $23.49.
Tesla’s 2021 Stock Graph (Google)
After surging to prices as high as $880.02 in January, the stock remained relatively consistent in price until February 8th, when the price began to fall. Some analysts attributed the fall to Tesla’s lack of delivery forecast after the Q4 2020 Earnings Call. While Tesla executives didn’t give a specific figure, they did indicate that they expect 50% growth in deliveries annually, with some years providing more expansion.
A statement during the company’s most recent Earnings Call said that Tesla expects “to achieve 50% average annual growth in vehicle deliveries. In some years, we may grow faster, which we expect to be the case in 2021.” Additionally, it is difficult to give a specific figure as Tesla is expecting both Giga Berlin and Giga Texas to be completed at some point this year. With both facilities moving along quickly in the construction process, there is no specific time frame when they will be completed, which could be why Tesla did not provide specific delivery goals for 2021.
Many believe this is a temporary setback for Tesla. With expanding demand for the company’s vehicles and its place as the EV leader, Tesla is primed to dominate an expanding sector in the coming years. Dan Ives of Wedbush believes Tesla’s path to victory ultimately lies in China, where competitors are firing on all cylinders to catch up with Elon Musk’s company.
Tesla stock pullback temporary, China demand paves way to $1T market cap, Wedbush says
Disclosure: Joey Klender is a TSLA Shareholder.
Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA) closed at an all-time high on Tuesday, jumping over 3 percent during the day and finishing at $489.88.
The price beats the previous record close, which was $479.86.
Shares have had a crazy year, dipping more than 40 percent from the start of the year. The stock then started to recover once again around late April, when its price started to climb back up from the low $200 level.
This week, Tesla started to climb toward its highest levels ever, as it was revealed on Sunday that the company was testing driverless Robotaxis in Austin. The spike in value pushed the company’s valuation to $1.63 trillion.
Tesla Robotaxi goes driverless as Musk confirms Safety Monitor removal testing
It is the seventh-most valuable company on the market currently, trailing Nvidia, Apple, Alphabet (Google), Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta.
Shares closed up $14.57 today, up over 3 percent.
The stock has gone through a lot this year, as previously mentioned. Shares tumbled in Q1 due to CEO Elon Musk’s involvement with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which pulled his attention away from his companies and left a major overhang on their valuations.
However, things started to rebound halfway through the year, and as the government started to phase out the $7,500 tax credit, demand spiked as consumers tried to take advantage of it.
Q3 deliveries were the highest in company history, and Tesla responded to the loss of the tax credit with the launch of the Model 3 and Model Y Standard.
Additionally, analysts have announced high expectations this week for the company on Wall Street as Robotaxi continues to be the focus. With autonomy within Tesla’s sights, things are moving in the direction of Robotaxi being a major catalyst for growth on the Street in the coming year.
Elon Musk
Tesla needs to come through on this one Robotaxi metric, analyst says
“We think the key focus from here will be how fast Tesla can scale driverless operations (including if Tesla’s approach to software/hardware allows it to scale significantly faster than competitors, as the company has argued), and on profitability.”
Tesla needs to come through on this one Robotaxi metric, Mark Delaney of Goldman Sachs says.
Tesla is in the process of rolling out its Robotaxi platform to areas outside of Austin and the California Bay Area. It has plans to launch in five additional cities, including Houston, Dallas, Miami, Las Vegas, and Phoenix.
However, the company’s expansion is not what the focus needs to be, according to Delaney. It’s the speed of deployment.
The analyst said:
“We think the key focus from here will be how fast Tesla can scale driverless operations (including if Tesla’s approach to software/hardware allows it to scale significantly faster than competitors, as the company has argued), and on profitability.”
Profitability will come as the Robotaxi fleet expands. Making that money will be dependent on when Tesla can initiate rides in more areas, giving more customers access to the program.
There are some additional things that the company needs to make happen ahead of the major Robotaxi expansion, one of those things is launching driverless rides in Austin, the first city in which it launched the program.
This week, Tesla started testing driverless Robotaxi rides in Austin, as two different Model Y units were spotted with no occupants, a huge step in the company’s plans for the ride-sharing platform.
Tesla Robotaxi goes driverless as Musk confirms Safety Monitor removal testing
CEO Elon Musk has been hoping to remove Safety Monitors from Robotaxis in Austin for several months, first mentioning the plan to have them out by the end of 2025 in September. He confirmed on Sunday that Tesla had officially removed vehicle occupants and started testing truly unsupervised rides.
Although Safety Monitors in Austin have been sitting in the passenger’s seat, they have still had the ability to override things in case of an emergency. After all, the ultimate goal was safety and avoiding any accidents or injuries.
Goldman Sachs reiterated its ‘Neutral’ rating and its $400 price target. Delaney said, “Tesla is making progress with its autonomous technology,” and recent developments make it evident that this is true.
Investor's Corner
Tesla gets bold Robotaxi prediction from Wall Street firm
Last week, Andrew Percoco took over Tesla analysis for Morgan Stanley from Adam Jonas, who covered the stock for years. Percoco seems to be less optimistic and bullish on Tesla shares, while still being fair and balanced in his analysis.
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) received a bold Robotaxi prediction from Morgan Stanley, which anticipates a dramatic increase in the size of the company’s autonomous ride-hailing suite in the coming years.
Last week, Andrew Percoco took over Tesla analysis for Morgan Stanley from Adam Jonas, who covered the stock for years. Percoco seems to be less optimistic and bullish on Tesla shares, while still being fair and balanced in his analysis.
Percoco dug into the Robotaxi fleet and its expansion in the coming years in his latest note, released on Tuesday. The firm expects Tesla to increase the Robotaxi fleet size to 1,000 vehicles in 2026. However, that’s small-scale compared to what they expect from Tesla in a decade.
Tesla expands Robotaxi app access once again, this time on a global scale
By 2035, Morgan Stanley believes there will be one million Robotaxis on the road across multiple cities, a major jump and a considerable fleet size. We assume this means the fleet of vehicles Tesla will operate internally, and not including passenger-owned vehicles that could be added through software updates.
He also listed three specific catalysts that investors should pay attention to, as these will represent the company being on track to achieve its Robotaxi dreams:
- Opening Robotaxi to the public without a Safety Monitor. Timing is unclear, but it appears that Tesla is getting closer by the day.
- Improvement in safety metrics without the Safety Monitor. Tesla’s ability to improve its safety metrics as it scales miles driven without the Safety Monitor is imperative as it looks to scale in new states and cities in 2026.
- Cybercab start of production, targeted for April 2026. Tesla’s Cybercab is a purpose-built vehicle (no steering wheel or pedals, only two seats) that is expected to be produced through its state-of-the-art unboxed manufacturing process, offering further cost reductions and thus accelerating adoption over time.
Robotaxi stands to be one of Tesla’s most significant revenue contributors, especially as the company plans to continue expanding its ride-hailing service across the world in the coming years.
Its current deployment strategy is controlled and conservative to avoid any drastic and potentially program-ruining incidents.
So far, the program, which is active in Austin and the California Bay Area, has been widely successful.
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