Thursday, January 16, 2014

Tesla's Analyst Lovefest (TSLA)

From Barron's Stocks to Watch column (Jan. 15):

Will Cars Be for Tesla What Books Were to Amazon?
Tesla Motors (TSLA) is catching fire, and this time we’re talking about its stock, not the cars.
Shares of Tesla have jumped 3.2% to $166.39 today at 2:12 p.m. after jumping 16% yesterday following Elon Musk’s positive comments about sales of Tesla’s Model S.
It sure looks like momentum is back on Tesla’s side and Jefferies’ Elaine Kwei thinks more could go right than wrong for the upstart automaker:
Barring another freak accident/negative news headline, we see more potential for positive rather than negative catalysts ahead, including: 1) resolution of the NHTSA investigation; 2) 25% or better gross margin in 4Q given the higher ASPs of European deliveries; and 3) 2014 delivery guidance of 31,000 or more units. Mr. Guillen indicated that production is currently over 600 cars/week, and is expected to exit the year at a rate of 800 cars/week.
Global Equities Research’s Tej Singh compares Tesla to a mobile phone:
Customer’s behavioral shift is the strongest catalyst for Tesla Motors and betting against the Customer’s behavioral Shift is not prudent:
Customers use their Mobile Phone the whole day, and when they come home, they plug their Phone for charging, and in the morning their phone is fully charged, and the customer goes about doing their daily routine and the cycle continues – Charge-use-Charge-use…
This above behavioral expectation is now transcending into Cars.  Charge the Car in the night and top it off, and then go about doing their daily routine, come home and then charge it in night…and the cycle continues -”Why do you have to go to the Gas Station ?”
Our research Indicates that the above behavioral shift is so strong, that it is one of the prime reasons for extremely high demand of Tesla Model S cars and for extremely high customer satisfaction rates
Morgan Stanley’s Adam Jonas and team ask if Tesla is more than a car company:
Tesla’s plans for a ‘Giga’ battery factory starting to get more attention as a call option on the economics of mass produced batteries and the business model. We found the final sentence of Tesla’s prepared remarks on its plans to build the worlds’ largest lithium ion battery factory intriguing...
...MORE