Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) Shares Up 1.1% on Analyst Upgrade

Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA)’s share price traded up 1.1% during trading on Monday after Stifel Nicolaus raised their price target on the stock from $483.00 to $508.00. Stifel Nicolaus currently has a buy rating on the stock. Tesla traded as high as $423.96 and last traded at $408.92. 100,371,454 shares changed hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 0% from the average session volume of 100,725,602 shares. The stock had previously closed at $404.35.

Several other analysts have also recently commented on TSLA. President Capital raised their price objective on shares of Tesla from $373.00 to $529.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 29th. HSBC lifted their price target on shares of Tesla from $120.00 to $127.00 in a research report on Monday, September 29th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upped their price target on Tesla from $440.00 to $470.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, November 3rd. Royal Bank Of Canada reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and set a $500.00 price objective on shares of Tesla in a report on Thursday, October 23rd. Finally, Melius Research set a $520.00 target price on Tesla and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, October 13th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-one have assigned a Buy rating, twelve have issued a Hold rating and ten have given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $394.31.

Insider Transactions at Tesla

In other news, Director James R. Murdoch sold 120,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, August 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $350.29, for a total value of $42,034,800.00. Following the sale, the director directly owned 697,031 shares in the company, valued at $244,162,988.99. This represents a 14.69% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CFO Vaibhav Taneja sold 2,606 shares of Tesla stock in a transaction dated Monday, September 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $352.38, for a total value of $918,302.28. Following the sale, the chief financial officer owned 9,856 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,473,057.28. This represents a 20.91% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders sold a total of 202,606 shares of company stock valued at $75,588,902 over the last three months. 19.90% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Tesla

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the company. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of Tesla in the second quarter valued at $11,839,824,000. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. boosted its stake in Tesla by 322.1% in the 1st quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 26,590,525 shares of the electric vehicle producer’s stock worth $6,891,201,000 after buying an additional 20,291,139 shares during the last quarter. Nuveen LLC purchased a new stake in Tesla in the 1st quarter valued at about $3,247,619,000. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC increased its stake in shares of Tesla by 581,880.5% during the 2nd quarter. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC now owns 6,436,704 shares of the electric vehicle producer’s stock valued at $2,044,683,000 after acquiring an additional 6,435,598 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Tesla by 1.8% during the 2nd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 251,390,681 shares of the electric vehicle producer’s stock worth $79,856,764,000 after acquiring an additional 4,502,976 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 66.20% of the company’s stock.

Tesla Price Performance

The company’s 50-day moving average is $430.92 and its 200-day moving average is $362.23. The firm has a market capitalization of $1.36 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 272.61, a PEG ratio of 16.84 and a beta of 2.06. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07, a current ratio of 2.07 and a quick ratio of 1.67.

Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, October 23rd. The electric vehicle producer reported $0.50 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.48 by $0.02. The firm had revenue of $28.10 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $24.98 billion. Tesla had a net margin of 5.51% and a return on equity of 6.61%. Tesla’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $0.72 earnings per share. On average, research analysts expect that Tesla, Inc. will post 2.56 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.