Investor's Corner
Despite Tesla stock plunge, Congressmen reportedly holding position
Tesla stock has recently hit new lows, but U.S. Congressmen are reportedly not selling.
Despite Tesla’s stock (NASDAQ: TSLA) having an incredible first half of the year, it has taken some significant hits over the past few months and is now nearing its 52-week low. Nonetheless, while retail investors may claim the end of the world, Congressmen have reportedly not sold and may be holding their position on the stock.
According to the Congressmen stock tracking site CapitolTrades, no representatives have bought or sold any Tesla stock this entire month. Indicating that not everyone is bearish on the electric vehicle maker. The tracker includes trades from spouses of Congressmen, trades from mutual funds, and many other avenues where legislators may attempt to buy or sell stocks without public attention.
This isn’t to say that nobody is selling Tesla stock; quite the contrary. Only last month, Tesla CEO Elon Musk sold nearly $4 billion worth of stock in the automaker, and retail investors have joined him. In fact, since Mr. Musk’s acquisition of Twitter earlier this year, many notable figures have proclaimed that they are either selling their Tesla vehicle or selling Tesla stock in protest.
It is unclear what has changed that has pushed Tesla stock towards all-time lows, especially considering the company is likely headed towards a successful final quarter of the year, delivering a record number of vehicles and possibly achieving its 50% growth target. Furthermore, Tesla has expanded its product offerings in a few key markets, delivering Model S and Xs to Europe and even expanding to new markets like Thailand and Taiwan.
While some have pointed to possible issues at Tesla’s Shanghai production facility as a reason to divest, in actuality, its unclear what effect any production challenges in China have had on the automaker as a whole.
Other notable voices on trading have contradicted the bearish movement of the stock. Both Forbes and the Motley Fool have outlined reasons for customers to buy or hold their positions in the company. Both cite the company’s solid financials, its continued success delivering products, and its bright outlook in new product categories such as the Tesla Semi.
Another comforting fact is that Tesla is far from the only stock that dropped significantly in the year’s final quarter. Tech stocks generally, a category Tesla is often included in, have all suffered. Meta is likely the starkest example of this, as the stock has fallen over 60% from its all-time high.
Some analysts have pointed to the possibility of a recession in the coming months as a reason many investors have cold feet. And in fact, even Mr. Musk has agreed, stating on Twitter that a recession may be imminent, with recovery lasting until 2023 or 2024.
For those hoping that Tesla stock will be making a full rebound in the coming days or weeks, there isn’t clear evidence that that will occur. However, as shown above, there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic, and it’s clear why so many are taking the opportunity to “dollar cost average” their position. Eyes will be on Tesla stock and the economy in the coming weeks and months as many hope to avoid a recession or “hard landing.”
William owns stock in Tesla and a wide range of other automakers.
What do you think of the article? Do you have any comments, questions, or concerns? Shoot me an email at william@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter @WilliamWritin. If you have news tips, email us at tips@teslarati.com!
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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