Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) Stock Price Up 2.2% on Analyst Upgrade

Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) shares rose 2.2% during trading on Friday after Royal Bank of Canada raised their price target on the stock from $249.00 to $313.00. Royal Bank of Canada currently has an outperform rating on the stock. Tesla traded as high as $320.13 and last traded at $318.10. Approximately 44,128,813 shares were traded during mid-day trading, a decline of 54% from the average daily volume of 95,711,000 shares. The stock had previously closed at $311.18.

A number of other equities research analysts have also recently commented on the company. Wells Fargo & Company increased their target price on Tesla from $120.00 to $125.00 and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 24th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price objective on shares of Tesla from $130.00 to $135.00 and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 24th. Sanford C. Bernstein reaffirmed an “underperform” rating and issued a $120.00 target price on shares of Tesla in a report on Thursday, October 3rd. Oppenheimer reissued a “market perform” rating on shares of Tesla in a research report on Tuesday, October 8th. Finally, Wedbush upped their price objective on Tesla from $300.00 to $400.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, November 11th. Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, seventeen have given a hold rating and fourteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $230.18.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, SVP Xiaotong Zhu sold 297 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, September 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $221.77, for a total value of $65,865.69. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 67,491 shares in the company, valued at $14,967,479.07. This represents a 0.44 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, CFO Vaibhav Taneja sold 4,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $350.00, for a total transaction of $1,400,000.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 105,032 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $36,761,200. This represents a 3.67 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 188,797 shares of company stock worth $57,616,781. 20.70% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Tesla

Large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. MidWestOne Financial Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of Tesla by 7.4% during the 3rd quarter. MidWestOne Financial Group Inc. now owns 3,562 shares of the electric vehicle producer’s stock valued at $932,000 after acquiring an additional 244 shares during the last quarter. Greenwood Gearhart Inc. raised its stake in Tesla by 9.2% during the third quarter. Greenwood Gearhart Inc. now owns 38,306 shares of the electric vehicle producer’s stock worth $10,022,000 after purchasing an additional 3,216 shares during the period. Frisch Financial Group Inc. boosted its holdings in Tesla by 5.6% in the 3rd quarter. Frisch Financial Group Inc. now owns 2,895 shares of the electric vehicle producer’s stock valued at $757,000 after purchasing an additional 154 shares during the last quarter. Prestige Wealth Management Group LLC increased its holdings in shares of Tesla by 18.0% during the 3rd quarter. Prestige Wealth Management Group LLC now owns 5,267 shares of the electric vehicle producer’s stock worth $1,378,000 after buying an additional 803 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Brophy Wealth Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Tesla during the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $1,126,000. 66.20% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Tesla Stock Up 3.1 %

The stock has a market capitalization of $1.03 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 87.49, a PEG ratio of 10.73 and a beta of 2.29. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.08, a current ratio of 1.84 and a quick ratio of 1.37. The business has a fifty day moving average of $250.10 and a 200 day moving average of $219.58.

Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 23rd. The electric vehicle producer reported $0.72 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.58 by $0.14. The business had revenue of $25.18 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $25.47 billion. Tesla had a return on equity of 10.24% and a net margin of 13.07%. The company’s revenue was up 7.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $0.53 EPS. As a group, equities analysts predict that Tesla, Inc. will post 1.99 earnings per share for the current year.

About Tesla

Tesla, Inc designs, develops, manufactures, leases, and sells electric vehicles, and energy generation and storage systems in the United States, China, and internationally. The company operates in two segments, Automotive, and Energy Generation and Storage. The Automotive segment offers electric vehicles, as well as sells automotive regulatory credits; and non-warranty after-sales vehicle, used vehicles, body shop and parts, supercharging, retail merchandise, and vehicle insurance services.