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https://www.barrons.com/articles/stock-market-movers-tesla-alibaba-southwest-51671810917
Elon Musk has been trying this week to defend Tesla’s abysmal stock performance in 2022. The electric vehicle giant has seen its stock plummet by 61% this year, making it the 11th-worst performing stock in the S&P 500 in 2022.
“As bank savings account interest rates, which are guaranteed, start to approach stock market returns, which are *not* guaranteed, people will increasingly move their money out of stocks into cash, thus causing stocks to drop,” Musk tweeted.
You might expect that Tesla’s stock drop has wiped out more investor wealth than any other stock in the world this year. But you would be wrong.
If we look at declines in market capitalization — the value of companies’ common-shares outstanding — Tesla
TSLA,
has been the fourth worst-performing stock in the benchmark S&P 500 this year, as of 1 p.m. ET on Dec. 21:
| Company | Ticker | 2022 market cap change ($bil) | Intraday market cap on Dec. 21 ($bil) | Dec. 31, 2021 market cap ($bil) | 2022 price change |
| Amazon.com Inc. |
AMZN, |
-$805 | $886 | $1,691 | -48% |
| Apple Inc. |
AAPL, |
-$753 | $2,160 | $2,913 | -24% |
| Microsoft Corp. |
MSFT, |
-$700 | $1,825 | $2,525 | -27% |
| Tesla Inc. |
TSLA, |
-$622 | $439 | $1,061 | -61% |
| Meta Platforms Inc. Class A |
META, |
-$466 | $318 | $784 | -64% |
| Nvidia Corp. |
NVDA, |
-$329 | $406 | $735 | -44% |
| PayPal Holdings Inc. |
PYPL, |
-$143 | $79 | $222 | -63% |
| Netflix Inc. |
NFLX, |
-$134 | $133 | $267 | -51% |
| Walt Disney Co. |
DIS, |
-$122 | $160 | $282 | -44% |
| Salesforce Inc. |
CRM, |
-$119 | $131 | $250 | -49% |
| Source: FactSet | |||||
On a percentage basis, all these stocks have performed worse than the full S&P 500, which has fallen 19%, excluding dividends.
Amazon.com Inc.
AMZN,
has erased more shareholder wealth than any other publicly traded company in 2022. In total, investors in Amazon have lost $804.6 billion this year. The stock is down 48% in 2022.
Apple Inc.
AAPL,
and Microsoft Corp.
MSFT,
have also suffered larger market-cap declines than Tesla, by virtue of their sheer size.
The companies have different fiscal and annual period ends, but if we look at data for the past three reported quarters and compare to the same period a year earlier, here’s how the four stack up:
| Company | Ticker | Change in sales for three quarters from year-earlier period | Change in EPS for three quarters from year-earlier period |
| Amazon.com Inc. |
AMZN, |
10% | N/A |
| Apple Inc. |
AAPL, |
6% | 2% |
| Microsoft Corp. |
MSFT, |
14% | -2% |
| Tesla Inc. |
TSLA, |
58% | 169% |
| Source: FactSet | |||
Amazon showed a net loss of $3 billion for the first three quarters of 2022 as the company neared the end of its extraordinary multiyear effort to build out its warehouse and fulfillment infrastructure. For the first three quarters of 2021, the company booked $19 billion in profits. When announcing Amazon’s third-quarter results CEO Andy Jassy said the company was working methodically toward “a stronger cost structure for the business moving forward.”
The incredible growth of Amazon’s cloud business has stalled and disappointed the expectations the company had nurtured on Wall Street. The Amazon Web Services business is facing increasing competition from the likes of Microsoft and its customers are pulling back. Meanwhile, retail sales have also come in weak going into the Christmas and holiday season.
Amazon’s stock has declined 22% since it closed at $110.96 on Oct. 27, right before it disappointed investors not only with its third-quarter results, but with its outlook: It expects to break even during the holiday quarter. Analysts polled by FactSet had previously expected a profit of more than $5 billion.
Tesla stands in contrast to Amazon, as you can see on the table above. Its sales grew by 58% during the first three quarters of 2022 from the year-earlier period and its earnings per share rose nearly threefold.
This has been a year of significant declines for shares of giant tech-oriented companies, especially those that had traded at lofty price-to-earnings valuations — that group includes Amazon and Tesla. In fact, these companies have given up all their pandemic era gains int he stock market.
But with Tesla’s results so outstanding through the first three quarters of 2022, it raises the question: How much of the drop in the electric car makers share price was tied to Musk’s actions as CEO of Twitter, which he acquired on Oct. 27 after a monthslong saga? And how much of a relief rally, if any, might there be for Tesla if Musk, as expected, steps down as Twitter CEO?
Here’s the same list of 10 stocks in the S&P 500 that have seen the largest declines in market cap this year, with a summary of analysts’ ratings, consensus price targets and declines in their forward price-to-earnings ratios:
| Company | Ticker | Share “buy” ratings | Dec. 21 closing price | Cons. price target | Implied 12-month upside potential | Forward P/E as of Dec. 20 | Forward P/E as of Dec. 31, 2021 |
| Amazon.com Inc. |
AMZN, |
91% | $85.19 | $134.85 | 58% | 49.3 | 64.9 |
| Apple Inc. |
AAPL, |
74% | $132.30 | $173.44 | 31% | 21.4 | 30.2 |
| Microsoft Corp. |
MSFT, |
91% | $241.80 | $293.06 | 21% | 23.7 | 34.0 |
| Tesla Inc. |
TSLA, |
63% | $137.80 | $272.64 | 98% | 24.6 | 120.3 |
| Meta Platforms Inc. Class A |
META, |
63% | $117.09 | $145.45 | 24% | 14.5 | 23.5 |
| Nvidia Corp. |
NVDA, |
68% | $160.85 | $195.72 | 22% | 39.2 | 58.0 |
| PayPal Holdings Inc. |
PYPL, |
71% | $68.76 | $104.32 | 52% | 14.5 | 36.0 |
| Netflix Inc. |
NFLX, |
47% | $288.19 | $302.89 | 5% | 28.4 | 45.6 |
| Walt Disney Co. |
DIS, |
82% | $87.02 | $119.60 | 37% | 19.8 | 34.2 |
| Salesforce Inc. |
CRM, |
78% | $128.45 | $195.18 | 52% | 23.4 | 53.5 |
| Source: FactSet | |||||||
A majority of analysts see a golden path ahead for 2023 for all of these stocks except for Netflix.
For more information about any of these companies, click the tickers.
Click here for a detailed guide to the wealth of information available for free on the MarketWatch quote page.
Don’t miss: 11 high-yield dividend stocks that are Wall Street’s favorites for 2023
Tesla Doubles Discounts on Model 3 and Model Y Vehicles
Tesla stock is weak again despite the likelihood CEO Elon Musk will step down as head of Twitter and earnings estimates for 2023 staying stable.
Investors are perplexed, but traders know why. Investors can’t, or shouldn’t, ignore the stock chart.
Nearly 58% or about 17.5 million Twitters votes were cast in favor of Elon Musk stepping down from the company, Musk’s Twitter account said Monday. Meanwhile shares of Tesla Inc.
TSLA,
the electric car company that Musk also runs, saw its stock rise by 4.7% in premarket trades. Musk has been running Twitter for 53 days, during which time he’s laid off a large percentage of the company’s work force and drawn criticism recently for suspending accounts of four journalists. The latest controversy revolved around whether Twitter would ban accounts that post links or usernames for certain “prohibited” third-party social media platforms. The social media platform announced the ban and then seemingly rescinded the rule about 12 hours later. During that issue, Musk then asked Twitter users to vote on whether he should continue to run the company.
Tesla Inc. shares Friday wrapped up their worst week since 2020, as Chief Executive Elon Musk sold billions in stock and faced a call from a prominent investor to step down from the helm of the electric-vehicle maker.
Tesla
TSLA,
stock fell 4.7% Friday for a weekly decline of 16.1%, the fourth-worst week in history for the shares after a series of three weeks in late February and early March 2020, when investors sold stocks in fear of the COVID-19 pandemic’s effects. Tesla ended the week with a market capitalization of less than $500 billion for the first time since November 2020, and the share price nearly fell lower than $150 for the first time since that month, ending the week at $150.05.
In-depth: Tesla investors await clues on demand, board actions and weigh downside risks in 2023
The decline occurred as Musk sold stock, which he has done repeatedly since November of 2021. Musk disclosed the sale of more than $3.5 billion in Tesla stock late Wednesday, after performing the trades over the three previous trading sessions, when the price declined a cumulative 12.4%. In total, the Tesla CEO has sold $39.3 billion worth of Tesla stock in the past 13 months, according to calculations from Dow Jones Market Data and MarketWatch.
The recent sales have seemed tied to Musk’s acquisition of the social-media platform Twitter, which he bought for roughly $44 billion this year. It is the second time he has sold stock since closing that deal in October.
See also: Elon Musk’s $5.7 billion mystery gift has been revealed
Musk has reportedly been spending much of his time at Twitter, which seems to have angered some prominent Tesla investors. Leo KoGuan, Tesla’s third-largest individual shareholder, publicly called for a new CEO on Twitter this week, as a chorus of previously boosterish accounts on the service expressed dismay at the stock decline and Musk’s actions.
Bullish analysts have also expressed concerns about Musk’s focus and stock sales. Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives, who has an outperform rating and $250 12-month price target on Tesla shares, wrote Thursday that “Musk continues to throw gasoline in the burning fire around the Tesla story by selling more stock and creating Tesla brand deterioration through his actions on Twitter.”
“The nightmare of Musk owning Twitter has been an episode out of the Twilight Zone that never ends and keeps getting worse,” Ives wrote. “In late April Musk said he was done selling Tesla stock, instead the exact opposite has happened and put massive pressure on Tesla shares which have significantly underperformed the market since Musk took over Twitter in late October.”
Opinion: Why Tesla investors are the biggest losers in Elon Musk’s Twitter deal
Tesla shares have now declined 57.4% so far in 2022, as the S&P 500 index
SPX,
has declined 18.3%. Tesla’s market cap was $474.4 billion as of Friday’s close.
Carret Asset Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA – Get Rating) by 209.5% during the third quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 4,578 shares of the electric vehicle producer’s stock after purchasing an additional 3,099 shares during the quarter. Carret Asset Management LLC’s holdings in Tesla were worth $1,214,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.
Other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Axiom Financial Strategies LLC raised its position in Tesla by 9.8% in the 1st quarter. Axiom Financial Strategies LLC now owns 906 shares of the electric vehicle producer’s stock valued at $777,000 after buying an additional 81 shares during the last quarter. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. grew its stake in Tesla by 19.7% in the 1st quarter. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. now owns 1,001,923 shares of the electric vehicle producer’s stock valued at $1,079,672,000 after purchasing an additional 164,789 shares during the period. MAS Advisors LLC grew its stake in Tesla by 25.7% in the 1st quarter. MAS Advisors LLC now owns 396 shares of the electric vehicle producer’s stock valued at $433,000 after purchasing an additional 81 shares during the period. Aaron Wealth Advisors LLC grew its stake in Tesla by 116,334.1% in the 1st quarter. Aaron Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 752,164 shares of the electric vehicle producer’s stock valued at $698,000 after purchasing an additional 751,518 shares during the period. Finally, Keebeck Alpha LP bought a new position in Tesla in the 1st quarter valued at $279,000. 43.01% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.
TSLA has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. TheStreet downgraded Tesla from a “b-” rating to a “c+” rating in a research note on Tuesday, November 1st. Loop Capital increased their price target on Tesla to $33.33 in a research note on Monday, August 22nd. Wells Fargo & Company cut their price target on Tesla from $280.00 to $230.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, October 14th. Daiwa Capital Markets cut their price target on Tesla to $240.00 in a research note on Thursday, October 27th. Finally, Cowen cut their price target on Tesla from $244.00 to $205.00 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, October 20th. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, twelve have assigned a hold rating and nineteen have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $264.91.
In other news, SVP Andrew D. Baglino sold 1,312 shares of Tesla stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, December 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $178.07, for a total value of $233,627.84. Following the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 64,259 shares in the company, valued at approximately $11,442,600.13. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. In related news, SVP Andrew D. Baglino sold 1,312 shares of Tesla stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, December 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $178.07, for a total transaction of $233,627.84. Following the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 64,259 shares in the company, valued at $11,442,600.13. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO Elon Musk sold 9,650,000 shares of Tesla stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $208.58, for a total value of $2,012,797,000.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 455,467,432 shares in the company, valued at $95,001,396,966.56. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 24,172,831 shares of company stock worth $4,494,844,908. 25.10% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.
Shares of TSLA stock opened at $157.67 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $497.88 billion, a P/E ratio of 48.71, a P/E/G ratio of 1.58 and a beta of 1.91. Tesla, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $153.28 and a fifty-two week high of $402.67. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $197.00 and its 200-day moving average price is $241.87. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.05, a quick ratio of 1.04 and a current ratio of 1.46.
Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA – Get Rating) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, October 19th. The electric vehicle producer reported $0.95 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.87 by $0.08. The firm had revenue of $21.45 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $21.96 billion. Tesla had a return on equity of 31.10% and a net margin of 14.95%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 55.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company earned $0.48 EPS. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Tesla, Inc. will post 3.61 earnings per share for the current year.
Tesla, Inc designs, develops, manufactures, leases, and sells electric vehicles, and energy generation and storage systems in the United States, China, and internationally. The company operates in two segments, Automotive, and Energy Generation and Storage. The Automotive segment offers electric vehicles, as well as sells automotive regulatory credits.
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ABMN Staff
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https://www.barrons.com/articles/tesla-rivian-lucid-stock-ev-demand-51671055341
Eventually supply and demand realities catch up with everyone—even
Tesla
Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas looked into 2023 and sees some concerning signs for electric-vehicle makers.
Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Elon Musk just sold nearly $3.6 billion more of the company’s stock, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission released late Wednesday.
Musk sold just under 22 million shares worth $3.58 billion in aggregate from Dec. 12 to Dec. 14, the latest filing shows. Tesla shares TSLA fell in all three of those trading sessions, dropping 12.4% in total over the three-day stretch to finish Wednesday at $156.80.
This…
Tesla Inc. shares
TSLA,
plumbed new lows on Tuesday, veering closer to trading under $150. The stock traded as low as $161.30, down more than 3%, on track to spend a sixth out of seven sessions in the red. A close around current levels would be Tesla’s lowest since Nov. 18, 2020. Tesla shares have stayed near those November 2020 lows for the past few sessions, down more than 6% on Monday, as investors worry about cooling demand and slowing production. So far this year, the stock has lost 54%, compared with losses of around 15% for the S&P 500 index
SPX,
ChatGPT has been making waves this week following its test release by OpenAI, the company behind it. The artificial intelligence chatbot has evoked amazed, amused, and concerned reactions to it and generally created major buzz on social media. Many have speculated ChatGPT will disrupt Google’s search business. It can also debug code, write in a famous author’s voice, and help students cheat, among many other things.
The buzz will likely ramp up even more when OpenAI releases a superior next version of the AI chatbot, reportedly sometime next year.
Speaking of buzz, few people have been generating more of it lately than Elon Musk, who leads Tesla, SpaceX, and now Twitter, among other companies. As it turns out, Musk has ties to OpenAI, including as an original backer, and has been involved in both supporting artificial intelligence and warning about its dangers.
This month Musk called ChatGPT “scary good” and warned, “We are not far from dangerously strong AI.”
Musk resigned from OpenAI’s board of directors in 2018, citing possible conflicts of interest due to Tesla’s own AI work. In 2019, OpenAI changed from a nonprofit to a “capped profit” corporation, a hybrid of a for-profit and nonprofit. In 2019 it received a $1 billion investment from Microsoft. By 2020, Musk tweeted, “I have no control & only very limited insight into OpenAI,” adding his confidence in its safety was “not high.”
This month he tweeted: “I just learned that OpenAI had access to Twitter database for training. I put that on pause for now. Need to understand more about governance structure & revenue plans going forward. OpenAI was started as open-source & non-profit. Neither are still true.”
But we’ll let ChatGPT itself talk more about Musk’s history with OpenAI. The rest of this article was written by the AI chatbot, generated in seconds as answers to our questions:
Elon Musk has had a long relationship with OpenAI, dating back to the organization’s founding in 2015. He was one of the original backers of the organization, providing both financial and strategic support. Over the years, he has remained an advocate for the organization and its mission to promote and develop friendly AI.
Based on his public statements and actions, it appears that he has some concerns about the potential dangers of advanced AI and its potential impact on society. He has often spoken about the need for AI to be developed and used in a responsible and ethical manner, and has even founded organizations such as OpenAI to help advance this goal.
Elon Musk has publicly expressed concerns about the potential dangers of advanced AI. In particular, he has warned about the risk of AI being used for malicious purposes, such as to develop weapons or to interfere with elections. He has also expressed concern about the potential for AI to surpass human intelligence and become a threat to humanity.
Tesla uses AI in several of its products and services. For example, the company’s Autopilot feature uses AI to help vehicles navigate roads and highways with limited or no input from the driver. The company’s cars also use AI for tasks such as lane detection, adaptive cruise control, and automatic emergency braking. Additionally, Tesla is using AI in its manufacturing processes to help improve efficiency and productivity.
It is possible that Elon Musk has hired employees from OpenAI, but I do not have access to that information as I am a large language model trained by OpenAI and do not have the ability to browse the internet. OpenAI is an independent organization, and while Elon Musk has been involved with the organization in the past, he is not directly involved in its day-to-day operations or decision-making.
Our new weekly Impact Report newsletter examines how ESG news and trends are shaping the roles and responsibilities of today’s executives. Subscribe here.
Steve Mollman
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Headwinds for
Tesla
—and its stock—appear to be growing. The latest may be among the biggest concerns of all for the company.
Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi wrote Tuesday that
Tesla
(ticker: TSLA) “increasingly appears to have a demand issue.”
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite indexes recorded their worst day in almost a month on Monday, after a hotter-than-expected U.S. services-sector reading fueled concerns that the Federal Reserve may need to be even more aggressive in its inflation battle.
Stocks finished mixed on Friday, although they clinched gains last week, following a robust November jobs report, which stoked fears that inflation might not be so easily defeated.
Strong wage growth numbers released Friday were followed up on Monday by a robust reading for the U.S. services sector — both of which helped to stoke fears that the Fed’s interest-rate hikes, along with the central bank’s modest balance-sheet unwind, haven’t had much of an impact on the tight labor market.
The ISM barometer of U.S. business conditions in the service sector came in stronger than expected, rising to 56.5% in November, a healthy showing that signals the U.S. economy is still expanding at a steady pace.
“If nothing else, the ISM services report is being interpreted as very strong, and thus the economy is overheating and that means more Fed tightening,” said Will Compernolle, a senior economist at FHN Financial in New York. “Consumer resilience has proven to be more intense than I would have expected. In the two most interest-rate sensitive sectors — housing and autos — tightening has channeled into markets in meaningful ways.”
But there has been so much pent-up demand, that higher interest rates haven’t been cooling overall spending as much as the Fed would like because companies are still having to fill a backlog of orders, he said via phone.
In other economic data, the final November S&P Global U.S. services PMI edged up to 46.2 from 46.1, but remained in contractionary territory.
November jobs data released on Friday showed average hourly wages grew over the past year by more than 5% as of November, beating economists’ expectations and stoking concerns that robust wage growth would continue to fuel inflation, market strategists said.
Worries about a more-aggressive Fed also helped to drive Treasury yields higher, adding to the pressure on stocks. The yield on the 10-year note rose 9.6 basis points to 3.6% on Monday. Treasury yields move inversely to prices, and yields had fallen sharply over the past month, driven by shifting expectations about the pace of Fed rate hikes.
Monday’s ISM services figure “surprised to the upside, suggesting that the economy is still running above its long-run sustainable path and that the Fed is going to have to slow the economy more than expected in 2023,” Bill Adams, the Dallas-based chief economist for Comerica Inc. CMA, said via phone.
In other markets news, signs that China’s government is easing its COVID restrictions helped Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index
HSI,
finish with a 4.5% gain.
See also: Chinese ADRs and casino operators rally on signs of easing COVID
Meanwhile, oil futures ended lower on Monday, a day after Sunday’s decision by OPEC and its allies to keep production quotas unchanged.
Falling equity prices helped drive the CBOE Volatility Index
VIX,
also known as the VIX, back above 20 on Monday. The volatility gauge had fallen sharply in recent weeks as stocks rallied, potentially signaling complacency that could ultimately hurt stocks, said Jonathan Krinsky, chief market technician at BTIG, in a note to clients.
––Jamie Chisholm contributed reporting to this article.
Stock futures traded lower Monday as investors remained keyed on interest rate policy from the Federal Reserve and as a surge in China stocks over a loosening of Covid-19 restrictions in the country failed to boost U.S. equities.
Here are some stocks that could make moves Monday:
The U.S.-listed shares of China-based electric vehicle maker XPeng Inc. skyrocketed Wednesday, as investors cheered changes in China’s COVID policy while shrugging off weak third-quarter results and a downbeat outlook.
The stock
XPEV,
charged up 45.0% in midday trading, enough to pace all gainers on the New York Stock Exchange. It was also headed for the biggest one-day gain since going public in August 2020, surpassing the previous record advance of 33.9% on Nov. 23, 2020.
The rally comes even after XPeng reported a wider-than-expected loss for the third-straight quarter, missed on revenue for the first time and said it expected fourth-quarter revenue to fall 40% to 44% from a year ago while the FactSet consensus called for just a 4.4 decline.
Instead, investors seemed China appeared to move toward easing its zero-COVID policy, amid growing social unrest and a slowing economy. China’s government said Tuesday that it would renew its push to vaccinate the elderly, and said it would amend COVID control measures.
XPeng’s stock rally also comes at a time when investor sentiment had soured. Earlier this week, Jefferies analyst Johnson Wan downgraded the EV maker, citing recent “missteps” by the company at a time that the “honeymoon stage” for EVs in China was coming to an end.
In addition, short interest, or bearish bets on XPeng’s stock, was 5.7% of the public float, or freely tradable shares, based on the latest available exchange data. That compares with short interest as a percent of float for China-based rivals Nio Inc.
NIO,
at 4.1% and Li Auto Inc.
LI,
at 4.7%.
For Tesla Inc.
TSLA,
which generated $5.13 billion in revenue from China in its latest quarter, or about 24% of total revenue, short interest as a percent of float was 2.9%.
XPeng’s stock has soared 60.7% in November but has still tumbled 41.7% over the past three months. In comparison, the Invesco Golden Dragon China exchange-traded fund
PGJ,
has shed 11.7% the past three months while the S&P 500 index
SPX,
has slipped 1.1%.
Tesla Inc. shares on Monday were poised to end at a fresh two-year low, with shares of other electric-vehicle makers also underperforming the broader equity market as worries about China’s COVID-19 lockdowns re-emerged and oil futures prices dropped to their lowest level since January.
Shares of Tesla
TSLA,
extended their losing streak to a fourth session and were on track for their lowest close since Nov. 20, 2020, when they closed at $163.20. The stock was the 10th worst performer in the S&P 500 index
SPX,
and fourth worst in the Nasdaq 100
COMP,
— and the most active stock on both exchanges.
American depositary shares of several China-based EV makers, including Nio Inc.
NIO,
and XPeng Inc.
XPEV,
also underperformed the broader market. In contrast, shares of General Motors Co.
GM,
and Ford Motor Co.
F,
merely edged lower.
The energy sector was taking a broad beating as well, with the SPDR Energy Select Sector ETF
XLE,
looking at a four-week low.
Related: GM’s EV roadmap is ‘ambitious,’ but Wall Street doesn’t give it full credit just yet
Tesla’s underperformance as compared with the broader indexes holds on a monthly and yearly basis as well. The stock is down more than 25% so far in November and 52% this year.
If the trend continues, this would be the worst yearly performance for the stock on record.
The S&P has lost about 17% year to date and has clawed back to a 2% gain so far in November.
Shares of Tesla Inc.
TSLA,
dropped 3.8% in afternoon trading, adding to the 3.6% drop in the previous session, and to put them in danger of the first sub-$200 close in 17 months. Investors in the electric vehicle giant may be expressing concerns that Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk will be distracted given all the moves he’s making as the new owner Twitter, as they did when Musk first bid to buy the social media company. Shares of some other EV makers were also selling off, with Nikola Corp.’s
NKLA,
down 2.7% and China-based Nio Inc.’s
NIO,
shedding 5.8%, while XPeng Inc.’s stock
XPEV,
gained 0.6%. Tesla’s stock, which hasn’t closed below $200 on a split-adjusted basis since June 16, 2021, has sunk 30.7% over the past three months while the S&P 500
SPX,
has lost 8.2%.
Twitter Inc. is now owned by Elon Musk, with multiple media outlets reporting Thursday night that the long-anticipated sale had officially closed.
The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and others reported, based on unnamed sources, that the top executives of Twitter
TWTR,
were fired and escorted from the building, including Chief Executive Parag Agrawal, Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal and Vijaya Gadde, head of legal policy, trust and safety.
Musk himself is expected to assume the role of interim CEO, though in the longer term may appoint someone else, Bloomberg reported early Friday, citing unnamed sources. Twitter did not respond to a request by the publication for comment.
Also read: Elon Musk on the hook to pay more than $200 million to 3 fired Twitter execs
The acquisition ends months of legal wrangling after Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla Inc.
TSLA,
and SpaceX and a frequent Twitter user, offered to buy Twitter in April. After reaching an agreement with Twitter’s board to buy the social media company for $44 billion, Musk tried to back out of the deal and Twitter sued him. He faced a Friday deadline to complete the deal or face trial.
In a tweet late Thursday night, Musk said only: “the bird is freed.”
Opinion: Twitter stood up to Elon Musk and won, but will it feel like a win once he owns it?
Thursday morning, Musk signaled a deal was imminent when he tweeted a statement aimed at assuring advertisers, some of whom might be concerned about his plans for content moderation. Musk has said one of his motivations for buying the platform is related to complaints about censorship, mostly from people who have been banned because they have violated Twitter’s terms of service.
“Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences!” Musk said in his statement to advertisers Thursday.
Twitter did not immediately return a request for comment late Thursday.
The Bloomberg report added that Musk also plans to end lifetime bans for users, meaning former President Donald Trump could return to Twitter, though it’s unclear how soon that could happen, the source said.
Twitter shares have rallied 26% over the past month, closing Thursday at $53.70, close to the $54.20 share price Musk agreed to pay in April.
Elon Musk says that
Tesla
could someday be worth more than
Apple
and Saudi Aramco, combined. First, it needs to get through the next few months.
Before Tesla (ticker: TSLA) reported third-quarter earnings this past week, investors had been hoping they would allay concerns that had been growing since the company released second-quarter numbers three months earlier. They did no such thing. While earnings topped expectations, third-quarter deliveries, sales, and profit margins all fell short of Street projections. Tesla shares slumped 6.7% following the release, putting them down 22% since the end of September, their second-worst start to a quarter since the first few weeks of 2016.
Tesla, Inc. engages in the design, development, manufacture, and sale of fully electric vehicles and energy generation and storage systems. It also provides vehicle service centers, Supercharger stations, and self-driving capability. The company operates through the following segments: Automotive and Energy Generation and Storage. The Automotive segment includes the design, development, manufacture, sale, and lease of electric vehicles as well as sales of automotive regulatory credits. The Energy Generation and Storage segment includes the design, manufacture, installation, sale, and lease of stationary energy storage products and solar energy systems, and sale of electricity generated by its solar energy systems to customers. It develops energy storage products for use in homes, commercial facilities, and utility sites. The company was founded by Jeffrey B. Straubel, Elon Reeve Musk, Martin Eberhard, and Marc Tarpenning on July 1, 2003, and is headquartered in Austin, TX.