Royal Bank of Canada Reaffirms Outperform Rating for Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA)

Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA)‘s stock had its “outperform” rating reissued by investment analysts at Royal Bank of Canada in a research note issued on Thursday,Benzinga reports. They presently have a $440.00 price target on the electric vehicle producer’s stock. Royal Bank of Canada’s price target suggests a potential upside of 8.75% from the company’s current price.

TSLA has been the topic of several other reports. Sanford C. Bernstein reaffirmed an “underperform” rating and set a $120.00 price target on shares of Tesla in a research note on Thursday, October 3rd. Morgan Stanley lifted their target price on shares of Tesla from $400.00 to $430.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, January 13th. HSBC reissued a “reduce” rating and set a $124.00 price target on shares of Tesla in a research note on Friday, October 11th. Phillip Securities downgraded Tesla from a “moderate sell” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a research report on Wednesday, November 13th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company raised their price target on Tesla from $125.00 to $135.00 and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a research note on Thursday. Nine equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, thirteen have assigned a hold rating, sixteen have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Tesla has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $318.31.

Tesla Trading Up 1.1 %

Shares of Tesla stock opened at $404.60 on Thursday. The company has a 50-day moving average of $403.18 and a two-hundred day moving average of $297.99. The stock has a market cap of $1.30 trillion, a PE ratio of 198.33, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 8.08 and a beta of 2.30. The company has a current ratio of 1.84, a quick ratio of 1.37 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.08. Tesla has a 12-month low of $138.80 and a 12-month high of $488.54.

Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, January 29th. The electric vehicle producer reported $0.66 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.74 by ($0.08). Tesla had a net margin of 7.26% and a return on equity of 10.54%. On average, research analysts anticipate that Tesla will post 2.82 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Tesla

In other news, Director Kathleen Wilson-Thompson sold 100,000 shares of Tesla stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $346.02, for a total value of $34,602,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 5,400 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,868,508. This trade represents a 94.88 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CFO Vaibhav Taneja sold 7,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, January 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $413.56, for a total value of $2,894,920.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 108,965 shares in the company, valued at approximately $45,063,565.40. This represents a 6.04 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 553,386 shares of company stock worth $196,305,796 in the last ninety days. 20.70% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Tesla

A number of institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of TSLA. Quarry LP acquired a new stake in shares of Tesla during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $48,000. Cim LLC acquired a new stake in Tesla in the second quarter worth $292,000. Heritage Wealth Management Inc. bought a new stake in Tesla in the second quarter valued at $269,000. Centaurus Financial Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Tesla by 41.0% during the second quarter. Centaurus Financial Inc. now owns 23,470 shares of the electric vehicle producer’s stock valued at $4,644,000 after acquiring an additional 6,823 shares during the period. Finally, Ashburton Jersey Ltd acquired a new stake in shares of Tesla in the 2nd quarter worth about $63,000. Institutional investors own 66.20% of the company’s stock.

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.