Dan Ives says Tesla’s conference call was a ‘disaster’: explore why

Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) has hardly ever had as bad of a conference call as it did last night, says Dan Ives. He’s a Senior Analyst at Wedbush Securities.

Tesla did not offer clarity on the conference call

The electric vehicles behemoth reported a disappointing third quarter on Wednesday.

But Ives is convinced that what’s weighing more on the stock this morning is the lack of clarity on the conference call. On CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street”, he said today:

The problem is that Street wanted to get details: have the price cuts ended, where’s the gross margin outlook, what does demand look into 2024. A lot more questions and no answers.

Note that the standard Model 3 now costs about 17% less in the U.S. than it did at the start of 2023. Tesla stock is still up more than 100% year-to-date.

Is it time to sell Tesla stock or hold it still?

Tesla Inc did confirm last night that it will start selling the much-awaited Cybertruck on November 30^th – but the Wedbush analyst did not find that update enough.

Nonetheless, Dan Ives said the long-term thesis remains “intact” even though the near-term looks uncertain after the conference call last night that he described as a “disaster”.

Ives trimmed his price target on Tesla stock today to $310 which still suggests about a 40% upside from here.

So, he’s still bullish on the EV giant for the long term even though its operating margin stood 7.6% in the third quarter – not excitingly above the legacy automakers.