Al Root
Tesla stock rose again in early trading Monday, boosted by a new Buy rating on Wall Street.
Shares of the electric-vehicle maker were up 0.7% at $217.72 in premarket trading after rising 2.6% on Monday. S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were flat early Monday.
Deutsche Bank analyst Edison Yu launched coverage of Tesla stock with a Buy rating and a $295 price target. According to FactSet, that's one of the higher price targets on Wall Street. The average analyst price target for Tesla stock is about $218, and the highest is Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas's $310 target price.
Tesla isn't just "an auto maker but rather a technology platform attempting to reshape multiple industries, deserving of a unique type of valuation framework," wrote Yu. It's "in a league of its own and represents our highest conviction secular leader, poised to reshape multiple industries across auto, energy, mobility, and robotics."
It's a bullish call and a change for Deutsche Bank. Yu launched coverage after Emmanuel Rosner moved to Wolfe Research from Deutsche Bank in the summer to take over for retiring analyst Rod Lache. While at Deutsche Bank, Rosner rated Tesla stock at Hold with a $123 price target. At Wolfe, he has a Hold rating on Tesla stock with no price target.
While at Deutsche Bank, Rosner in April downgraded Tesla shares from Buy, writing at the time that the lack of a new, low-price car would create earnings and cash-flow pressure beyond 2026, tying Tesla's future more directly to self-driving cars, a strategy that has "significant technological, regulatory, and operational" challenges.
Tesla has been working on creating truly self-driving cars for years and hosts a Robotaxi event on Oct. 10 to review some of its autonomous-driving technology.
With the new Buy rating, about 41% of analysts covering Tesla stock have Buy ratings. The average Buy-rating ratio for stocks in the S&P 500 is about 55%.
Coming into Tuesday's trading, Tesla stock was down about 13% year to date. Slowing EV sales have weighed on investor sentiment. Tesla shipped about 831,000 cars in the first half of 2024, down about 7% year over year.
Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 10, 2024 07:43 ET (11:43 GMT)
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