Following a pair of bullish reports from Baird and Bernstein analysts, Tesla shares rose more than 8 percent on Monday afternoon. Tesla stock closed at $263.24 Friday, and reached $285.50 on Monday afternoon.
“We think the [Tesla] setup in sentiment looks relatively favorable for the next few weeks,” said Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi in a note to clients on Monday. “We now see the near-term risk-reward for Tesla as relatively skewed to the upside, given the potential for the stock to revert towards the middle of its $270 to $370 range.”
An analyst at Baird wrote in a Monday note published after a tour of the company’s factory: “Gigafactory 1 creates a significant barrier for competition and manufacturing capability should be a competitive advantage for TSLA over the long term. We believe TSLA’s Gigafactory enables the company to drive down costs through an industrialization of battery pack assembly and economies of scale.”
Tesla shares have been under pressure lately amid key departures from the company’s management team and sustained, eyebrow-raising conduct from the company’s CEO and chairman, Elon Musk. In the latest installment, Musk indulged in recreational marijuana use during a livestreamed video interview with comedian Joe Rogan.
Even with Monday’s boost, Tesla is down more than 20 percent over the past month. The company is also facing regulatory scrutiny over Musk’s previous suggestion that he would be able to take the company private for $420 a share and claiming he had “funding secured.”
Musk has repeatedly said he expects Tesla to become profitable in the third quarter of the year, and on Friday, he wrote in an email to employees that was also posted to Tesla’s website that he expects the electric car company will soon have its “most amazing quarter.” He promised that Tesla will build and deliver twice the number of cars it did last quarter, when it produced 53,339 and delivered 40,740, according to its last vehicle deliveries and production report.
