TeslaLongtime friend Dan Ives is also starting to waver a little at the electric car giant.
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In a research note on Thursday, Dan Ives, executive director of Wedbush Securities, slashed his price target on Tesla to $1,000 from $1,400, but maintained an outperform rating.
“Success on the supply and demand side in China is key to our long-term bullishness on Tesla,” Ives wrote. “But the current situation in Fengcheng in Shanghai has had a disastrous impact on the second quarter, and we expect Tesla’s deliveries to be moderately weak this quarter, as well as growth in key regions of China throughout the second half of the year. slow down.”
Tesla, the No. 2 stock in searches on Yahoo’s financial platform, closed on a weaker footing on Thursday.
Ives’ lower profile stance on Tesla also makes sense, since the Chinese market and sales trends in the region in recent years are really important to Tesla.
Tesla sold just 1,512 vehicles in China in April, down 98 percent from March, according to the latest data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. The drop reflects China’s zero-tolerance lockdown of the coronavirus, with Tesla building cars, and Cisco’s inability to get enough chips to deliver products, all of which have had serious implications across the board.
Data also showed that Tesla’s production in China plunged 81 percent to 10,757 vehicles in April. Tesla did not export a single car from Shanghai that month. In March, it exported 60 units.
“We expect weak sales in China this quarter, which will have some impact on the third quarter,” Ives wrote. “Although Tesla’s production in China should be able to catch up as we enter the second half of the year, under the zero-epidemic policy, the next few The month may not be smooth sailing either.”
The veteran analyst also noted that CEO Elon Musk’s ongoing battle to acquire Twitter would disrupt Tesla and could continue to weigh on the stock. Tesla has fallen 33% since Musk disclosed his Twitter stake in early April.
Ives said: “While in theory the situation at Twitter would not affect Tesla’s fundamentals, in the midst of the biggest supply chain crisis in modern history, at a time when the Tesla ecosystem has never needed Musk more, Musk’s points Heart risk (which people think is) is hard to ignore.”