Investor's Corner
Tesla’s electric car prowess acknowledged by TSLA skeptic amid Audi e-tron reveal
Tesla stock (NASDAQ:TSLA) is maintaining its gains during Tuesday’s early morning trading, closing in on the $300 per share mark amidst a rather surprising acknowledgement from one of the company’s most prominent skeptics after the reveal of a highly-anticipated rival to the Tesla Model X — the Audi e-tron.
UBS Group AG is not a known Tesla supporter. Far from it. The financial services firm is the same company that recently released a report claiming that Tesla would not be able to make a profit with the Model 3’s $35,000 Standard range RWD variant. That being said, UBS analyst Patrick Hummel has released a note to the firm’s clients addressing Tesla’s lead in the premium electric car market and Audi’s reveal of the e-tron SUV.
The UBS analyst’s note, which was sent on Tuesday, was titled Audi e-tron launch – another lap Tesla wins. Hummel noted that while the e-tron represents a solid effort from Audi, the vehicle’s specs and components show that the veteran carmaker is still far behind Tesla when it comes to electric cars. With the e-tron’s launch, the UBS analyst noted that Tesla would likely be able to sustain its lead in the premium electric car market for a bit longer. Hummel further noted that the e-tron’s range, which seems to be around 30-50 miles less than the Model X, and its acceleration, which is “significantly slower” than Tesla’s SUV, would likely make Audi’s electric car a difficult sell for some buyers.
“While we appreciate that a solid EV product is not only about acceleration and range, there is still a gap to Tesla in the powertrain efficiency ratios that reflect the degree of innovation. The electric powertrain is not a commodity yet, and Tesla might be able to sustain its lead for longer. At the margin, the not-so-impressive key stats could dampen the sales outlook and make it more difficult for Audi (or the premium OEMs in general) to break even with their EVs. This plays into Tesla’s hands and in China, into the hands of the emerging local EV players,” he wrote.
While acknowledging Tesla’s prowess in the electric car industry, UBS has nevertheless kept its Sell rating for TSLA stock. In his note, Hummel reiterated the firm’s $190 price target for Tesla, citing the company’s apparent difficulty in creating enough demand for Model 3 that are priced above $50,000.
Just like the Mercedes-Benz EQC, the Audi e-tron is filled to the brim with bells and whistles. The all-electric SUV, which starts at $74,800, is a five-seater vehicle that could be fitted with Audi’s driver assistance package, massage seats, a heads-up display, and power door closers. The e-tron is equipped with two electric motors that deliver a total power output of 300 kW, as well as a sizable 95 kWh battery. In “Boost” mode, the Audi e-tron is capable of sprinting from 0-60 mph in 5.5 seconds. Audi has been quite silent about the e-tron’s range though, merely stating that the vehicle would exceed 400 km (248 miles) of range per charge.
The Audi e-tron is expected to hit the market sometime in 2019. The vehicle’s initial production is reportedly underway, with the German legacy automaker manufacturing 200 e-trons per day.
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Disclosure: I have no ownership in shares of TSLA and have no plans to initiate any positions within 72 hours.
SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) got an absolutely crazy price target rating from Raymond James after the company experienced a tough first few weeks following its Initial Public Offering (IPO).
Despite the tumultuous start, SpaceX has plenty of believers, and the company’s massively successful Starship launch last Friday, its 13th test flight of the massive rocket, went so smoothly that Raymond James analysts pushed its price target on the company to roughly 7 times its current trading level.
SpaceX Starship just nailed something it’s never done before
The firm officially put a “Strong Buy” rating and an $800 price target on the stock. It currently trades at around $113. Its all-time high is $225.64, reaching this trading level shortly after shares first went public.
Raymond James’ price target is tied to the firm’s confidence after Starship’s 13th test flight. Analysts at the firm said it was an incremental step that reduces engineering risks, citing the widely successful heat shield test that CEO Elon Musk recently detailed, the smooth deployment of Starlink V3 satellites, and a successful in-space engine relight.
SpaceX also managed to see Starship splash down safely in the Indian Ocean, while the Super Heavy Booster fell down to the Gulf of America with no incidents.
It is interesting to see these launches have such a tremendous impact on the stock and what investors think of it. After SpaceX initially delayed the Starship launch last week, shares fell tremendously. Most probably did not realize that the stand-down is a standard practice, especially if everything is not perfect.
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The mission was initially aborted due to an issue with Raptor engines. This was resolved, and Starship launched last Friday after another delay on Thursday, which was caused by weather.
Now that analysts have seen what SpaceX launches are capable of and how impressive the feat is, firms are adjusting their price targets accordingly, making it known that they have high expectations for the space exploration company.
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.
SpaceX gets an absolutely crazy price target after rough IPO
Elon Musk responds to Volvo’s latest LiDAR decision
