SHARE OF THE THE WEEK: Investors await Tesla’s fourth-quarter results

All eyes will be on Tesla next week as it announces results for the fourth quarter. 

The electric car maker, run by Elon Musk, has had a rough time in the past year, weighed down by a slowdown in China, as well as wider economic headwinds battering the supply chain and consumer spending. 

But the shares have also come under pressure since Musk’s £38billion acquisition of Twitter, which saw him sell almost £18billion of his Tesla stock. 

For the fourth quarter of 2022, analysts are looking for revenues of £20billion – an increase of 40 per cent against the same period of 2021. 

AJ Bell analyst Danni Hewson said the stakes are particularly high for Tesla this quarter after it missed Wall Street’s estimates for deliveries. 

The car maker shipped 405,278 cars to customers between October and December, missing Wall Street estimates of 420,000. However, that was still a record and an increase of a third on the equivalent quarter in 2021.

‘Profits have slumped and this set of results are likely to show further evidence of a consumer that seems to have been missing in action over the last year, especially in China,’ Hewson explained. 

Tesla has started this year with a bang after slashing prices in the US and Europe in bid to boost sales. 

In the UK, some prices were cut by as much as £9,000. 

Shares have jumped 19 per cent since the start of 2023, slowly chipping away at the over 60 per cent fall in the past year for the Tesla stock.