Tesla
stock is trying to make it three consecutive days of gains on Friday.
Shares were 1.5% higher in premarket trading at $203.44.
Nasdaq Composite
and
S&P 500
futures were up 0.2% and 0.5%, respectively.
The Friday move comes after Thursday’s big 6.2% gain that had shares closing above $200 for the first time since Jan. 24, the day before the auto maker reported fourth-quarter earnings. Shares dropped 12.1% following earnings after
Tesla
management talked down growth rates for 2024.
Tesla delivered about 1.8 million cars in 2023, up almost 40% compared with 2022. For the current year, growth is expected to be below 20%.
There isn’t a lot of news on which to pin the Friday or Thursday gains. No upgrades, downgrades, or price-target changes from Wall Street analysts.
The big Thursday gain looks like it might have been partly based on a misunderstanding. Tesla filed a form with the Securities and Exchange Commission detailing Elon Musk’s stock ownership. It showed he controlled roughly 20% of Tesla shares. Musk owns about 13% of Tesla stock and has another 7% represented by unexercised stock options.
Musk’s ownership has been in focus lately after he tweeted about wanting 25% control of Tesla and after a Delaware judge invalidated a 2018 pay package that was the source of his options.
That case isn’t over yet. More important, the filing showed no change in the amount or type of Musk’s holdings from a year ago.
However the stock got to this point, its year-to-date move has closely tracked Wall Street’s earnings estimates. Analysts currently expect Tesla to earn about $3.08 in 2024, according to FactSet. That’s down 20% from the $3.85 expected at the end of December.
Shares of the EV maker’s peers were also moving.
Lucid Group
was up 0.6%,
NIO
shares were up 2.5%, and
BYD
stock gained 3.9% in Hong Kong trading.
General Motors
stock was flat.
If Tesla stock closes higher on Friday it will be the 15th rise in 2024 against 18 drops. Coming into Friday trading, the S&P 500 has risen 19 times and fallen 13 times.
That difference has been enough to open up a 25 percentage point performance gap. Coming into Friday trading, Tesla stock was down 19.3% so far this year while the S&P 500 was up 5.5%.
Tesla was well off its 52-week high of $299.29, which the company reached last summer.
Write to Rupert Steiner at [email protected]
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