tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) Stocks are seeing strong bullish momentum in Friday trading. The electric vehicle (EV) company’s stock price rose 6.9% as of 3:15 p.m. ET amid a 1.2% gain for the S&P 500 index and a gain of 1.7% for the Nasdaq Composite index.
In addition to the current bullish momentum for the broader market, Tesla is gaining ground thanks to positive industry reports and analyst coverage. In addition to a Reuters report indicating that the electric vehicle specialist was seeing strong sales in China, the company’s shares are also getting a boost from Canaccord’s increased price target.
Reuters recently published a report on Tesla’s sales performance in China throughout 2024, and the analysis paints a bullish picture. Vehicle sales in China increased 8.8% year-on-year to more than 657,000. Even better, the report shows that vehicle sales accelerated above that rate to generate 12.8% growth and sales of 83,000 units last month. The results appear particularly significant following Tesla’s recent vehicle production and deliveries report for the fourth quarter of 2024.
Tesla’s fourth-quarter update announced that the company had produced 459,000 vehicles and delivered 495,000 vehicles in the period. While the performance was not as bad as the most recent projections had predicted, the results were still below the average analyst estimate. This performance brought the company’s total deliveries through 2024 to 1.79 million vehicles, below Wall Street’s average forecast for deliveries of 1.806 million vehicles. Tesla’s deliveries in 2024 fell short of the roughly 1.8 million vehicles delivered in 2023, marking the first time the company saw an overall decline in unit sales. With total deliveries falling short of expectations, signs of momentum in China represent a major bright spot.
In a note published before the market opened today, Canaccord maintained a buy rating on Tesla and raised its one-year price target for the stock from $298 per share to $404 per share. Following the stock’s gains today, the new price target actually implies a decline of about 0.4%.
Canaccord analysts believe Tesla’s business fundamentals justify valuation multiples that are in the same ballpark as other mega-cap tech peers, including NVIDIA, Appleand Amazon. More importantly, the firm believes Tesla is positioned to capitalize on multiple “generational” growth opportunities in categories including autonomous vehicles, batteries and robotics. So while Tesla’s one-year price target implied limited upside at press time and has already been surpassed, Canaccord believes the EV leader has the makings of a long-term winner.