We recently published a list of Top 10 Trending AI Stocks to Watch. Since Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) ranks 5th on the list, it deserves a deeper look.
Wall Street continues to gain momentum amid the latest earnings season and analysts are wondering whether we are still up for soft landing. Mohamed El-Erian, Allianz chief economic advisor, talked about the possibility of a soft landing vs no landing during a program on CNBC. When asked what would it take for the market to have a no-landing scenario, the analyst said:
“I think we need the productivity enhancers from A.I., from life sciences to come earlier, we need to continue to have positive shocks to our labor force. And if we get those two things, you can get the bigger but not hotter economy which actually would be perfect for almost everything you can think of, from households to companies to financial markets.”
The analyst does not rule out the possibility of a recession, however.
“My probability of a soft landing is 55%, and a recession is 30%. A soft landing is the most likely scenario, but it’s not dominant. Why isn’t it dominant? Because we have weakness in the household sector, particularly on the lower-income side, and the Fed has been unpredictable. Just think, Morgan—at the end of July, the Fed didn’t cut rates because everything seemed fine. By the next meeting in mid-September, it cut 50 basis points. And now it’s talking about cautious cuts. So, the Fed needs to be careful.”
For this article we picked 10 trending AI stocks based on latest news. With each company we have mentioned its hedge fund sentiment. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points (see more details here).
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Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 85
Tim Higgins, Wall Street Journal business columnist, while talking to CNBC about the latest Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) robotaxi event, said that given the history of Elon Musk, if someone were to ask whether he would deliver on time, the answer would be “probably not.”
“The details were thin here. There were a lot of promises. I think some investors were going in hopeful we would see a lot more nuance and a lot more meat on the bone. Elon said at one point on stage, as people were peppering him with questions, “this wasn’t the time for nuance. This was the time for dream building,” is what he was signaling. That is important for Tesla and Elon.”
Asked about the under $30,000 price tag claim for robotaxis, the analyst said:
“He has a long history of saying these products are X and twice as much when they actually come out. In a lot of ways, these numbers are bogies, and he will work towards trying to get them in the not ballpark or city of the idea.”
The Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) event was indeed short on details. Notably absent was the discussion of a “more affordable” model that Musk had previously mentioned to boost confidence in Tesla’s vehicle sales growth outlook.
What about the $30,000 price tag claim?
Musk has indicated that the Cybercab will have a production cost of approximately $30,000. Operating within the robotaxi fleet is projected to cost around $0.20 per mile. With a production cost of $30,000, the retail price of the Cybercab is likely to exceed this figure. For instance, if the Cybercab is priced at $30,000 per unit, that translates to $15,000 per seat. In contrast, the average price per passenger seat in Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA)’s most affordable long-range RWD Model 3—factoring in full self-driving (FSD) licensing—is under $10,000 ($29,990 post-incentive vehicle price plus $8,000 for the FSD license, divided by four passenger seats). Regarding operational costs, while the Cybercab is expected to cost $0.20 per mile, charging the Model 3 is estimated at under $0.10 per mile, leaving a significant margin to cover maintenance and downtime.
There is a lot of hype around Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) robo taxis but many believe they will not be enough to fix the company’s long-term challenges.
What are these challenges?
Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) product lineup is showing signs of stagnation, with over 95% of sales still coming from the Model 3 and Model Y. Meanwhile, competitors are rolling out more advanced models. Even Rivian’s CEO suggested Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) could be nearing market saturation for these models. According to Reuters, Tesla’s market share in Europe is slipping as legacy automakers like BMW post stronger sales. Chinese competitor BYD is also gaining ground in Europe, despite talk of tariffs.
For Q2 2024, Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) saw a 20% year-over-year decline in revenue from China, while BYD reported over 20% growth in the same period. This trend may continue as Chinese automakers release new models, and Tesla could be forced to cut prices to maintain delivery volumes—further pressuring its operating margins in the coming quarters.
Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) is overvalued. The company’s consensus earnings-per-share (EPS) estimate for fiscal year ending December 2026 is $4.27, putting its forward price-to-earnings (PE) ratio at 60.2. With Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) offering price cuts, future EPS growth may fall short of expectations. Investors might consider selling now and waiting for a better re-entry point, or exploring other electric vehicle (EV) options.
ClearBridge Small Cap Value Strategy stated the following regarding Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:
“The strength in the stock market adds significantly to that enormous transfer of wealth, which one could argue is good for shareholders. But is it causal? That is, did the stock market do well because CEOs got large stock grants? Are the CEOs just the lucky recipients of a windfall when the market goes up and their employees perform well? Or do they require huge grants to do their jobs that no one else could possibly do as effectively?
Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA), and most of its shareholders, certainly think the latter is true. In 2018, Tesla’s board of directors crafted a pay package for CEO Elon Musk that would award him 12 tranches of 10-year, fixed-price options on 1% of company stock for every $50 billion in market cap the stock added. In total, the options would be for 304 million shares of the company at $23.34 a share. He would receive no other compensation, until or unless the board decided otherwise. Shareholders approved that pay package, and the stock added all that market cap and more, giving Musk the right to buy 10% of the company for $50 billion less than it was worth, adding to his existing 13% stake. Minority shareholders sued, and a court sided with them and expunged the package in January 2024. “The process leading to the approval of Musk’s compensation plan was deeply flawed,” ruled Judge Kathaleen McCormik of the Delaware Court of Chancery as part of a 200-page decision. It seemed like a long-awaited check on excessive compensation to one individual for the achievements of an entire company….” (Click here to read the full article)
Overall, Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) ranks 5th on Insider Monkey’s list titled Top 10 Trending AI Stocks to Watch. While we acknowledge the potential of Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA), our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than TSLA but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
READ NEXT: Analyst Sees a New $25 Billion “Opportunity” for NVIDIA and Jim Cramer is Recommending These Stocks.
Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
