Tesla shares Tumble After Analyst Raises Cautions About Growth

Tesla shares Tumble After Analyst Raises Cautions About Growth

By Keith Naughton

One of Tesla’s strongest supporters on Wall Street issued a cautious report on the maker of luxury electric cars today, sending its shares skidding 9.1 percent.

Adam Jonas, an analyst for Morgan Stanley who has an “overweight” rating on Tesla, wrote today that he agrees with Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk that “the share price was a bit ahead of itself.” The shares fell $25.34 today to $253.86 in New York.

Jonas issued four “sobering factors to consider” about Tesla. He wrote that electric vehicles are “failing categorically on a global scale,” warned that Tesla’s growth may be limited in China, that battery-powered cars still require technological breakthroughs to become mainstream and that the dawn of driverless cars threaten Tesla’s reason for being.

“We are big believers in Tesla’s strategy and stand firmly by our claim that it is the world’s most important car company,” Jonas wrote. “But we do not expect the stock to appreciate so consistently and one-directionally from here.”

Shares of Palo Alto, California-based Tesla have gained 69 percent so far this year, compared with 7.3 percent for the Russell 1000 Index.