Tesla Stock Price Targets Slashed By Analyst, Delivery Numbers Still A Worry

And just when you thought Tesla’s stock price was already out of the woods, here comes analysts again.

UBS’s Colin Langan again, the bearish Wall Street analyst who’s the Director in the General Industrials group at UBS covering the US automotive sector, again pounced on Tesla Inc., this time slashing his price target for Tesla by 20 percent to $160 a share on June 28. He restated his sell rating for Tesla’s stock, which is being boosted by a rally of sorts over the past few weeks.

“We remain very cautious particularly as you go to the second half of the year,” he said. “Consensus has them earning a profit. With weakening deliveries and this consistent margin pressure, we expect losses in the second half.”

Langan made his latest bearish call on Tesla a few days before the company releases its much-expected second quarter production figures. Tesla CEO Elon Musk estimates Q2 deliveries ranging from 90,000 and 100,000 electric vehicles (EVs).

Some analysts expect Tesla's Q2 deliveries to wind-up anywhere from 89,500 and 92,000 units, which is still pretty good considering the turmoil besetting Tesla so far this year. Langan, however, has taken one of the more pessimistic views among analysts. He estimates Tesla Q2 production at a measly 87,000 units, which is below consensus estimates.

“I do think that will appease bulls who are looking for a pick-up in demand,” said Langan. “What people might be missing is that Q2 earnings, I think, will be very challenged because a lot of the delivery push here was done by price cuts.”

Langan currently has the third lowest price target for Tesla among all Wall Street analysts. In some analysts’ minds, Langan’s continuing bias against Tesla is a continuation of a worrying pattern first manifested over two years ago.

In September 2018, Clean Technica published an analysis of Langan’s calls on Tesla and found he had recommended selling Tesla 18 times over the past two years. The story said Langan hadn’t recommended buying Tesla even once over that span of time.

Interestingly, Langan recommended buying GM stock over two dozen times in the seven years he’s been covering GM. Equally surprising, Langan has never recommended selling GM.

Langan’s dropping Tesla to $160 is the third time this year he’s slashed his Tesla target. He came into 2019 with Tesla at $230. Tesla’s stock stood at $223.46 as of June 28.

Investors, however, seem to like Tesla stock as of late. This seems to be due to the realization Tesla can deliver on production, and that its problems mostly have to to with delayed deliveries rather than a sharp fall in demand. Tesla’s shares have rallied 18 percent over the past four weeks, Langan’s prognostications notwithstanding.

Other analysts, however, say Tesla’s production isn’t the big problem; it’s the company’s earnings outlook.

"We raise our delivery estimate to ~85k vehicles from ~75k, but still forecast ongoing losses," said Barclays analyst Brian Johnson in a recent report.

Johnson found a friend in Goldman Sachs’ analyst David Tamberrino, who believes Q2 should be fine for Tesla as regards production targets. Tamberrino, however, rates Tesla a "sell” and cut his target on Tesla for the fourth time this year to $158 (from $200).