Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) Upgraded at Wall Street Zen

Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) from a sell rating to a hold rating in a research note published on Saturday morning.

Several other equities research analysts also recently issued reports on the stock. Weiss Ratings reiterated a “hold (c)” rating on shares of Tesla in a research note on Wednesday, October 8th. Mizuho boosted their price objective on shares of Tesla from $450.00 to $485.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 23rd. William Blair reiterated a “market perform” rating on shares of Tesla in a research note on Friday, September 5th. Needham & Company LLC reiterated a “hold” rating on shares of Tesla in a research note on Thursday, October 23rd. Finally, Daiwa Capital Markets reiterated a “neutral” rating on shares of Tesla in a research note on Sunday, July 27th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty have issued a Buy rating, twelve have issued a Hold rating and eleven have assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $381.00.

Tesla Price Performance

Tesla stock opened at $452.42 on Friday. Tesla has a 1 year low of $214.25 and a 1 year high of $488.54. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $400.41 and a 200 day moving average price of $342.47. The company has a market cap of $1.50 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 301.61, a PEG ratio of 15.45 and a beta of 2.08. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07, a quick ratio of 1.67 and a current ratio of 2.07.

Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, October 22nd. The electric vehicle producer reported $0.50 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.48 by $0.02. Tesla had a net margin of 5.51% and a return on equity of 6.61%. The firm had revenue of $28.10 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $24.98 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $0.72 earnings per share. Tesla’s revenue was up 11.6% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts predict that Tesla will post 2.56 earnings per share for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Tesla news, Director James R. Murdoch sold 60,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, September 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $422.68, for a total transaction of $25,360,800.00. Following the sale, the director directly owned 637,031 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $269,260,263.08. This represents a 8.61% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CFO Vaibhav Taneja sold 2,606 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, September 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $352.38, for a total transaction of $918,302.28. Following the sale, the chief financial officer directly owned 9,856 shares in the company, valued at $3,473,057.28. This trade represents a 20.91% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 202,606 shares of company stock valued at $75,588,902. Company insiders own 19.90% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Tesla

Several hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of TSLA. Brighton Jones LLC lifted its position in Tesla by 11.8% in the 4th quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 87,929 shares of the electric vehicle producer’s stock valued at $35,509,000 after purchasing an additional 9,293 shares during the last quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC increased its stake in Tesla by 21.2% during the 4th quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC now owns 5,317 shares of the electric vehicle producer’s stock valued at $2,147,000 after buying an additional 931 shares during the period. Bison Wealth LLC increased its stake in Tesla by 52.2% during the 4th quarter. Bison Wealth LLC now owns 10,368 shares of the electric vehicle producer’s stock valued at $4,187,000 after buying an additional 3,558 shares during the period. GAMMA Investing LLC increased its stake in Tesla by 6.0% during the 1st quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 37,862 shares of the electric vehicle producer’s stock valued at $9,812,000 after buying an additional 2,153 shares during the period. Finally, First Merchants Corp increased its stake in Tesla by 5.4% during the 1st quarter. First Merchants Corp now owns 2,382 shares of the electric vehicle producer’s stock valued at $617,000 after buying an additional 121 shares during the period. 66.20% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Tesla Company Profile

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.