Shares of Tesla stock have been skyrocketing higher by the minute with thousands of first-time buyers lining up to get a piece of the electric car maker.
According to trading application Robinhood, a big favorite among millennial investors, 12,000 traders bought Tesla stock for the first time ever Monday — and that was way back when it was trading for “only” around $700 a share.
But not everyone is convinced it will last and some are calling Tesla, which has risen more than 110% in 2020, a massive bubble that will leave a lot of people holding the bag when it finally bursts.
Shares were trading above $950 a share after rising 20-plus percent both Monday and Tuesday before then falling with a sharp sell-off right before the market close.
Much of Tesla’s recent run, some say, is due to a massive short covering FOMO — fear of missing out — among investors not yet positioned.
“Tesla has gone parabolic,” Miller Tabak Chief Market Strategist Matt Maley told CNBC. “This is taking Tesla well above a level that would be supported by its current fundamentals. The stock is going to get absolutely clobbered at some point before long.”
Tesla rocketed past the $900 threshold Tuesday before settling just below that mark with analysts unable to keep up with a price target for where they think the stock will end up. The average 12-month price target for a share was $493, according to FactSet, nearly 50% below where the stock is now trading.
One Tesla bull, ARK Invest analyst Tasha Keeney, updated her firm’s outlook over the weekend to a staggering $7,000 price target by 2024, saying a more bullish outlook could see it topping $15,000.
“When the stock market bubble implodes, it will have been started by the surge in Tesla shares beyond speculative zeal,” former presidential candidate Ralph Nader tweeted late last month.
Tesla’s meteoric rise comes amid just a handful of profitable quarters in the company’s history.
“Deep in (debt), selling less than 400,000 vehicles last year, and challenged by several competing electric car models in 2020, Tesla’s stock valuation stunningly exceeds VW which sold over 10 million vehicles last year,” Nader wrote in another tweet. “Watch out Tesla believers.”
Editor’s note: Is Tesla’s rally here to stay, or is it a ticking time bomb destined to explode at the end of the record bull market?