investors are balancing coming delivery results against everything else that can move the stock. The direction of delivery estimates is a concern, but an upgrade is helping shares Wednesday.
Tesla’s delivery results always have the power to move the stock. In which direction depends, of course, on what the electric vehicle maker reports and what investors expect.
Tesla typically reports quarterly deliveries on the second day of a new quarter. For the second quarter of 2024, the Wall Street consensus call compiled by FactSet is about 440,000 cars delivered, down from about 466,000 deliveries a year ago.
The 440,000 consensus figure is too high because analysts don’t update numbers at the same time. The most recent estimates by individual analysts are lower and are better guides for investors looking to see how the stock will react when the actual figure is reported.
RBC analyst Tom Narayan took his second-quarter delivery estimate down to 410,000 from 433,000 on Tuesday. He looks at app downloads and registration data, among other things to come up with his number.
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Narayan rates Tesla stock at Buy with a $227 price target. Guggenheim analyst Ronal Jewsikow has a Sell rating and a $126 price target.
Also on Tuesday, Jewsikow moved his estimate up to 419,000 from 409,000 cars.
Other recent updates have come from Baird’s Ben Kallo, New Street Research’s Pierre Ferragu, independent researcher Troy Teslike, and Barclays’ Dan Levy. The average of their new numbers is about 422,000.
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What all this means for investors is that a delivery number from 415,000 to 420,000 should be good enough to support Tesla stock, no matter where the final consensus number lands.
Stock support in the short run is great, but a result in that range still implies a drop of more than 10% from a year ago. That would be the second consecutive year-over-year decline for Tesla.
Shares of the EV maker were up 2.6% in midmorning trading at $192.22, while the
and
were each down 0.3%.
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Coming into Wednesday trading, shares were up about 0.5% over the past week. Tesla investors haven’t reacted much to changing delivery estimates.
The Wednesday bump is likely due to another factor. On Tuesday evening after the market closed, Stifel analyst Stephen Gengaro launched coverage of Tesla stock with a Buy rating and a $265 price target. A new bull typically boosts a stock. Investors will have to watch for an impact later in the day.
The lack of growth in 2024 has weighed on Tesla’s stock. Through Tuesday trading, shares have fallen about 25% so far this year while the
has risen about 18%.
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Wall Street expects sales to pick up later in the year and growth to resume in 2025, powered by more Cybertruck deliveries and a new lower-priced Tesla.
For 2024 Wall Street expects about 1.8 million cars sold, essentially flat with 2023. For 2025, the current consensus call is for 2.1 million cars sold.
Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com
