Tesla Stock Is Rising. Analyst Sees ‘Limited’ Focus on Fundamentals.

Tesla stock fell while the market rallied on Friday, which makes Monday’s gain a relief for investors watching the stock after its recent surge. Still, no one should mistake Tesla ’s recent moves for anything based on the fundamental factors driving the business.

Let’s back up. Tesla’s stock has been on a tear of late, which makes Friday’s move something of a puzzle. Shares of the electric-vehicle maker dropped 3.5% on Friday, closing at $421.06, while the S&P 500 rose 1.1%.

There wasn’t a great reason for the divergence. “To me, [Tesla stock] was wildly overbought and long hedge funds needed a reason to take some profits,” says Future Fund Active exchange-traded fund co-founder and Tesla shareholder Gary Black .

“Overbought” is a trading term that essentially means the stock has gone up a lot quickly. When that happens, it can be a sign a lot of good news is reflected in the price and that there aren’t many buyers left to fuel more gains.

Some profit-taking in Tesla shares is natural—especially considering the rally. Coming into Monday, Tesla stock had risen 69% this year and 67% since the Nov. 5 election . Shares have declined 12% from a record closing high of $479.86 on Dec. 17.

Tesla stock closed up 2.3% at $430.60, while the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average were up 0.7% and 0.2%, respectively.

One thing helping shares was a report from Barclays analyst Dan Levy . He expects the company to deliver 515,000 vehicles this quarter. Wall Street expects Tesla to deliver roughly 510,00 vehicles, according to various consensus aggregators, a record for any quarter.

Better-than-expected results can help any stock, but Levy’s number is important for another reason. Tesla needs to deliver about 515,000 vehicles to increase deliveries in 2024 compared with 2023. While Tesla delivered 1,808,581 vehicles in 2023, it shipped 1,293,656 in the first three quarters of 2023, down about 7% year over year.

Levy isn’t a Tesla bull. He rates shares Hold and has a $270 price target on the stock. A “beat could keep narrative momentum strong,” wrote Levy. “But [a] focus on fundamentals [is] limited overall.”

Tesla stock has added about $170 a share since the election, boosting Tesla’s market value by more than $550 billion, even though the car business hasn’t changed all that much.

Investors, however, are thinking about earnings. They believe Tesla’s self-driving robo-taxi business will drive significant value. That business is slated to begin in late 2025.

Levy is less optimistic, though. He even used the word “meme” in his report, referring to stocks that go wild for little reason.

Overall, about 46% of analysts covering Tesla stock rate shares Buy. The average Buy-rating ratio for stocks in the S&P 500 is about 55%. The average analyst price target for Tesla stock is about $296 a share, up about $60 sine the election.

No matter what happens in the last few days of the trading year, 2024 will have turned out quite well for Tesla investors. It is their reward for enduring volatility. Don’t forget, Tesla stock bottomed out below $$140 a share in April.

The number of U.S. billionaires in the world reached 870 in mid-January, outpacing the number in China for the first time in 10 years, according to a snapshot of the wealthiest in the world by the Hurun Report.

The U.S. gained 70 billionaires since last year, powered by a rising stock market, a strong dollar, and the insatiable appetite for all things AI, according to the 14th annual Hurun Global Rich List . China gained nine billionaires overall for a total of 823. Hurun is a China-based research, media, and investment group.

“It’s been a good year for AI, money managers, entertainment, and crypto,” Rupert Hoogewerf, chairman and chief researcher of the Hurun Report, said in a news release. “It’s been a tough year for luxury, telecommunications, and real estate in China.”

Overall, the Hurun list—which reflects a snapshot of global wealth based on calculations made Jan. 15—counted 3,442 billionaires in the world, up 5%, or 163, from a year ago. Their total wealth rose 13% to just under $17 trillion.

In November, New York research firm Altrata reported that the billionaire population rose 4% in 2023 to 3,323 individuals and their wealth rose 9% to $12.1 trillion.

Elon Musk, CEO of electric-car maker Tesla and right-hand advisor to President Donald Trump, topped the list for the fourth time in five years, with recorded wealth of $420 billion as of mid-January as Tesla stock soared in the aftermath of the U.S. election, according to Hurun’s calculations.

The firm noted that Musk’s wealth has since nosedived about $100 billion, falling along with shares of Tesla although the EV car maker is benefiting on Thursday from Trump’s 25% tariff on cars made outside the U.S.

According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Musk’s wealth stood at about $336 billion as of the market’s close on Wednesday, although measuring his exact wealth —including stakes in his privately held companies and the undiscounted value of his Tesla shares—is difficult to precisely determine.

The overall list this year contained 387 new billionaires, while 177 dropped off the list—more than 80 of which were from China, Hurun said. “China’s economy is continuing to restructure, with the drop-offs coming from a weeding out of healthcare and new energy and traditional manufacturing, as well as real estate,” Hoogewerf said in the release.

Among those who wealth sank was Colin Huang, the founder of PDD Holdings —the parent company of e-commerce platforms Temu and Pinduoduo—who lost $17 billion.

Also, Zhong Shanshan, the founder and chair of the Nongfu Spring beverage company and the majority owner of Beijing Wantai Biological Pharmacy Enterprise , lost $8 billion from “intensifying competition” in the market for bottled water. The loss knocked Zhong from his top rank in China, which is now held by Zhang Yiming founder of Tik-Tok owner Bytedance. Zhang is ranked No. 22 overall.

Hurun’s top 10 billionaires is a familiar group of largely U.S. individuals including Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Larry Ellison. The list has France’s LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault in seventh place, three notches down from his fourth ranked spot on the Bloomberg list, reflecting a slump in luxury products last year.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is ranked No. 11 on Hurun’s list as his wealth nearly tripled to $128 billion through Jan. 15. Other AI billionaires found lower down on the list include Liang Wenfeng, 40, founder and CEO of DeepSeek, with wealth of $4.5 billion and Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, with $1.8 billion.

Also making the list were musicians Jay-Z ($2.7 billion), Rihanna ($1.7 billion), Taylor Swift ($1.6 billion), and Paul McCartney ($1 billion). Sports stars included Michael Jordan ($3.3 billion), Tiger Woods ($1.7 billion), Floyd Mayweather ($1.3 billion), and LeBron James ($1.3 billion).

Wealth continues to surge across the globe, but Hoogewerf noted those amassing it aren’t overly generous.

“We only managed to find three individuals in the past year who donated more than $1 billion,” he said. Warren Buffet gave $5.3 billion, mainly to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, while Michael Bloomberg —ranked No. 19 with wealth of $92 billion—gave $3.7 billion to various causes. Netflix founder Reed Hastings, ranked No. 474 with wealth of $6.2 billion, donated $1.1 billion.

Tesla Stock Is Rising. Analyst Sees ‘Limited’ Focus on Fundamentals.

The U.S. now has more billionaires than China for the first time in a decade, driven by AI and a booming stock market.