What happened?
Shares of electric vehicle pioneer Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) jumped 6.1% in the afternoon session after Barclays upgraded the company to Overweight from Equal Weight and raised its price target to $450 from $370.
Barclays analyst Dan Levy upgraded the stock and lifted the target by $80, implying 21% upside from the previous session's close of $372.22, in research reported by CNBC and TipRanks. Levy pointed to an operational turnaround, projecting automotive deliveries will return to growth this year after two years of declines, supported by Full Self-Driving adoption and Shanghai exports. The bank added that Tesla's energy-storage business is nearly sold out for 2027 due to data-center demand, potentially supporting shipment growth above 50%.
The research also highlighted market expectations for a potential combination between Tesla and SpaceX, noting that exploratory committees formed at both companies could inject a transaction premium into the shares, per CNBC.
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What is the market telling us
Tesla’s shares are quite volatile and have had 15 moves greater than 5% over the last year. In that context, today’s move indicates the market considers this news meaningful but not something that would fundamentally change its perception of the business.
The previous big move we wrote about was 24 days ago when the stock gained 5.2% on the news that the company reported third-quarter 2026 vehicle deliveries that were above analyst estimates. Tesla delivered 486,532 vehicles during the period, above the FactSet analyst consensus estimate of 461,000 by approximately 5.5%. Deliveries included 478,237 Model 3 and Model Y vehicles and 8,295 other models. Total deliveries declined 2.1% from 497,099 vehicles in the third quarter of 2025. During the third quarter of 2026, the company manufactured 464,391 vehicles. In addition to vehicle production and deliveries, Tesla deployed 13.7 GWh of energy storage products.
Tesla is down 9.5% since the beginning of the year, and at $396.23 per share, it is trading 19.1% below its 52-week high of $489.88 from December 2025. Despite the year-to-date decline, investors who bought $1,000 worth of Tesla’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at an investment worth $1,167.
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