Investor's Corner
Tesla becomes best selling premium automaker in US, topping BMW and Lexus
Tesla shares might have taken a big blow in the stock market after the company released its Q4 2018 production and delivery report yesterday, but the electric car maker has finished the past year with a flourish nonetheless. Tech research firm Atherton Research, for one, recently noted that by the end of 2018, Tesla had become the United States’ No. 1 premium automaker, surpassing more established rivals such as BMW.
Tesla delivered a record number of vehicles in the fourth quarter, including 63,150 Model 3, 13,500 Model S, and 14,050 Model X vehicles. That’s a total of 90,700 cars in three months, or roughly 1,000 vehicle deliveries per day, despite the company only selling the Model 3 to the US and Canada. Jean Baptiste Su, Vice-President and Principal Analyst at Atherton Research, noted in an article on Forbes that these numbers are enough to propel Tesla into the No. 1 spot in the US’ list of premium automakers.
Atherton Research expects BMW to report sales of about 80,000 cars and SUVs in the fourth quarter. While impressive, these numbers — provided that they prove to be accurate — are still 10,000 below Tesla’s Q4 2018 figures. BMW’s actual sales figures for the United States in the fourth quarter are expected to be released sometime in the coming days. According to the principal analyst, the same is true with premium carmaker Lexus.
“I can confirm today that Tesla is officially the #1 premium automotive company in the U.S. outselling BMW and Lexus by a wide margin,” Su wrote.
Ultimately, Su noted that the gap between Tesla and its rivals in the premium auto segment appears to be widening, particularly as the electric car maker is poised to start delivering the Model 3 to regions such as Europe and China. The international rollout of the electric sedan is expected to positively affect Tesla’s figures, considering that Europe has a healthy passenger car market, and China’s government is actively pushing the adoption of electric cars.
As Tesla continues to barrel ahead with the Model 3’s international rollout, a number of Wall Street analysts have expressed their insights about the company in the coming quarters. Ben Kallo from Baird, for one, noted that while Tesla’s deliveries were a bit below consensus, concerns about the Model 3’s demand are “overblown.”
“Fourth-quarter deliveries were slightly below consensus, but shares are likely under pressure on an announced $2,000 price reduction, which may exacerbate concerns over moderating demand. We continue to believe demand concerns are overblown; we think the company has several levers to drive additional Model 3 sales, including shipping to international markets (expected in February), and the introduction of leasing options/lower cost variants. We think deliveries are more than sufficient to support strong quarterly results and we remain buyers,” he said.
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Wedbush’s Daniel Ives, who has a $440 price target on TSLA stock, pointed out that while the phaseout of the $7,500 federal tax credit would likely affect the company’s shares in the market, Tesla still has a long way to go in its growth story.
“With the EV tax credit getting cut in half from $7,500 in 2018 to $3,750 beginning January 1, the lack of a significant pull forward was a bit of a surprise to the bulls in terms of fourth-quarter Model 3 deliveries and will weigh on shares accordingly. We remain bullish on the Tesla story given our view that the company is in the early innings of a transformational EV growth opportunity for the next decade although the modest Model 3 delivery miss this quarter in the near term will be the focus of investors and put pressure on shares,” he said.
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.
Elon Musk sheds two new bits of detail on Starship after 13th test launch
Elon Musk updates the SpaceX timeline for Mars
