Tesla Stock News and Analysis: After joining $1 trillion club, TSLA only competing with gravity

• Tesla slightly down in premarket day after achieving $1 trillion valuation.
• Morgan Stanley placed $1,200 price target on TSLA.
• The electric-vehicle automaker giant earning $10,000 EBITDA per unit.

It took Tesla (TSLA) 18 years to reach a $1 trillion market cap, but the sages and prophets such as Cathie Wood and Ron Baron were proven right. On the news of a 100,000-unit buy order from embattled rental car company Hertz, TSLA stock ran up 12.7%, adding some $80 billion to its market cap on Monday and ending the day at $1,024.86 a share. This put its public market value at $1.027 trillion.

Tesla Stock News: On top of the car world

Only six other companies have ever achieved this feat globally – Amazon (AMZN), Alphabet (Google), Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), SaudiAramco and briefly PetroChina (PTR) – and Tesla is far and away the only automotive company to do so. It is now valued more than four times as much as Toyota (™), though the Japanese giant sells on the order of 10 times the number of vehicles as Tesla.

This major difference in size, however, masks the primary difference between them. While Toyota sold 10.7 million units in 2019, it only forecasts 8.7 million units sold in fiscal 2022. This decline parallels the road of other legacy automakers in recent times. Data from IHS insights shows that legacy vehicle manufacturers’ production slumped about 20% YoY in the third quarter. In that same period, Tesla sales exploded by 73%. It would appear that electric vehicles are having a moment.

Though many critics seized on the fact that Hertz only narrowly escaped bankruptcy earlier this year, wondering if it would be able to afford the hefty $4.2 billion price tag of the deal, company executives were adamant that the deal was part of a major strategy to move in the direction of EVs. The deal alone, which primarily involves the Model 3, would make EVs 20% of its fleet worldwide.

Hertz interim CEO Mark Fields said in a press release, “Electric vehicles are now mainstream, and we’ve only just begun to see rising global demand and interest. The new Hertz is going to lead the way as a mobility company, starting with the largest EV rental fleet in North America.”

Tesla key statistics

TSLA stock price analysis: Keep an eye on $995.75

TSLA shares can only fall from here, right? Wrong. Now that Tesla has achieved this momentous day, staying in the $1 trillion club will be key though. As per Reuters’ estimates, the line between “T” and “B” is $995.75. This is only a psychological focal point, but it may prove significant in general market mood.

Cathie Wood of Ark Invest, who has been surprisingly accurate on Tesla in the past, has long placed her long-term price target at $3,000 a share. Even her team though sold about $22 million worth of TSLA shares on Monday. A 200% rise from here must not be enough of a draw for the growth stock guru.

Analyst Adam Jonas of Morgan Stanley was first out of the gate with a $1,200 price target upgrade. One of the main data points he pointed to was the industry-crushing $10,000 EBITDA per unit that Tesla is currently cruising at.

TSLA price has support near $900 on the weekly chart. This comes from the $909.74 close from last week and the late January high of $900.22. The moving averages are of no help yet. The 9-day moving average, for instance, is rising fast but is still down at $816.

At the time of writing, TSLA is down 0.5% in the premarket but had traded up earlier. If traders think there is still more elevation to clear, then one target may be the R3 Fibonacci pivot point at $1,088.56.

TSLA  weekly chart