Investor's Corner
Tesla stock (TSLA) rallies again amid successful Model 3 store debut and more Semi truck orders
Early last week, Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) surprised the street, beating expectations and rallying up 6 percent during the day’s trading. While the reasons behind the surge remained unknown, speculations among Tesla’s enthusiasts were high that the consistently positive reviews on its latest and possibly most disruptive vehicle, the Model 3, helped in improving the sentiments of investors. This week, it seems like something similar is set to happen again, with the California-based electric carmaker’s stock up over 2 percent in early morning trading.
While shares of Tesla closed down at $336.22 last Friday, over the past weekend and into Martin Luther King Jr. Day, investors headed into Tuesday trading with positive sentiments and expectations. By 10:20 EST, TSLA shares were breaching the $343.00 barrier or up 2.02 percent from Friday’s close.
Just like the past week’s 6 percent rally, this week’s surge in shares of TSLA seems to be partly driven by the ongoing momentum the California-based electric car maker is enjoying with regards to the Model 3 and developments taking place in its energy division. Over the past weekend alone, interest in the company’s first mass-market electric compact sedan was at an all-time high after Tesla finally displayed the Model 3 to the public at its stores in the Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay area. Reminiscent of the day of Model 3 Mania, interested buyers quite literally lined up outside Tesla’s stores to get a chance to experience the game-changing electric car.
Apart from this, the company’s commercial truck, the Tesla Semi, is also enjoying a lot of interest not only from companies in the United States but also from other countries abroad. Over the past week, reports emerged that Norway’s Postal Norge had filed an order for the electric long-hauler. Even more recently, UAE-based environmental and waste management firm Bee’ah revealed that it had ordered 50 Tesla Semis immediately after the quad-electric motor truck was unveiled last year. The Middle Eastern conglomerate further announced that it had signed an agreement with Tesla to install the company’s Powerpack system at the company’s upcoming headquarters.
Performance of Tesla shares (green) compared to US rivals GM and Ford [Source: Yahoo Finance]
Overall, the start of this week seems to be favorable for the auto industry. Even Detroit’s biggest players such as Ford (NASDAQ: F) and GM (NASDAQ: GM) saw a surge in their stock prices. Ford, for one, saw a 0.55 percent rise in its stock, trading at $13.31 per share and attaining a market cap of $52.884 billion. GM, on the other hand, did just as well, trading at $45.10 and attaining a market cap of $64.082 billion.
Just like how Tesla’s stocks might be affected by the positive reception of the Model 3, the spike in the shares of Ford and GM might partly be the result of the company’s renewed commitment to an electric future. Just recently, Ford announced that it is investing $11 billion into its electric car development program, with the legacy automaker aiming to release multiple green vehicles within the next couple of years. GM’s Chevy Bolt EV seems to be doing its part as well, encouraging the auto firm to accelerate its eventual transition to the development and release of electric vehicles.
Tesla analyst Andrew Percoco of Morgan Stanley teased the company’s dominance in its self-driving initiative, stating that its lead over competitors is “not even close.”
Percoco recently overtook coverage of Tesla stock from Adam Jonas, who had covered the company at Morgan Stanley for years. Percoco is handling Tesla now that Jonas is covering embodied AI stocks and no longer automotive.
His first move after grabbing coverage was to adjust the price target from $410 to $425, as well as the rating from ‘Overweight’ to ‘Equal Weight.’
Percoco’s new note regarding Tesla highlights the company’s extensive lead in self-driving and autonomy projects, something that it has plenty of competition in, but has established its prowess over the past few years.
He writes:
“It’s not even close. Tesla continues to lead in autonomous driving, even as Nvidia rolls out new technology aimed at helping other automakers build driverless systems.”
Percoco’s main point regarding Tesla’s advantage is the company’s ability to collect large amounts of training data through its massive fleet, as millions of cars are driving throughout the world and gathering millions of miles of vehicle behavior on the road.
This is the main point that Percoco makes regarding Tesla’s lead in the entire autonomy sector: data is King, and Tesla has the most of it.
One big story that has hit the news over the past week is that of NVIDIA and its own self-driving suite, called Alpamayo. NVIDIA launched this open-source AI program last week, but it differs from Tesla’s in a significant fashion, especially from a hardware perspective, as it plans to use a combination of LiDAR, Radar, and Vision (Cameras) to operate.
Percoco said that NVIDIA’s announcement does not impact Morgan Stanley’s long-term opinions on Tesla and its strength or prowess in self-driving.
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang commends Tesla’s Elon Musk for early belief
And, for what it’s worth, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang even said some remarkable things about Tesla following the launch of Alpamayo:
“I think the Tesla stack is the most advanced autonomous vehicle stack in the world. I’m fairly certain they were already using end-to-end AI. Whether their AI did reasoning or not is somewhat secondary to that first part.”
Percoco reiterated both the $425 price target and the ‘Equal Weight’ rating on Tesla shares.
Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA) just got a price target boost from its biggest bear, Gordon Johnson of GLJ Research, who raised his expected trading level to one that is 95 percent lower than its current trading level.
Johnson pushed his Tesla price target from $19.05 to $25.28 on Wednesday, while maintaining the ‘Sell’ rating that has been present on the stock for a long time. GLJ has largely been recognized as the biggest skeptic of Elon Musk’s company, being particularly critical of the automotive side of things.
Tesla has routinely been called out by Johnson for negative delivery growth, what he calls “weakening demand,” and price cuts that have occurred in past years, all pointing to them as desperate measures to sell its cars.
Johnson has also said that Tesla is extremely overvalued and is too reliant on regulatory credits for profitability. Other analysts on the bullish side recognize Tesla as a company that is bigger than just its automotive side.
Many believe it is a leader in autonomous driving, like Dan Ives of Wedbush, who believes Tesla will have a widely successful 2026, especially if it can come through on its targets and schedules for Robotaxi and Cybercab.
Justifying the price target this week, Johnson said that the revised valuation is based on “reality rather than narrative.” Tesla has been noted by other analysts and financial experts as a stock that trades on narrative, something Johnson obviously disagrees with.
Dan Nathan, a notorious skeptic of the stock, turned bullish late last year, recognizing the company’s shares trade on “technicals and sentiment.” He said, “From a trading perspective, it looks very interesting.”
Tesla bear turns bullish for two reasons as stock continues boost
Johnson has remained very consistent with this sentiment regarding Tesla and his beliefs regarding its true valuation, and has never shied away from putting his true thoughts out there.
Tesla shares closed at $431.40 today, about 95 percent above where Johnson’s new price target lies.
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) stock received a price target update from Pierre Ferragu of Wall Street firm New Street Research, citing the company’s growing lead in self-driving and autonomy.
On Tuesday, Ferragu bumped his price target from $520 to $600, stating that the consensus from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas was that Tesla’s lead in autonomy has been sustained, is growing, and sits at a multiple-year lead over its competitors.
CES 2026 validates Tesla’s FSD strategy, but there’s a big lag for rivals: analyst
“The signal from Vegas is loud and clear,” the analyst writes. “The industry isn’t catching up to Tesla; it is actively validating Tesla’s strategy…just with a 12-year lag.”
The note shows that the company’s prowess in vehicle autonomy is being solidified by lagging competitors that claim to have the best method. The only problem is that Tesla’s Vision-based approach, which it adopted back in 2022 with the Model 3 and Model Y initially, has been proven to be more effective than competitors’ approach, which utilizes other technology, such as LiDAR and sensors.
Currently, Tesla shares are sitting at around $433, as the company’s stock price closed at $432.96 on Tuesday afternoon.
Ferragu’s consensus on Tesla shares echoes that of other Wall Street analysts who are bullish on the company’s stock and position within the AI, autonomy, and robotics sector.
Dan Ives of Wedbush wrote in a note in mid-December that he anticipates Tesla having a massive 2026, and could reach a $3 trillion valuation this year, especially with the “AI chapter” taking hold of the narrative at the company.
Ives also said that the big step in the right direction for Tesla will be initiating production of the Cybercab, as well as expanding on the Robotaxi program through the next 12 months:
“…as full-scale volume production begins with the autonomous and robotics roadmap…The company has started to test the all-important Cybercab in Austin over the past few weeks, which is an incremental step towards launching in 2026 with important volume production of Cybercabs starting in April/May, which remains the golden goose in unlocking TSLA’s AI valuation.”
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Tesla has transitioned from an automaker to a full-fledged AI company, and its Robotaxi and Cybercab programs, fueled by the Full Self-Driving suite, are leading the charge moving forward. In 2026, there are major goals the company has outlined. The first is removing Safety Drivers from vehicles in Austin, Texas, one of the areas where it operates a ride-hailing service within the U.S.
Ultimately, Tesla will aim to launch a Level 5 autonomy suite to the public in the coming years.
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