Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) spent most of 2024 in the red — however, the last quarter of the year brought a significant change of fortune to the carmaker. On October 23, the electric vehicle (EV) maker released its Q3 2024 earnings call and outperformed consensus analyst estimates.
In addition, CEO Elon Musk’s growing alliance with Donald Trump, who ended up winning the 2024 U.S. presidential election, proved to be a strong tailwind for Tesla stock. At the beginning of the year, the price of a single TSLA share was just $248.42 — before the release of the earnings report, TSLA stock was trading even lower, at a price of $213.65.
By press time, prices had increased to $394.02 — some 67.69% higher than this time last year. However, momentum has slowed down significantly — over the course of the last thirty days, the price of Tesla stock has only increased by 1.08% — while it was on a steep upward trajectory until mid-December, all of the month’s gains have been erased.
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Whether or not Tesla, which has been plagued by valuation worries for years at this point, can continue to see prices increase is an open question. However, let’s backtrack and put the company’s 2024 performance into perspective — here is how much a $1,000 investment made in Tesla would be worth today.
Holding Tesla stock throughout 2024 would have been a profitable move
At a price of $248.42 per share, a $1,000 investment would have netted four full Tesla shares at the beginning of the year. On December 31, 2024, Tesla stock closed at a price of $403.84. In other words, the combined worth of those four shares would now be $1,615 — equivalent to a 62.56% return.
If you invested the full amount of $1,000 through the use of fractional shares, your investments would be worth slightly more — $1,625, to be exact.
However, maximizing your return would have entailed selling earlier — on December 17, 2024, Tesla stock reached its all-time high (ATH) price of $479.86. In that case, your initial investment would be worth $1,919 at the time of the sale — netting you a much more impressive 93.16% return.
Lastly, if you were to have missed this peak in our hypothetical scenario, you could have also sold the stock on December 24, when it mounted a short-term recovery after a pullback. On that day, TSLA stock was trading at $462.28 — and exiting your position would have secured an 86.09% gain.
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