Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) Stock Price Down 2.3% Following Analyst Downgrade

Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) shares were down 2.3% during trading on Thursday after Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft downgraded the stock from a buy rating to a hold rating. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft now has a $123.00 price target on the stock, down from their previous price target of $189.00. Tesla traded as low as $148.70 and last traded at $151.91. Approximately 40,563,556 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 60% from the average daily volume of 101,070,063 shares. The stock had previously closed at $155.45.

A number of other analysts also recently issued reports on TSLA. Piper Sandler cut their price objective on shares of Tesla from $225.00 to $205.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, April 10th. Oppenheimer reissued a “market perform” rating on shares of Tesla in a report on Tuesday, April 2nd. Wells Fargo & Company cut their price target on shares of Tesla from $125.00 to $120.00 and set an “underweight” rating for the company in a report on Friday, April 12th. Barclays cut their price target on shares of Tesla from $225.00 to $180.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and set a $298.00 price target on shares of Tesla in a report on Wednesday, March 27th. Ten research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, sixteen have issued a hold rating and seven have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $194.70.

Insider Buying and Selling at Tesla

In other news, Director Robyn M. Denholm sold 93,706 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $194.73, for a total transaction of $18,247,369.38. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 15,000 shares in the company, valued at $2,920,950. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. In other news, Director Robyn M. Denholm sold 93,706 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $194.73, for a total transaction of $18,247,369.38. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 15,000 shares in the company, valued at $2,920,950. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, SVP Andrew D. Baglino sold 10,500 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $204.17, for a total transaction of $2,143,785.00. Following the sale, the senior vice president now owns 31,230 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $6,376,229.10. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 209,098 shares of company stock worth $38,802,534. 25.10% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Tesla

Several large investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in Tesla by 1.7% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 229,806,372 shares of the electric vehicle producer’s stock worth $57,102,287,000 after purchasing an additional 3,866,361 shares during the period. State Street Corp grew its holdings in Tesla by 0.7% in the first quarter. State Street Corp now owns 99,683,820 shares of the electric vehicle producer’s stock worth $20,680,162,000 after purchasing an additional 685,454 shares during the period. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in Tesla in the fourth quarter worth $7,844,757,000. Morgan Stanley grew its holdings in Tesla by 7.8% in the third quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 30,160,747 shares of the electric vehicle producer’s stock worth $7,546,823,000 after purchasing an additional 2,177,397 shares during the period. Finally, FMR LLC grew its holdings in Tesla by 0.9% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 29,040,734 shares of the electric vehicle producer’s stock worth $7,266,572,000 after purchasing an additional 269,182 shares during the period. 66.20% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Tesla Price Performance

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.05, a current ratio of 1.73 and a quick ratio of 1.25. The firm has a market capitalization of $483.10 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 35.25, a PEG ratio of 4.15 and a beta of 2.39. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $180.24 and its 200 day simple moving average is $212.64.

Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 24th. The electric vehicle producer reported $0.71 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.74 by ($0.03). Tesla had a return on equity of 16.62% and a net margin of 15.50%. The company had revenue of $25.17 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $25.64 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $1.07 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 3.5% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts forecast that Tesla, Inc. will post 1.97 EPS for the current year.

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.