Investor's Corner
Tesla (TSLA) shorts have lost $2 billion in June as stock continues rise
It is currently not a good time to be Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) short-seller. According to financial analytics firm S3 Partners, Tesla shorts have been hit by more than $2 billion in mark-to-market losses so far this June, as the electric car and energy company rides a wave of optimism in the weeks leading up to the end of Q2 2018.
Tesla stock has risen 20.5% so far in June, making the Elon Musk-led company on pace to hit its biggest monthly gain since August 2014. This sudden boost in the company’s stock has managed to hit short-sellers hard. After Tesla’s 2018 Annual Shareholder Meeting, shares rose 9.7%, and shorts lost $1.1 billion in a single day. Just this past Monday, shorts lost another $549 million in mark-to-market losses, and as of Tuesday afternoon, bears were down an additional $278 million.
According to S3 Partners head of research Ihor Dusaniwsky, the massive losses incurred by Tesla short-sellers so far this month has made the electric car and energy company the worst-performing stock for short-sellers this year. In a statement to Reuters, Dusaniwsky noted that the recent blows received by Tesla shorts are among the biggest losses he has seen to date.
“In all of 2017, they (short-sellers) were down $3.4 billion. To lose $2 billion in a month stands out as one of the biggest losses for a stock that I have seen,” the S3 Partners head of research said.
Tesla shorts could have lost far more, however. During Tuesday’s intraday, Tesla shares rose by as much as 6.9% to a 3-month high of $354.97, before settling down to a 3.21% gain at $342.77 per share amidst news of the company’s restructuring efforts that cost 9% of its employees. By Wednesday’s pre-market, however, Tesla shares appear to have recovered, rising 1.38% and trading at 347.50 per share.
Tesla remains as one of the most-shorted stocks in the market today, with short interest currently standing at $12.6 billion. That’s 37.9 million shares, or almost 30 percent of the share float sold short. Despite the recent losses incurred by Tesla short-sellers, however, Dusaniwsky noted that Tesla bulls’ anticipated “short squeeze” has not even started yet. A short squeeze happens when shares of heavily shorted companies such as Tesla rise as traders rush to buy stock to cover their short bets. This has not happened to date.
“With almost 80 million shares traded in June, this slight short covering did not move Tesla’s stock price. This is the biggest cry wolf on Wall Street – everyone says short squeeze, and it never is. They will be right one day, but not today,” Dusaniwsky said.
After Tesla’s successful 2018 Annual Shareholder Meeting, the Elon Musk-led company’s stock has seen a meteoric rise. Earlier this week, Berenberg raised its price target for Tesla to $500 per share, citing the company’s tech advantage and the Model 3’s positive gross margins. KeyBanc Capital Markets also sent out a note to clients on Monday, stating that Tesla could possibly deliver as many as 30,000 Model 3 for the second quarter.
As of writing, Tesla stock is trading up 1.38% at 347.50 per share on Wednesday’s pre-market.
Disclosure: I have no ownership in shares of TSLA and have no plans to initiate any positions within 72 hours.
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.”
Tesla analyst breaks down delivery report: ‘A step in the right direction’
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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