Cathie Wood and Ark Invest trimmed Tesla stock holdings Tuesday as TSLA rose above a new aggressive entry. Shares of the U.S. EV giant continue to advance on expectations around the June rollout of its robotaxi service.
Wood's ARK Innovation ETF on Tuesday sold 27,377 shares of Tesla for an estimated $9.93 million, according to Wood's ETF daily trade disclosures. As of Wednesday, Tesla stock was the top holding in the ARKK ETF, with a 13.31% weight and a market value of $772.7 million.
This marks the first time Wood has touched her Tesla stock holdings in May.
Meanwhile, Tesla reported in regulatory filings late Tuesday that board member Ira Ehrenpreis sold 477,572 shares for more than $162 million. Tesla also disclosed Tuesday that Kimball Musk, the brother of Elon Musk and a longtime Tesla board member, sold 91,588 shares for around $32 million.
Tesla stock edged down 1.7% to 356.92 during Wednesday's stock market action, after advancing nearly 7% on Tuesday.
Shares are up 26.4% in May, and above a 354.99 buy point.
The entry was the high from May 20, according to MarketSurge charts, plotted from a handle that's too low to be valid.
Tesla fell 3% to 339.34 last week.
All About Robotaxi And Autonomy
Tesla is preparing to launch its limited robotaxi service in Austin next month. Bloomberg reported late Wednesday that Tesla will launch the service on June 12. The report is based on a "person familiar with the matter."
After meeting with Tesla executives, Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas said in a recent note to clients that this will likely be around 10 to 20 cars, on public roads and be invite only with plenty of tele-ops to ensure safety levels.
Chief Executive Elon Musk, speaking with CNBC last week, said that there will probably 10 robotaxi Model Ys in the first week and that there could be 1,000 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. He also said that the robotaxi service will be geofenced, meaning portions of Austin will 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 said that Tesla was at that time still debating what the robotaxi service would look like, but that there will be "maybe 10 to 20" vehicles on day one.
Meanwhile, 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," adding 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.
Cathie Wood And Robotaxi
Wood and Ark Invest have long been superbullish on Tesla's autonomy push and robotaxi aims. On June 12 2024, Ark Invest updated its Tesla stock price target to 2,600 by 2029, estimating 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.
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 that TSLA price target would be around $350 per share, according to the report.
"We remain confident that the service will launch within the next five years," Wood's Ark Invest said last year.
Tesla Stock Performance
TSLA is up more than 26% in May. On May 9, shares blasted above the 200-day moving average, offering investors an aggressive entry. Shares are still down about 12% this year, despite surging on robotaxi bets following the April 22 Q1 conference call. Shares are around 27% below their 488.54 peak on Dec. 18.
"We've lost some sales perhaps on the left but we've gained them on the right," Musk said in an interview Tuesday 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 added.
Musk cited TSLA stock as 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 added.
Troy Teslike posted to X last week that he expects Q2 vehicle deliveries between 350,000-395,000, or marking about a 11%-20% decrease vs. a year ago. For the full year, Teslike expects Tesla vehicle deliveries to decline more than 16%. Teslike's delivery estimates are highly respected among retail investors.
Tesla stock has a 21-day average true range of 4.80%. 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 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 an 83 Composite Rating out of a best-possible 99. The Cathie Wood-backed company also has a 95 Relative Strength Rating and a 58 EPS Rating.
Please follow Kit Norton on X @KitNorton for more coverage.
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