Tesla stock becomes boring as EV King is treated like a traditional automaker

• Tesla stock “is getting boring,” Bespoke Investment Group said after the electric vehicle maker’s update.
• Wall Street’s expectations of Tesla are more like those of a traditional automaker than a disruptor, it said.
• Bespoke discovered the highest correlation between Tesla shares and other automakers since 2016.

“Tesla is getting boring.”

That was the finding of the Bespoke Investment Group on Thursday, as Wall Street analysts examined the mechanics of Tesla’s $10 trillion plan to promote global sustainability while boosting EV sales.

Tesla shares fell as much as 8% to a one-month low on Thursday as investors appeared disappointed over CEO Elon Musk’s failure to provide details on new EV models.

Instead, the company’s “Masterplan Part 3” presentation on Wednesday revealed that a factory is coming to Mexico and that Tesla is working to halve production costs to sell 20 million electric vehicles a year by 2030.

“As investor and analyst reporting focuses on more concrete metrics and timelines, expectations are being pushed for TSLA to behave more like a traditional (OEM) and less like a disruptor,” Bespoke wrote.

“On average, the rolling 1-year correlation of daily percentage changes for TSLA relative to other major OEM stocks such as Ford, General Motors, Stellantis and Toyota has risen to its highest level since at least 2016,” it said.

“In other words, the market is increasingly treating TSLA like just another automaker.”

Despite the recent sell-off, Tesla stock is still up more than 50% so far this year, while GM is up 16% and Ford is up 6%.

Mahoney Asset Management CEO Ken Mahoney said in a note Thursday that retail investors owned about 41% of Tesla as of December, while Musk owned 14%, or 446 million shares.

“Musk is a wild character; it’s a very volatile stock, thanks in large part to him,” he said, partially citing the 60% stock price decline last year when Musk sold shares in the electric-vehicle maker to fund his Twitter acquisition.

About Tesla’s update: “Some key takeaways in general are that we think (Tesla) is still in the rapid growth phase,” Mahoney said.