Tesla stock had a rough year in 2022. The company ended down -69%.
The company might have experienced a serious drop due to the bear market, but Tesla is reporting 2022 year-end vehicle production and delivery numbers.
The tech company actually had a growth of 40% over the last year.
However, the fourth quarter numbers still fell shy of analysts’ expectations.
Still, there’s hope for shareholders wondering if Tesla stock will ever recover.
Although economists are saying there’s a strong probability of a recession hitting the U.S. economy by the first quarter of the new year, it may be short-lived.
Will Tesla stock go up in 2023?
Here’s what experts are predicting.
Latest Tesla Stock News
Tesla reported 1.31 million deliveries in 2022, a growth of 40% over the previous year.
In the fourth quarter, Tesla reported deliveries of 405,278 vehicles and production of 439,701 vehicles.
That brings Tesla’s 2022 full year deliveries to around 1.31 million vehicles.
In 2021, Tesla reported 308,600 vehicle deliveries in the fourth quarter, and full-year deliveries of around 936,172 vehicles.
That’s a great improvement considering the company went through several challenges due to Covid.
Here are 2022’s key numbers:
- Total deliveries Q4 2022: 405,278
- Total production Q4 2022: 439,701
- Total annual deliveries 2022: 1.31 million
- Total annual production 2022: 1.37 million
Deliveries are the closest approximation of sales disclosed by Tesla.
These numbers represented a new record for the Elon Musk-led automaker and growth of 40% in deliveries year-over-year.
However, the fourth quarter numbers fell shy of analysts’ expectations.
According to a consensus of analysts’ estimates compiled by FactSet, as of Dec. 31, 2022 Wall Street was expecting Tesla to report deliveries around 427,000 for the final quarter of the year.
Estimates updated in December, and included in the FactSet consensus, ranged from 409,000 to 433,000.
Regardless, Tesla was able to beat previous deliveries, demonstrating gradual growth for its investors.
Related: How to Invest in The Stock Market Step by Step for Beginners
Why Did Tesla Shares Fall?
Big investors continued to sell shares on during the last weeks of December as news surfaced of productions suspensions.
But much of Tesla’s drop in production has been out of the company’s control.
The latest decline came after the Wall Street Journal reported that Tesla will continue a week-long production halt at its Shanghai facility, facing a fresh onslaught of Covid cases within its Chinese workforce.
Tesla shares fell over 70% from their record high in November 2021.
The stock ended down 69% in 2022, roughly double the decline in the Nasdaq.
Among major car makers, Ford is down 45% and General Motors has fallen 43%.
But Elon Musk also played a big role in the decline of the company’s share price.
In this SEC filing, we see the Tesla CEO has sold approximately 22 million shares equivalent to around $3.6 billion.
Selloffs at this magnitude move the markets.
After the massive selloff, Elon said during a Twitter space call that he will not sell any Tesla shares for about two years.
The Tesla CEO said that he foresees a serious recession in 2023 and needed to prepare for a worst-case scenario.
But Elon Musk isn’t the only one predicting a recession going into the new year.
Both Bank of America and Wells Fargo CEOs are predicting a recession to hit the United States by the first quarter of 2023.
What Are the Experts Saying?
While technical analysis shows us the stock market is in a downtrend channel, experts are saying a recession will have a great impact on the continuation of a bear market in 2023.
Dan Raju, CEO of Tradier, a brokerage platform says, “The Fed’s obsession with recession will likely result in more interest rate hikes in the first quarter of 2023, which means that we are going to have continued volatility in the financial markets.”
“We feel that going into the fall, the stage will be set for a strong recovery from the 2022-2023 cyclical bear market,” says David Keller, president and chief strategist at Sierra Alpha Research.
“If and when a market bottom emerges in the first half of 2023, we’d be looking to technology as a fantastic long-term opportunity, given the heavy drawdowns since late 2021.”
It seems tech stocks, Tesla stock included, may not all be headed towards what may seem like a never-ending downward spiral.
As we begin to recover from this bear market later in the year, we can expect Tesla stock and others to rise as investors begin to look at long-term opportunities.
However, it’s important for retail investors to prepare for the worst as talks about a recession looms.
“A recession is very likely in the U.S.,” BoFa wrote in its Year Ahead 2023 report. The bank points out that this recession can last through the third quarter of 2023.
There’s no official definition of a recession, but many economists define it as a period of two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth or gross domestic product (GDP) decline – a drop that’s already been seen in 2022, says FOX Business.
Are You Holding Tesla Stock?
Will you be buying more Tesla shares now or wait until we begin to see a little more certainty in the economy and markets?
Leave a comment down below.
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