Tesla’s (TSLA) Outperform Rating Reiterated at Royal Bank of Canada

Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA)‘s stock had its “outperform” rating reaffirmed by equities researchers at Royal Bank of Canada in a report issued on Thursday,Benzinga reports. They presently have a $440.00 target price on the electric vehicle producer’s stock. Royal Bank of Canada’s price target points to a potential upside of 10.42% from the company’s previous close.

A number of other equities research analysts also recently issued reports on the stock. Cantor Fitzgerald reiterated a “neutral” rating and set a $365.00 price objective on shares of Tesla in a research note on Wednesday. Morgan Stanley increased their target price on shares of Tesla from $400.00 to $430.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, January 13th. The Goldman Sachs Group boosted their price target on shares of Tesla from $250.00 to $345.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 11th. Oppenheimer reiterated a “market perform” rating on shares of Tesla in a report on Tuesday, October 8th. Finally, Mizuho upgraded shares of Tesla from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and boosted their target price for the company from $230.00 to $515.00 in a research note on Tuesday, December 17th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, fourteen have assigned a hold rating, sixteen have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $317.28.

Tesla Stock Performance

Shares of TSLA traded up $9.37 during midday trading on Thursday, reaching $398.47. 56,586,726 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 72,687,461. Tesla has a twelve month low of $138.80 and a twelve month high of $488.54. The company has a market cap of $1.28 trillion, a P/E ratio of 108.94, a PEG ratio of 8.42 and a beta of 2.30. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $401.98 and its 200 day simple moving average is $297.28. The company has a quick ratio of 1.37, a current ratio of 1.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.08.

Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, January 29th. The electric vehicle producer reported $0.66 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.74 by ($0.08). Tesla had a return on equity of 10.24% and a net margin of 13.07%. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Tesla will post 2.01 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Activity

In other Tesla news, CFO Vaibhav Taneja sold 4,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, November 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $251.76, for a total transaction of $1,007,040.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 105,032 shares in the company, valued at $26,442,856.32. This trade represents a 3.67 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, Director Robyn M. Denholm sold 112,390 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $314.44, for a total transaction of $35,339,911.60. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 85,000 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $26,727,400. This represents a 56.94 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 617,886 shares of company stock worth $212,451,751 over the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 20.70% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Tesla

Large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Quarry LP purchased a new stake in Tesla in the second quarter valued at $48,000. Cim LLC purchased a new stake in Tesla in the second quarter valued at $292,000. Heritage Wealth Management Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Tesla during the 2nd quarter worth $269,000. Centaurus Financial Inc. increased its position in shares of Tesla by 41.0% during the second quarter. Centaurus Financial Inc. now owns 23,470 shares of the electric vehicle producer’s stock valued at $4,644,000 after acquiring an additional 6,823 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Ashburton Jersey Ltd purchased a new position in shares of Tesla during the second quarter worth $63,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 66.20% of the company’s stock.

About Tesla

Tesla, Inc designs, develops, manufactures, leases, and sells electric vehicles, and energy generation and storage systems in the United States, China, and internationally. The company operates in two segments, Automotive, and Energy Generation and Storage. The Automotive segment offers electric vehicles, as well as sells automotive regulatory credits; and non-warranty after-sales vehicle, used vehicles, body shop and parts, supercharging, retail merchandise, and vehicle insurance services.