Tesla stock slumped as production woes in China continued to plague the electric car maker, leading analysts to slash price targets on the once indominable stock.
Daiwa analyst Jairam Nathan said, “With about 13,000 units of production per week and higher than average margins, any production loss at Shanghai is bound to have a significant impact on margins and earnings.” He has recently cut his price target to $800 from $1,150.
Since Musk began his public quest to acquire Twitter, Tesla’s stock began an immediate decline, as analysts began talking down the value of the shares, and highlighting potential issues with production and delivery. Tesla stock, which closed at $1,145 on April 4, when CEO Elon Musk announced his 9.2% stake in Twitter Inc., has since begun an aggressive decline, sinking to $620.57 on Tuesday, wiping out just about half of its market capitalization. Since Mush announced his Twitter stake, Tesla has become the seventh worst performing stock in the S&P 500, as it dramatically underperformed most of the markets other major tech stocks, such as Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc., Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc., and Google parent Alphabet Inc.
In addition to Musk’s involvement in the Twitter drama, Tesla’s Shanghai factory has suffered under long-running Covid-19 lockdowns. Tesla was also dropped from the ESG version of the S&P 500 earlier this month. That could force some selling by funds benchmarked to that gauge.