Tesla shares extend eye-popping rally to hit new all-time high

Tesla’s stock continued its eye-popping rally on Tuesday, blowing past the $900 mark to record levels just a day after topping $700 for the first time.

Shares of the electric automaker headed by Elon Musk climbed as much as 15 percent to $902.80 in early Tuesday trades. A day earlier, the shares surged 20 percent amid two analyst upgrades and news that the battery factory Tesla runs with Panasonic turned its first-ever quarterly profit.

Tesla’s stock has now more than doubled in value since the beginning of this year. The stock began its tear last week after the carmaker delivered its second consecutive profitable quarter and predicted it will “comfortably exceed” 500,000 vehicle deliveries this year.

The company also announced last week that the hotly anticipated Model Y SUV is ahead of schedule and will see its first deliveries hit the road in March.

Some analysts have attributed the rally to short covering as well. Short interest in Tesla stood at 13.8 percent as of Jan. 30, according to Refinitiv data.

Shares of heavily shorted companies can at times get pushed higher as traders rush to buy stock to cover their short bets, triggering what is known as a “short squeeze.”

Meanwhile, Panasonic said Monday it expects to stabilize profit at Tesla’s Gigafactory by next year, and that there is a lot of room to improve production efficiency for what is an EV’s most expensive component, accounting for about a third of total cost.

The firm is also gearing up to mitigate the loss of the exclusive Tesla partnership by setting up a joint venture with Toyota Motor Corp. to develop a type of EV battery that the pair plan to sell to any automaker.

With Reuters