Wedbush Securities has improved its outlook for Tesla Inc., following stronger-than-expected quarterly deliveries.
On Sunday, Wedbush raised its price target for the Tesla TSLA,
at $ 1,000 per share from $ 950, with a long-term price of $ 1,300 per share. Tesla shares closed at $ 661.75 on Thursday (markets closed on Friday).
Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives also changed his rating from hold to outperform. “In our view, the 1Q delivery numbers released on Friday have changed the paradigm,” he said in a note.
On Friday, Tesla reported first-quarter deliveries, its sales prosecutor totaling 184,800 vehicles, surpassing the FactSet consensus of 168,000. The Silicon Valley electric vehicle maker said it produced just over 180,000 vehicles during that period, which Ives called the “drop the microphone” number.
“We now believe that Tesla could exceed 850,000 deliveries for the year, with 900,000 extended targets, despite the chip shortage and various supply chain issues that persist in the automotive sector,” Ives said on Sunday. He added that “delivery numbers from China cannot be ignored with the trajectory to represent ~ 40% of deliveries for Musk & Co. until 2022 ”.
Ives and his team also see that Tesla’s profitability improves significantly over the next three to four years.
Tesla shares have fallen 6.2% so far, but have risen 628% in the last 12 months.