Tesla and Ford’s stocks join Netflix among top performers during summer rally

As the summer stock rally continues, automakers, clean energy companies and tech companies made up some of the top performers. Even legacy automakers are showing their teeth in the electric vehicle space, as the market recovers some of the ground it lost in mid-summer slumps. 

The S&P 500 has climbed about 17 percent since lows in mid-June, and Tesla, Ford and Netflix are among the top performers in the market within that time period, as reported by Forbes. Since the summertime market low on June 16, Tesla’s stock rose almost 43 percent, while Ford and Netflix were up 45 and 41 percent, respectively.

The news comes just after U.S. President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law, including a redesigned Federal EV tax credit of $7,500 for certain vehicles. Although Tesla is ineligible for the current EV tax credit, since it surpassed the sale of 200,000 vehicles in the U.S., the automaker is set to regain eligibility on January 1 when some of the new regulations take effect.

Other high risers since June 16 included Enphase Energy, which jumped 75 percent, Etsy which rose 65 percent and software companies Epam Systems, Paycom and Arista Networks which rose 57, 49 and 46 percent, respectively. Beneath Tesla, Ford and Netflix were Chipotle and PayPal which each rose 39 percent, while Amazon and Apple rose 37 and 34 percent, respectively.

Despite the increase across markets, many analysts are still unsure of what to expect from the next few months. Edward Moya, senior market analyst at Oanda, predicts that the market will remain uncertain until the Federal Reserve’s September rate hike.

In a statement, Moya said, “Stocks will most likely struggle for direction for the rest of the summer as Wall Street is still uncertain with how aggressive the Fed will be in September.”

Traders are split nearly down the middle on whether the Fed plans to raise rates by 75 basis points or if it will go with a more minor increase at 50 basis points. The agency’s next meeting is set to take place in September.

Above: Tesla is a bellwether of retail investing, says Jim Cramer. Video: CNBC / YouTube

Tesla is set to hold its AI Day on September 30, during which it will unveil new AI progress updates from the company, including its Optimus humanoid robot. At this year’s annual stockholder’s meeting, Tesla CEO Elon Musk also said that the company would have a working prototype of the AI robot at the event.

At the time of writing, Tesla (TSLA) is trading shares at $869.89 (+$0.15) up 0.02 percent in after-hours trading. Ford (F) is trading at $15.08 per share (-$0.01), down about -0.07 percent during after-hours trading.

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