Time for Tesla To Turn It Around
Management sounded wise on Tuesday.
Investors, traders, and speculators had already treated Tesla $TSLA well during Tuesday’s regular trading session, the stock rising 4.37 percent and surging into the close.Perhaps it was an expression of a collective “what else could possibly go wrong?” hypothesis ahead of management’s first-quarter earnings conference call on Tuesday evening.
Well, Elon Musk can open his mouth, is what else.
This time, though, this time…
It looks like the mercurial visionary may have responded well to constructive criticism – the people who Barclays analyst Dan Levy may have had in mind when he divided TSLA bulls into the “rational” as opposed to the “exuberant.”
According to the slide deck prepared in advance of management’s conference call, TSLA will accelerate the launch of “new models ahead of our previously communicated start of production in the second half of 2025.”
“Global EV sales continue to be under pressure as many carmakers prioritize hybrids over EVs,” management also noted. “While positive for our regulatory credits business, we prefer the industry to continue pushing EV adoption, which is in-line with our mission.”
The guy has a way of shifting timelines, so we’ll see, but this is pleasing to shareholders so far, with TSLA up nearly 10 percent shortly after he started speaking and boosting its market cap by approximately $40 billion.
TSLA – the first of the “original” “Magnificent Seven” to report this season – posted a net-income decline of 55 percent to $1.1 billion on a sales contraction of 8.7 percent.
Safe to say, looking back on its 41.77 percent year-to-date decline, all of that and more was priced in to TSLA by 4:00 p.m. ET yesterday afternoon.
It’s a long way to the top. And it’s an even longer way back to the top.
TSLA has been in a drawdown for 896 days, the second-longest downturn since its IPO in 2010. Even accounting for the after-hours surge on Tuesday, it’s still about 64 percent below its November 2021 peak.
This is going to be a one-day-at-a-time process like no other before it in public markets.
And, by the way, according to Elon’s own X account on April 5, TSLA’s robotaxi unveiling is scheduled for August 8.