Tesla's stock extends winning streak, turns green for first time in 2024

By Tomi Kilgore and Claudia Assis

The EV giant's stock has turned in its best 8-day performance in nearly 3 years

Shares of Tesla Inc. battled through a seesaw start to close higher Friday, extending their longest winning streak in more than a year and turning positive for 2024.

The win streak kicked off on June 25 and the stock's rally accelerated earlier this week after Tesla's surprisingly strong second-quarter deliveries data.

The stock (TSLA) rose 2.1% Friday to $251.52, its highest close since Dec. 28, when it closed at $253.18. That brought Tesla's year-to-date gains to 1.2%, its first time in the green this year.

Within an hour after the opening bell, the stock was down as much as 1.6% and up as much as 2.5%.

Friday's close notched an eighth straight daily gain for Tesla, its longest such streak since the 13-day stretch that ended June 13, 2023.

The stock has soared 38% during its current win streak, its best eight-day performance since it ran up 39.6% in the eight days through Nov. 1, 2021.

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With about 3.2 billion shares outstanding, the company's current market capitalization is about $802 billion. That compares with its 2024 market-cap low of about $453 billion, which was seen when the stock closed at a 15-month low of $142.05 on April 22.

Meanwhile, Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives thinks Tesla's stock can still go a lot higher: He has a $300 target for Tesla shares, which implies 22% upside from current levels.

One reason Ives is so bullish is that he believes Tesla's robotaxi-focused event on Aug. 8 will be a "key historical moment" for the company, as it will highlight its full-self-driving ambitions.

Another reason for his bullishness is that artificial intelligence is a key part of Tesla's vision of an autonomous future, which he believes investors have yet to fully grasp.

"The key for Tesla's stock looking ahead is [Wall] Street recognizing that Tesla is the most undervalued AI play in the market in our view, with a historical Robotaxi Day ahead for [Chief Executive Elon] Musk and Tesla on August 8 that will lay the yellow brick road to FSD and an autonomous future," Ives wrote in a note to clients.

Analysts at TPH said in a note Friday that they expect consensus estimates for Tesla's quarterly earnings to "continue to rise" on the higher deliveries and energy-storage estimates.

Tesla is set to report second-quarter results on July 23 after the bell.

Analysts polled by FactSet expect the EV maker to report adjusted earnings of 60 cents a share on sales of $24 billion. That would compare with adjusted EPS of 91 cents on sales of $24.9 billion in the second quarter of 2023.

The TPH analysts said they were modeling for earnings of 75 cents a share on the assumption that "higher energy-storage volumes ... will meaningfully contribute to the company's bottom line."

Their expectations for 2024 deliveries, however, are below consensus, calling for 1.74 million vehicles versus broader market expectations of around 2 million.

"Structurally, we continue to see little room for organic growth in the Model 3/Y given global penetration and stiff competition in areas like China, with the potential for tariff shifts to weigh on demand" in the second half of the year, they wrote.

"Our sequential growth in [third and fourth quarters] of 2024 is instead entirely driven by ramping Cybertruck volumes," the TPH analysts said.

"Beyond earnings, all eyes will turn to Robotaxi Day on 8/8 where TSLA will likely need to produce a number of surprises beyond unveiling a Robotaxi prototype to keep the momentum going," they added.

-Tomi Kilgore -Claudia Assis

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07-05-24 1715ET

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