Is Tesla Past its Slump?

Shares of Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) are on a rebound after the stock hit a 52-week low earlier this week. Even earlier this month, the stock had hit a two-year low after its founder and CEO, Elon Musk sold about $4 billion worth of the company’s shares. 

In the past year, the stock has halved in value from a 52-week high of $402.67.

There have been multiple concerns regarding the stock. These have ranged from how much time can Musk devote to Tesla as his attention has been diverted by his acquisition of Twitter.

However, Musk has noted that he plans to find a new person to be at the helm of his recent $44 billion Twitter acquisition. Last week, Tesla’s Director James Murdoch had noted that Musk already had someone in mind to take his place at Tesla as well.   

Musk has also been exploring opening a new Tesla factory in South Korea and on Wednesday, spoke with South Korea’s President Yoon Suk-yeol.

On Wednesday, Citigroup analyst Itay Michaeli upgraded the stock to a Hold from a Sell rating and kept a price target of $176 on the stock.

The analyst commented, “We believe the year-to-date pullback has balanced out the near-term risk/reward. To become bullish from here, we’d like to gain added confidence on the average sale price/auto gross margin bridge (including tracking near-term datapoints in China and Europe) and FSD [full self driving] progress.”

Besides Michaeli, other analysts are cautiously optimistic about TSLA stock with a Moderate Buy consensus rating based on 19 Buys, eight Holds and two Sells, as indicated by the above graphic.

Tesla’s FSD has been a sort of a pipe dream that has yet to deliver fully. Musk had promised FSD back in 2016 and while Tesla currently offers Autopilot, Enhanced Autopilot, FSD and FSD Beta systems on its cars, drivers are still required to be attentive and are expected to be ready to take over the driving tasks as and when needed.