Tesla Stock Might Be Too Strong

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The stock market is largely imaginary. A company’s valuation is loosely tied to its underlying finances, sure, but there are plenty of other factors that go into pricing out shares — from good old fashioned supply and demand for the stock itself to the vague, unknowable metric of hype.

That latter factor, according to analysts, is behind Tesla stock’s recent upward march. Its share price has more than doubled during 2023, a rise not matched by the company’s financial standing. Instead, analysts believe these gains come from enthusiasm around the automaker’s AI efforts — enthusiasm they don’t seem to put much financial stake in. Reuters has the breakdown of just how much faith analysts put in this rise:

Goldman Sachs on Monday cut Tesla to “hold” equivalent rating, joining Morgan Stanley and Barclays, which downgraded the stock last week. The brokerages, however, raised their price targets to reflect the momentum in Tesla shares, which have soared 71% since late April and more than doubled this year.

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Morgan Stanley and Barclays pointed out that Tesla’s earnings were still at risk of negative revisions as it battles competition in China and may be forced to cut prices.

In April, Jefferies and Truist Securities downgraded Tesla after it reported lower margins in its first-quarter results.

Machine learning has had plenty of time in the spotlight this year, from art filters on TikTok to the growth of ChatGPT and generative AI. These analysts seem to think that Tesla’s cultural clout in this market, measured in upvotes and Twitter likes, won’t translate to any real financial boost for the company. They likely aren’t wrong — there’s a massive gap between tinkering with ChatGPT and implementing any kind of useful AI in a car.