Tesla stock extends rally with Q1 delivery data on deck

Tesla shares bumped higher again in early Tuesday trading, following on from their strongest rally in four months, as investors look to a series of key releases over the coming weeks.  

Tesla's  (TSLA)  months-long was partly reversed Monday with a near 12% for the EV maker, the biggest advance since September, that pared the decline from its mid-December peak to around 42%.

Retail buyers appeared to drive much of the advance, having purchased around $3.2 billion in shares last week, taking the two-week total to an estimated $8 billion, perhaps in response to the coordinated challenge to the EV maker's brand from the 'Takedown Tesla' movement that has gained traction over the past month.

Elon Musk's 'all hands' meeting last week, during which he urged Tesla employees not to sell their shares and touted the company's prospects in self-driving, robotics and energy storage, also looks to have steadied the ship.

"Tesla stock goes up and it goes down," Musk told Tesla employees during the video meeting broadcast through his X social media platform. "But actually it's still the same company. It's just people's perception of the future."

The group's fundamental issues, however, remain significant, with slumping sales, narrowing margins, product recalls and leadership questions tied to Elon Musk's efforts with a Trump administration cost-cutting effort. 

European sales in freefall 

Brand erosion in Europe, meanwhile, continues apace, with data from the European Automobile Manufacturers Association, published Tuesday, showing a 42.6% Tesla sales slump over the first two months of the year to around 17,000 units.

Sales in China, meanwhile, were down 49% in February, to just under 30,700 as domestic rivals such as BYD, Geely and Nio continue to gain market share. 

Those figures, as well as the emotionally-charged protests seen around the U.S. as part of the 'Takedown Tesla' movement and regular factor maintenance, have cast a shadow over the group's first quarter deliveries, which are expected early next week, and the impact they'll have on its more detailed earnings report later in April.

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Wall Street was looking for a first quarter delivery tally of around 418,000 earlier this month, a solid gain from last year's tally of 387,000, but that figure has been steadily pared over the past three week to around 355,000. 

Piper Sandler analyst Alexander Potter, however, sees an "outside chance Tesla could achieve flat year-on-year growth" in terms of first quarter delivers, citing data showing 17,400 registrations in China last week, the strongest so far this year.

"In European and U.S. factories, where re-tooling generally takes longer to complete, the shutdown impact will almost certainly be larger (hence our expectation that company-wide Q1 deliveries will fall y/y in Q1), " said Potter, who reiterated his 'overweight' rating and $450 price target on Tesla stock.

"That would be a solid result, in our view, given the disruptive impact of a factory shutdown earlier this quarter,' he added.

Don't count Musk out - Tengler

Nancy Tengler, CEO and CIO of Laffer Tengler Investments and a notable Tesla shareholder, however, argues that while EV sales are to Tesla what iPhones are to Apple AAPL, the real value is found in "full self-driving, which really is AI (and) the mega utility-grade batteries that will allow green energy to be stored and utilized." 

"The mistake that I made with Tesla over the years is when Elon was sleeping on the factory floor and going on the Joe Rogan show and smoking pot, and his senior staff was turning over, and there were no earnings and an insider board, I felt like it was gambling, and we couldn't do that with our clients' money, so we got out," she said.

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"It was up four-fold in the ensuing five years from where we sold it," she added.

"What I learned is, like President Trump, Musk sort of courts chaos, but you underestimate him at your peril," Tengler said.

Tesla shares were last marked 1.87% higher in premarket trading to indicate an opening bell price of $283.59 each. 

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