Tesla Inc. received another downturn on Friday from prolific Wedbush analyst Dan Ives, who raised his stock price target by 33% but still won’t recommend investors to buy shares.
Ives said “hearts and lungs” to the investor bull thesis about Tesla TSLA,
focused on China, as consumer demand increased in 2021, not only for the Tesla 3 model, but also for electric vehicles from “impressive” domestic competitors such as Nio Inc. NIO,
Li Auto Inc. LI,
and Xpeng Inc. XPEV,
He said that although competition is growing, Tesla “remains at the top of Mount EV.” And given the “robust” global demand for electric vehicles, Ives now expects Tesla to exceed the 1 million delivery threshold in 2022 and said deliveries could start approaching 5 million a year by the end of the year. decade.
“While there are over 150 carmakers aggressively pursuing the EV opportunity globally, right now in the EV market we believe it’s the Tesla world and everyone else is paying rent,” Ives wrote in a note to customers.
He raised his “base” price for Tesla to $ 950, which is 12.4% above Thursday’s closing price of $ 715. Its target is now the largest of the 37 analysts surveyed by FactSet and almost double the average target of $ 498.66.
Tesla shares rose 0.5% in premarket trading. It fell 1.1% on Thursday to close 4.0% below its Jan. 8 record high of $ 880.02.
Joe Biden as president and a Democratic-controlled Congress should also provide a tailwind for the EV sector, Ives said. “A Blue Senate is very optimistic and a potential ‘game changer’ for Tesla and the general electric vehicle sector in the US, with a greener agenda, now certainly in the books for the next few years,” he wrote.
Ives also raised its price target for the “bull case” by 25%, from $ 1,000 to $ 1,250.
However, he reiterated his neutral rating of Tesla since April 2019. For Wedbush, a neutral rating means that analysts expect the total return on the stock to work in line with the total median yield of the coverage universe. the analyst. Ives is listed with Wedbush’s software analyst, and other companies he covers include Apple Inc. AAPL,
Uber Technologies Inc. UBER,
and Zscaler Inc. ZS,
which they consider to exceed.
Tesla shares rose 714.9% in the last 12 months to Thursday, while Apple shares rose 65.6%, Uber rose 62.6% and Zscaler rose 249.8%. At the same time, the S&P 500 SPX,
gained 15.4%.