Synovus Financial Corp Increases Position in Tesla, Inc. $TSLA

Key Points

• Synovus Financial Corp raised its stake in Tesla, Inc. by 11.1% in Q1, acquiring an additional 2,841 shares, bringing its total to 28,485 shares valued at $7,382,000.
• Goldman Sachs significantly increased its Tesla holdings by 322.1%, acquiring over 20 million shares valued at approximately $6.89 billion.
• Recent analyst ratings for Tesla show a mix, with one strong buy, seventeen buy, fifteen hold, and nine sell ratings, indicating a consensus target price of $303.31.

Synovus Financial Corp increased its stake in Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA - Free Report) by 11.1% in the first quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 28,485 shares of the electric vehicle producer's stock after purchasing an additional 2,841 shares during the quarter. Synovus Financial Corp's holdings in Tesla were worth $7,382,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other large investors have also made changes to their positions in TSLA. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Tesla by 322.1% in the 1st quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 26,590,525 shares of the electric vehicle producer's stock valued at $6,891,201,000 after purchasing an additional 20,291,139 shares in the last quarter. Nuveen LLC purchased a new position in Tesla during the 1st quarter valued at about $3,247,619,000. GAMMA Investing LLC increased its holdings in Tesla by 27,378.6% during the 1st quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 9,812,316 shares of the electric vehicle producer's stock valued at $2,542,960,000 after acquiring an additional 9,776,607 shares in the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp increased its holdings in Tesla by 21.6% during the 4th quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 28,579,615 shares of the electric vehicle producer's stock valued at $11,541,592,000 after acquiring an additional 5,075,418 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. increased its holdings in Tesla by 1.5% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 246,887,705 shares of the electric vehicle producer's stock valued at $63,983,418,000 after acquiring an additional 3,694,524 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 66.20% of the company's stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Tesla

In other news, CFO Vaibhav Taneja sold 2,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, July 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $300.00, for a total value of $600,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer owned 5,924 shares of the company's stock, valued at $1,777,200. This represents a 25.24% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, Director Kimbal Musk sold 91,588 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, May 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $357.39, for a total transaction of $32,732,635.32. Following the completion of the sale, the director directly owned 1,463,220 shares of the company's stock, valued at $522,940,195.80. The trade was a 5.89% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 599,724 shares of company stock worth $213,126,501 over the last three months. 20.70% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

TSLA has been the subject of several recent research reports. Benchmark restated a "buy" rating and set a $475.00 target price (up from $350.00) on shares of Tesla in a report on Thursday, June 26th. William Blair downgraded shares of Tesla from an "outperform" rating to a "market perform" rating in a report on Monday, July 7th. Wedbush reissued an "outperform" rating and issued a $500.00 price objective on shares of Tesla in a research report on Monday, August 4th. Robert W. Baird reissued a "neutral" rating and issued a $320.00 price objective on shares of Tesla in a research report on Monday, June 9th. Finally, Needham & Company LLC reissued a "hold" rating on shares of Tesla in a research report on Thursday, July 24th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, seventeen have assigned a Buy rating, fifteen have assigned a Hold rating and nine have issued a Sell rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Tesla has an average rating of "Hold" and a consensus target price of $303.31.

Tesla Stock Performance

Shares of TSLA stock opened at $340.01 on Monday. Tesla, Inc. has a one year low of $202.59 and a one year high of $488.54. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07, a quick ratio of 1.55 and a current ratio of 2.04. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $321.27 and a 200 day moving average price of $302.58. The firm has a market capitalization of $1.10 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 196.54, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 11.82 and a beta of 2.33.

Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 23rd. The electric vehicle producer reported $0.40 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.43 by ($0.03). Tesla had a return on equity of 7.98% and a net margin of 6.54%.The company had revenue of $22.50 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $23.18 billion. During the same period last year, the company posted $0.52 EPS. The business's revenue for the quarter was down 11.8% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Tesla, Inc. will post 2.56 EPS for the current year.

About Tesla

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; and non-warranty after-sales vehicle, used vehicles, body shop and parts, supercharging, retail merchandise, and vehicle insurance services.

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