Tesla Tops $800 Mark, Chasing Toyota as World's Most Valuable Carmaker
Tesla Inc. (TSLA) - Get Report shares extended gains in pre-market trading Tuesday, following on from the biggest single-session advance in six years yesterday, as it closes in on Toyota Motor Co. (TM) - Get Report for the title of world's most valuable carmaker.
Tesla surged nearly 20% yesterday, boosting its market value to just under $141 billion, well ahead of domestic rivals Ford (F) - Get Report and General Motors (GM) - Get Report and now only $50 billion behind market leader Toyota -- which sold 10.74 million cars last year compared to 367, 500 for Elon Musk's Palo Alto, California-based Tesla.
Yesterday's move, which added $23 billion in value for Tesla shareholders, was largely pegged to earlier-than-expected profitability at Panasonic Corp. which makes batteries for the clean-energy carmaker at a jointly-owned plant in Nevada, and a pair of analysts upgrades that had retail investors pouring into the stock. Panasonic, it should be noted, also has a joint venture with Toyota that will launch in April.
Argus analyst Bill Selesky raised his Tesla target price by 45%, to $808, citing its "dominant position in the electric vehicle industry" and forecast "improved performance in 2020 and beyond." Ark Invest, meanwhile, put Tesla's value at in 2024 at an eye-watering $7,000 per share, based on optimism about its gross margins and capital efficiency.
Tesla shares were marked 9.2% higher in pre-market trading Tuesday to indicate an opening bell price of $852 each, a move that would mark a 373% gain from the stock's June 3 trough of $179.87 per share.
Tesla shares, however, continue to have the biggest short interest in the U.S. market, with some $15.86 billion -- or 24.38 million shares -- betting against its continued rise.
That's around 18.22% of the entire Tesla float, dwarfing the 0.93% bet against Apple (AAPL) - Get Report and the 0.88% bet against Microsoft (MSFT) - Get Report, the second and third most-shorted stocks in the market respectively.
Some of the short interest could be linked to the stock's recent surge, which has seen levels from $400 to $700 taken out since late last year. In fact, while it took Tesla nearly 1,000 days to go from $300 to $400 a share, it took only 25 days to rise to $500, 18 days to rise to $600 and a mere 4 days to rise to $700 during yesterday's session.
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