Tesla’s fourth-quarter delivery figures, expected shortly after the world rings in the New Year, are likely to be the first 2022 data point investors can use to assess the outlook for the stock. People who are bullish on the electric-vehicle maker expect a lot.
Tesla (ticker: TSLA) typically discloses its delivery figures on the second day of a quarter, regardless of weekends. That means the fourth-quarter numbers are likely to land on Sunday, Jan. 2. though it is possible they could arrive Monday because of the New Year holiday.
The Wall Street consensus, according to FactSet, calls for 267,000 vehicle deliveries. That would be a record and up from the 241,300 delivered in the third quarter of 2020. The Wall Street consensus figure aggregated by Tesla itself calls for about 266,000 deliveries.
The company will need to do better than that to keep the stock moving higher because the not-so-secret secret about Wall Street estimates is that they tend to be low. Investors, companies, and analysts all feel better when companies beat estimates.
The so-called whisper number for fourth-quarter Tesla deliveries is probably somewhere between 275,000 and 285,000 units. A number in that range would be a good outcome, while anything higher would be excellent.
If the numbers are strong, it typically means good things for the stock going into the release of Tesla’s earnings. Tesla shares have outperformed the S&P 500 seven of the past nine times in the span between when management reports deliveries and discloses the quarterly earnings. The financial results come about three or four weeks after the delivery numbers.
Tesla needs to deliver 272,650 vehicles to hit 900,000 for all of 2021. That would be quite an accomplishment, given that Tesla delivered about 500,000 vehicles in 2020.
In 2022, Wall Street is currently projecting deliveries of about 1.42 million vehicles, including 296,000 in the first quarter. That would amount to another year of big growth. Tesla has two new manufacturing facilities, in Texas and Germany, that will be ramping up production early in 2022. The ability for Tesla to sell all that is coming out of its factories will be a big swing factor for the stock in 2022.
The stock did just fine in 2021 after rising 743% in 2022. As of Thursday, Tesla stock was up more than 50% in 2021, far better than the comparable returns of the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average.
It has been another profitable, yet wild, year for Tesla investors. Tesla stock was at $1,070.34 as of the close of trading on Thursday. The stock’s 52-week low was back in March at less than $540.