Wedbush Securities updated its outlook for Tesla Inc., after stronger than expected quarterly deliveries.
On Sunday, Wedbush raised its price target for Tesla TSLA,
from $ 950 to $ 1,000 per share, with a long-term market price of $ 1,300 per share. Tesla shares closed Thursday at $ 661.75 (markets closed on Friday).
Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives also changed his rating from hold to outperform. “In our opinion, the 1Q delivery numbers released on Friday were a paradigm shift,” he said in a note.
On Friday, Tesla reported first quarter deliveries, its sales proxy, totaling 184,800 vehicles, exceeding FactSet’s consensus of 168,000. The electric vehicle manufacturer in Silicon Valley said it produced just over 180,000 vehicles in the period in what Ives called the “drop the microphone” number.
“We now believe that Tesla could exceed 850,000 deliveries in the year with 900,000 per target, despite the chip shortage and several persistent supply chain problems across the automotive sector,” said Ives on Sunday. He added that “the numbers of deliveries leaving China cannot be ignored with the trajectory on the way to representing about 40% of Musk & Co. deliveries by 2022.”
Ives and his team also see Tesla’s profitability improving significantly over the next three to four years.
Tesla’s shares fell 6.2% year-to-date, but have soared 628% in the past 12 months.