Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) stock first went public in June 2010 at $17 per share. The stock price reached its peak 12 years later in October when it hit $414. Of course, this doesn’t count for the stock splits on August 31, 2020, and August 25, 2022, which would make the top price way higher.
The first stock split was 3:1, meaning every Tesla holder got three stocks for every stock they owned. The second split was larger, giving five shares per share to each shareholder. Anyone holding throughout the splits would’ve gotten 15 shares for each one they bought prior to the first stock split in 2020.
Technically, the two stock splits would make each share bought at IPO roughly cost $1.13 instead of $17.
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You would now be a millionaire with a $10k investment in Tesla’s IPO
Given the price per share at IPO was roughly $1.13 after the two stock splits, you would own 8,849 shares. At the price of $250 per share, your Tesla investment would now be worth $2,212,000. At the peak of $414, your investment would have an unrealized gain of $3.6 million.
That’s roughly a 22,000% gain in little over 12 years or a 1,800% gain per year. During the same period, the S&P 500 returned 313%.
Tesla’s success has made the company worth $778 billion as of this writing.
What Tesla does best
Tesla is the largest electric vehicle (EV) producer in the world with a market share of 22% globally and close to 4.5 million EVs sold overall since its inception.
Recently, the company cut the prices of its Model S and Model X cars in China in an effort to boost sales. Two weeks prior, Tesla had already slashed prices for the premium version of these two models, which aren’t built in China.
However, Tesla is considered a tech company, not just an EV company.
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives looked at Tesla on a sum-of-the-parts (SOTP) basis in August. The SOTP valuation tries to value the separate businesses within a company, which for Tesla includes its supercharging network as well as its full self-driving (FSD) software. Tesla also provides battery storage products to consumers and utilities, a business that grew over 220% year-over-year in Q2.
After its EV price cuts, Tesla also cut prices on its full self-driving software by $3,000 in the US, lowering the price to $12,000 from $15,000 to boost sales.
Analyst sentiment is mixed
TipRanks analysts have a ‘hold’ rating based on 29 ratings in the past 3 months. Only five analysts have a ‘sell’ rating, while ‘buy’ and ‘hold’ camps have 12 analysts each.
Their combined average price target is $272 for the next 12 months, or 3.7% above the current market price of $248.
Adam Jonas, a Morgan Stanley analyst, upgraded the stock today, September 11, with a price target of $400, which is the most bullish price target in the past few months. The lowest analyst price target is $125 by Ronald Jewsikow from Guggenheim.
Jonas believes the driving force in the coming months would be Tesla’s Dojo, the AI supercomputer used for the FSD, which would help the company get to its robotaxi services faster by improving the full self-driving software.
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