Tesla (TSLA) hits all-time high as it pushes for record quarter

Tesla’s stock (TSLA) hit a new all-time high today, closing at $393 per share, as the automaker is pushing for a record quarter.

TSLA was up another 3% — making it up 11% in the last five days alone and up 74% over the last six months.

The stock hasn’t been near these levels since the “funding secured” debacle of last year when Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted that he planned to take Tesla private at $420 per share.

Musk ended up abandoning the idea and Tesla hit some tough times. It prompted the company to make some controversial moves in early 2019, like announcing that all sales will be done online and that they planned to close many Tesla retail locations.

The company later confirmed being under a cash crunch during that time, and Tesla’s stock then plunged.

But in May, Tesla closed a massive $2.7 billion capital raise and they ended up reversing some of their more controversial decisions from earlier in the year.

The stock started to recover after that:

The company’s stock, which until recently was one of the most shorted on Wall Street, is on a tear, and it comes at the end of a quarter that could be very significant for Tesla.

As we reported earlier this month, Musk told employees that Tesla has “two most critical priorities” to accomplish by the end of year:

• The first [priority] is making sure all cars are delivered to their customers before the end of year.
• The second, just as important, is that we immediately increase the rate of solar deployments by a significant degree.

Over the last few weeks since the announcement, Electrek has been receiving anecdotal reports from Tesla’s sales channels confirming that the automaker is in a massive “end-of-the-quarter delivery push.”

Delivery centers, especially in the US where the federal tax credit for Tesla vehicles is ending, are delivering cars at an extremely high rate.

Tesla has been sending all-new vehicles produced out of the Fremont factory to delivery centers in markets where they expect to be able to deliver the cars by the end of the year.

Electrek’s Take

Things are looking good right now.

I think deliveries in the US and a few important European markets are going to be strong. If Tesla can deliver what now looks like over 1,000 made-in-China Model 3s, it would top off their quarter nicely.

A 100,000-delivery milestone is achievable, in my opinion.

I doubt that the solar would have a massive impact on Q4, but if Tesla could announce a significant increase in the rate of installation toward the end of the quarter, it could give us a good idea of what Tesla Energy could look like in 2020.

Finally, this new “Acceleration Boost” thing could also very likely turn into a quarter boost.

If Tesla offers it by the end of the year, it could give a decent revenue and profit bump. It’s hard to quantify the take rate without all the details, but if, say, 50,000 Tesla owners go for it, that’s $100 million in revenue at very little cost.

The next few weeks should be interesting.

Full disclosure: I am long TSLA.