Tesla Stock Climbs Higher as Wall Street Plays Leap Frog to Keep Up

Tesla stock is on the move again as Wall Street plays a game of leap frog, raising its target prices for shares to keep up with the highflying electric vehicle pioneer.

JMP Securities analyst Joe Osha took his target price from $1,050 to $1,500, the new high mark on the Street, eclipsing Wedbush analyst Dan Ives’ $1,250 price target set this past Friday. Osha, in his research report, laid out a case for $100 billion in sales by 2025. Tesla is expected to generate about $27 billion in sales in 2020.

Ives sat atop the price target mountain for the shortest of tenures. His target topped Jefferies analyst Philippe Houchois $1,200 figure set on June 18. And Houchois topped New Street Research analyst Pierre Ferragu’s $1,100 price target set on June 1.

It has been hard for analysts to keep up. Year to date, Tesla (ticker: TSLA) shares are up almost 190% as of Thursday’s closing price, better than comparable returns of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 as well as Tesla’s automotive peers. What’s more, the stock is up more than 40% over the past month including Monday’s premarket gains.

Ives raised his price target after Tesla reported far better than expected delivery numbers for the second quarter. Tesla delivered more than 90,000 cars in the pandemic-affected quarter. The highest analyst estimate, according to FactSet, was about 86,000 vehicles. Ives called the numbers a home run.

Osha cited the delivery beat when raising his price target as well. Osha rates shares of Tesla the equivalent of Buy. Ives, on the other hand still calls Tesla stock a Hold. Shares, after all, are very close to his price target.

Tesla stock closed at more than $1,200 Thursday—the last U.S. trading session before the holiday weekend. Shares are at about $1,275 in premarket trading, up around 5.6%.

J.P. Morgan analyst Ryan Brinkman, however, isn’t as bullish as those two. He rates shares the equivalent of Sell, but he did increase his price target Monday from $275 to $295 a share. Brinkman also cited better delivery figures, but said valuation remains lofty.

Brinkman’s price target implies a Tesla market capitalization of about $54 billion, more than the market capitalization of luxury peer BMW (BMW.Germany) and U.S. automotive peer General Motors (GM). Osha’s price target pegs Tesla’s market cap at almost $280 billion. It’s a wide gap.

Brinkman qualifies as one of Tesla’s biggest bears, based on price targets, but many of his peers seem to struggle with Tesla’s stock valuation too. The average analyst price target is up to about $775, almost 40% below where the stock is trading in Monday’s premarket session.

Deutsche Bank analyst Emmanuel Rosner also increased his price target Monday from $900 to $1,000. He remains Hold rated on Tesla shares.

Only about one in four analysts covering Tesla shares rate the stock Buy, lower than the 55% average Buy rating ratio for stocks in the Dow.