Cramer’s Warning on Tesla (TSLA): The Trump Effect Might Not Fix Long-Term Issues

We recently compiled a list of the 10 Important Stocks that Jim Cramer is Talking About. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) stands against the other important stocks that Jim Cramer is talking about.

Jim Cramer in a latest program talked about the latest market volatility and said using too many AI algorithms, data points and correlations could be useful for short-term traders but for investors, these tools could blur your long-term vision.

“I think as investors we’re putting on mental shackles if we behave like this. Remember back in my hedge fund, our whole goal was day trading, was to scalp pennies from the flow. That’s a lot of risk for not much reward. It’s better to zero in on dollars for the big picture. That’s what I want you to do.”

Jim Cramer said that the market is currently oversold and this happened twice before in 2024. These moments, according to Cramer, proved to be some of the best entry points to pile into stocks in hindsight.

READ ALSO: 7 Best Stocks to Buy For Long-Term and 8 Cheap Jim Cramer Stocks to Invest In.

For this article we watched Jim Cramer’s recent programs and listed some of the stocks he commented on. For these stocks, we also mentioned the number of hedge fund investors. 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).

Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA)

Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 99

Talking about Tesla Inc’s (NASDAQ:TSLA) spectacular stock performance on the back of the Trump rally, Cramer said the following in a latest program on CNBC:

“Elon Musk may be the second most important man in America; he may be the most important. As long as he stays tight with Trump, sure, Tesla issued a new software update today, and some people actually talked about that. But everyone knew it was coming. People have been buying this stock because they’ve realized that Musk has the president’s ear, and his loyalty will likely be returned with good news for Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA), especially the self-driving business. To me, it seems very transactional.”

A few weeks ago, Cramer explained why he believes buying Tesla stock just because of the Trump factor isn’t a very good idea. Read his analysis here.

The Trump factor has eclipsed Tesla’s fundamental weaknesses that were impacting the stock price before the Don’s win. The Tesla Robotaxi event disappointed investors. 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.

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’s (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.

Polen Focus Growth Strategy stated the following regarding Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) in its Q3 2024 investor letter:

“The largest relative detractors during the quarter were Apple, Airbnb, and Tesla (not owned). We’ve spoken at length about our rationale for not owning Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA). In short, the market seems to be pricing in a lot of positive optionality for this company in the near-to-intermediate term (and particularly a fully autonomous fleet of electric vehicles in the medium term). What exists today is an automobile manufacturer limited to the higher-income segment that is increasingly challenged to sell vehicles when interest rates are not zero. We continue to question the company’s long-term growth profile and governance.”

Overall, TSLA ranks 5th on our list of the important stocks that Jim Cramer is talking about. While we acknowledge the potential of TSLA, our conviction lies in the belief that under the radar AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter time frame. 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: 8 Best Wide Moat Stocks to Buy Now and 30 Most Important AI Stocks According to BlackRock.

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.