Tesla's (TSLA) "Buy" Rating Reaffirmed at Benchmark

Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA - Get Free Report)'s stock had its "buy" rating reiterated by investment analysts at Benchmark in a research note issued to investors on Wednesday, MarketBeat.com reports. They currently have a $350.00 price target on the electric vehicle producer's stock. Benchmark's price objective suggests a potential upside of 22.83% from the stock's current price.

TSLA has been the topic of several other reports. BNP Paribas set a $137.00 price objective on shares of Tesla and gave the stock an "underperform" rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 16th. Glj Research restated a "sell" rating and set a $19.05 price objective (down previously from $24.86) on shares of Tesla in a research report on Monday, April 21st. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft cut their target price on shares of Tesla from $420.00 to $345.00 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a research report on Friday, March 28th. Wedbush reiterated an "outperform" rating and set a $350.00 price objective (up from $315.00) on shares of Tesla in a research report on Tuesday, April 22nd. Finally, Cowen upgraded Tesla from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating in a research report on Thursday, March 6th. Ten research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have issued a hold rating, twenty-one have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company's stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Tesla has an average rating of "Hold" and a consensus target price of $287.46.

Tesla Price Performance

NASDAQ TSLA traded up $25.44 during trading hours on Wednesday, hitting $284.95. The company had a trading volume of 166,882,151 shares, compared to its average volume of 95,960,657. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $263.98 and a 200 day simple moving average of $323.02. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.08, a quick ratio of 1.61 and a current ratio of 2.02. Tesla has a 52 week low of $167.41 and a 52 week high of $488.54. The firm has a market capitalization of $916.55 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 139.68, a PEG ratio of 5.86 and a beta of 2.58.

Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, April 22nd. The electric vehicle producer reported $0.27 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.53 by ($0.26). The firm had revenue of $19.34 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $22.93 billion. Tesla had a return on equity of 10.31% and a net margin of 7.26%. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.45 EPS. Equities research analysts expect that Tesla will post 2.56 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Tesla

In related news, CFO Vaibhav Taneja sold 7,000 shares of the company's stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $383.11, for a total value of $2,681,770.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 108,965 shares in the company, valued at $41,745,581.15. This represents a 6.04 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, Director James R. Murdoch sold 54,776 shares of the business's stock in a transaction on Monday, March 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $240.79, for a total value of $13,189,513.04. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 477,011 shares in the company, valued at $114,859,478.69. This trade represents a 10.30 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 374,228 shares of company stock valued at $123,791,123. 20.70% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. Principal Financial Group Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Tesla by 5.6% in the third quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 3,650,393 shares of the electric vehicle producer's stock worth $955,052,000 after acquiring an additional 194,796 shares during the period. McIlrath & Eck LLC increased its position in shares of Tesla by 6.0% during the 3rd quarter. McIlrath & Eck LLC now owns 3,401 shares of the electric vehicle producer's stock valued at $890,000 after purchasing an additional 192 shares during the last quarter. Advisory Resource Group grew its position in Tesla by 1.2% during the third quarter. Advisory Resource Group now owns 4,260 shares of the electric vehicle producer's stock valued at $1,115,000 after buying an additional 50 shares during the period. Morse Asset Management Inc raised its position in Tesla by 46.0% in the third quarter. Morse Asset Management Inc now owns 8,712 shares of the electric vehicle producer's stock worth $2,279,000 after acquiring an additional 2,743 shares during the period. Finally, SkyView Investment Advisors LLC increased its stake in shares of Tesla by 31.4% in the 3rd quarter. SkyView Investment Advisors LLC now owns 5,579 shares of the electric vehicle producer's stock worth $1,460,000 after purchasing an additional 1,334 shares in the last quarter. 66.20% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

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.