Tesla Stock Rises on Q2 Deliveries Beating Expectations

After Tesla reported its second-quarter deliveries last weekend, the automaker’s shares have steadily risen throughout the week. The quarterly deliveries were about 4 or 5 percent higher than most Wall Street expectations, marking a record-breaking quarter and the best outperformance of estimates since 2021, according to some.

Above: (Image: Casey Murphy / EVANNEX).

Tesla reported a little more than 466,000 deliveries in the second quarter of this year, as Barron’s reports. The deliveries were a significant jump from Wall Street estimates expecting around 445,000 to 447,000 units, and one analyst considered it the largest outperformance of Street estimates since 2021.

Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi called it Tesla stock’s best Wall Street beat since Q4 2021. After the announcement, made on Sunday, the automaker’s stock subsequently rose to over $282 per share on Monday for a 7.8-percent gain. At the time of writing, Tesla is trading at $280.85 (+$1.13), up 0.40 percent from the market open on Wednesday.

The news comes after a handful of downgrades in recent weeks, which followed a crushing rally throughout late May and June that beat on most Wall Street price targets. Now, some analysts are taking comfort in the delivery results, despite having expected the automaker to earn strong deliveries before they were reported.

One such analyst includes Baird’s Ben Kallo, who said on Sunday that he was feeling a little wary going into the second-quarter earnings report, “given stock performance coupled with the sentiment on sell-side.” Following the meeting, he wrote that the high delivery figure relieved some of his prior “concerns about second-quarter financials.”

Kallo rates Tesla a Buy and has a $252 price target on the automaker’s shares. Tesla’s shares finished the first half of 2023 up 113 percent from average Wall Street price targets, and some analysts expected the late-term rally not to last.

Tesla bull Daniel Ives of Wedbush Securities said he had expected Q2 deliveries to move shares higher, writing on Sunday that the delivery results “will send [Tesla] bears into hibernation mode.”

“Bears were expecting a bad print,” Ives added. “This was a trophy case quarter [for Tesla].”

Currently, Ives has a $300 price target on Tesla shares, and he also rates the stock a Buy. Bernstein analyst Sacconaghi, however, remains cautious on the company’s stock, citing concerns about demand given the ratio of deliveries to orders. Despite being impressed by the company's Q2 deliveries, Sacconaghi has a Sell rating on Tesla stock, with a price target of just $150.

“Despite significant price cuts and quarter-end promotions in the second quarter, lead times on all Tesla models are low,” Sacconaghi wrote. “We believe the company drew down backlog in the second quarter.”

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