Cathie Wood and Ark Invest trimmed Tesla stock holdings on Monday, after making similar moves three times last week, selling a combined nearly 50,000 shares, even as TSLA overtook an aggressive entry. Meanwhile, news reports named a specific date for the EV giant's June rollout of its robotaxi service.
Wood's ARK Innovation ETF sold 1,594 shares of Tesla on Monday for an estimated $546,247, according to daily trade disclosures. This comes after Wood unloaded 49,075 TSLA shares last week.
Ark Invest started off by selling 27,377 shares last Tuesday before dumping another 15,187 TSLA shares on Wednesday. Wood then sold 6,511 shares during Friday's stock market for an estimated $2.25 million.
As of Tuesday, Tesla stock was the top holding in the ARKK ETF, with a 12.60% weight and a market value of $708.46 million.
Tesla stock advanced as high as 355.40 before paring those gains, closing up about 0.5% to 344.27 during stock market action on Tuesday. The stock declined about 1% on Monday. TSLA fell 3.3% to Friday but still posted a 2.1% advance last week, giving it a 22.8% gain in May.
Shares are slightly below a 354.99 buy point.
Cathie Wood And The June 12 Robotaxi Launch
Wood's Tesla stock maneuvers last week came as Bloomberg reported that Tesla will launch the limited robotaxi service in Austin on June 12. The report was based on a "person familiar with the matter."
Wood and Ark Invest have long been superbullish on Tesla's autonomy push and robotaxi aims. In June 2024, Ark Invest updated its Tesla stock price target to 2,600 by 2029. It estimated that around 90% of Tesla's enterprise value and earnings will be attributed to the robotaxi business in 2029.
Wood recently stuck by that prediction.
Cathie Wood's Ark Invest tends to purchase Tesla stock and other positions amid sell-offs or when they break below key moving averages. Without a robotaxi network and business, Ark Invest wrote in 2024, the TSLA price target would be around $350 per share.
"We remain confident that the service will launch within the next five years," Wood's Ark Invest said last year.
The Robotaxi Rollout
It is now June and a somewhat clearer image is taking shape of what the Tesla robotaxi rollout will look like.
Tesla tested a Model Y with no one in the driver's seat for the first time last week, according to the Bloomberg report. Musk on X early Thursday wrote that "Tesla has been testing self-driving Model Y cars (no one in the driver's seat) on Austin public streets with no incidents" in recent days.
Musk added that Model Y vehicles will begin "self-delivery from factory to customer" in June.
Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas on Friday pointed out there is a publicity campaign on Musk's social media platform X around the Austin robotaxi day. However, Jonas cautioned investors to temper expectations.
"As is typical for highly anticipated Tesla events, we would keep expectations well contained for the (reported) June 12 Cybercab launch event in Austin," Jonas wrote Friday.
"However, we would look for a continued stream of updates for the performance and growth of the network thereafter (numbers of cars, miles, trips, etc.) in the days and weeks that follow," he added.
The Friday comments from Jonas comes after the analyst recently met with Tesla executives. On May 16, Jonas wrote that the robotaxi service will likely be around 10 to 20 cars, on public roads and be invite-only with plenty of tele-ops to ensure safety levels.
Meanwhile, Musk, recently speaking with CNBC, said there will be about 10 robotaxi Model Ys in the first week and that there could be 1,000 units in a "few months." At the time, Musk did not give a specific date for the rollout, but said it would come before end of June.
The Tesla chief also confirmed there will be human supervisors for the autonomous trips. Musk also said the robotaxi service will be geofenced, meaning portions of Austin will be unavailable.
Elon Musk Says He Will Remain Tesla's CEO For At Least Five More Years
During the first-quarter earnings call in April, Musk also made it clear during that call that the robotaxi vehicles in Austin will be Model Ys.
"We expect to be selling fully autonomous rides in Austin in June," Musk said. "The team and I are laser focused on bringing robotaxi in Austin in June." He added that "unsupervised autonomy will first be solved for the Model Y in Austin."
Separately, the CyberCab product is on track for production next year, according to Tesla. The CyberCab will use the "unboxed" manufacturing system (a modular approach). Tesla executives said on the company's first-quarter earnings call that the unboxed process is "progressing," suggesting it's not yet ready.
Tesla Robotaxi Launches In A Few Weeks. These Are The Details.
Tesla Stock Performance
TSLA cleared a 354.99 early entry last Tuesday, then fell back 3.3% on Friday. Shares are now around 3% below that entry. Tesla is on the IBD Leaderboard stock list.
Shares are still down about 15% this year, despite surging on robotaxi bets following the April 22 Q1 conference call. Tesla stock is around 30% below the 488.54 peak from Dec. 18.
"We've lost some sales perhaps on the left but we've gained them on the right," Musk said in a May 20 interview at Bloomberg's Qatar Economic Forum in Abu Dhabi, referring to consumers on the political right and left.
"The sales numbers at this point are strong and we see no problem with demand," Musk said, adding that TSLA stock is evidence that Tesla EV sales are doing well.
"Our stock wouldn't be trading near all-time highs if things weren't in good shape, they're fine, don't worry about it," Musk said.
Tesla stock has a 21-day average true range of 4.51%. The ATR metric, available on IBD's MarketSurge charting tool, gauges the characteristic breadth of a stock's behavior. Stocks that tend to make large jumps or dives in daily stock market action, the kind that can trigger sell rules and shake investors out of a stock, have a high ATR. Stocks that tend to make more incremental moves have lower ATRs.
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq are now in a power trend. Investors can buy stocks with ATRs up to 8%, though they should be wary of being too concentrated in high-octane names.
Tesla stock has a 77 Composite Rating out of a best-possible 99. The Cathie Wood-backed stock also has a 94 Relative Strength Rating and a 58 EPS Rating.
Please follow Kit Norton on X @KitNorton for more coverage.
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