Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) The stock is seeing strong bullish momentum in Friday trading. The electric vehicle (EVThe company’s stock price was up 6.9% at 3:15 PM ET, against the backdrop of a 1.2% gain for the S&P500 index and a gain of 1.7% for the Nasdaq Composite index.
In addition to today’s bullish momentum for the broader market, Tesla is gaining ground on positive industry reports and analyst coverage. In addition to a Reuters report saying the EV specialist saw strong sales in China, the company’s shares are also getting a boost from a price target increase from Canaccord.
Reuters recently published a report on Tesla’s sales performance in China through 2024, and the analysis paints a bullish picture. Car sales in China rose 8.8% year on year to more than 657,000. In fact, the report shows that car sales have risen above that rate, posting 12.8% growth and sales of 83,000 units last month. The results appear particularly significant in the wake of Tesla’s recent vehicle deliveries and production report for the fourth quarter of 2024.
Tesla’s Q4 update announced that the company produced 459,000 vehicles and delivered 495,000 vehicles during the period. While performance wasn’t as bad as more recent projections had predicted, results still fell below the average analyst estimate. This performance brought the company’s total 2024 deliveries to 1.79 million vehicles, below the average Wall Street forecast for deliveries of 1.806 million vehicles. Tesla’s 2024 deliveries lagged behind the roughly 1.8 million vehicles delivered in 2023, marking the first time the company has seen an overall decline in unit sales. With overall deliveries falling short of expectations, signs of momentum in China are a key bright spot.
In a note published before the market opened today, Canaccord maintained a buy rating on Tesla and raised its one-year price target for the stock from $298 per share to $404 per share. After the gains for the stock today, the new price target actually implies a downside of about 0.4%.
Canaccord’s analysts believe Tesla’s business fundamentals justify valuation multiples in the same ballpark as other mega-cap tech companies, including Nvidia, AppleAnd Amazon. More importantly, the company believes Tesla is positioned to capitalize on multiple, multi-generational growth opportunities in categories such as self-driving vehicles, batteries and robotics. So while Tesla’s one-year price target indicated limited upside at the time of publication and has already been surpassed, Canaccord thinks the EV leader has the chops to win in the long term.