Citigroup upgraded and hiked its target price on Tesla stock
Citigroup raised its rating and price target on Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) today. The analyst upgraded TSLA to "neutral" from "sell," and adjusted its price target to $176 from $141.33, saying that the shares are not overvalued and the electric vehicle (EV) giant's long-term competitive positive is likely to improve.
Following the bull note, Telsa stock is 2.3% higher to trade at $173.84 premarket. The shares are down 55.9% in the last 12 months and sport a 51.8% year-to-date deficit, sliding $500 billion since CEO Elon Musk revealed his initial stake in Twitter (TWTR). What's more, TSLA touched consecutive annual lows in the last two sessions, yesterday dipping to $166.19.
Morgan Stanley weighed in as well, saying that the sentiment surrounding Twitter needs to improve in order to save Tesla stock's slide. It's rating and price target, however, remain in place. Coming into today, the brokerage bunch is split, with 14 recommending a "buy" or better against 11 "hold" or worse ratings. Meanwhile, the average 12-month target price of $263.74 is a 52% premium to Monday's close.
A shift could be taking place in the options pits, as traders have recently moved to calls. This is per TSLA's 10-day call/put volume ratio of 1.26 at the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Cboe Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX), which sits in the slightly elevated 79th percentile of its 12-month range. In other words, bullish bets are getting picked up at a faster-than-usual pace compared to the last 12 months.