Wall Street commented on Tesla's quarterly report: it is so good that it is dumb, and the singers have also raised the target price

In the first quarter of this year, when the new crown epidemic in many parts of the world has been counterattacked and the auto industry has been plagued by supply chain problems, Tesla still handed over a more eye-catching report card than Wall Street expected: revenue and profitability far exceeded expectations, and the profit margin of the auto business increased to 32.9% and reached a new high.

How strong is Tesla? Wall Street insights concluded that the company has exceeded the $10 billion mark for 5 consecutive quarters, 3 consecutive quarters of revenue hit a single-quarter record high, 11 consecutive quarters of positive profit, 5 consecutive quarters of EPS earnings per share hit a record high, adjusted net profit of more than 1 billion US dollars for 5 consecutive quarters, and 3 consecutive quarters of automotive business gross margin of more than 30%.

Some lamented Tesla's "how can it get rid of the shackles of gravity," while other analysts said they were stunned and speechless. Wall Street professionals, both bullish and bearish on Tesla, seem to have reached a consensus: There is no denying that this is a strong earnings report.

Bullish view: the performance is as good as a jaw," the demand is strong, the delivery is good, and the stock price has quadrupled after 4 years of shouting

Looking at Wall Street people who rose to Tesla and rated its stock as "buy/outperform/overmatch," the company generally praised the company's strong demand and confident outlook, and were shocked by the high gross profit of the auto business and the expected 60% year-on-year growth in car deliveries this year:

New Street Research analyst Pierre Ferragu gave a $1,580 price target, a nearly 62 percent upside from Wednesday's close. He said he was "speechless" about Tesla's earnings report, and even if the price of raw materials adversely affected other automakers, Tesla's profit margins could continue to rise, thanks to cost cuts and higher average selling prices of cars.

He also pointed out that Tesla has become an authority in the electric car industry, and even in the days after the "American Spring Festival Gala" football "Super Bowl" event, there was a surge in unaddressed Tesla orders, because people saw competitors' electric car advertisements and instead ordered Teslas.

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives gave a $1400 price target, representing 43% upside. He called Tesla's first quarterly report a "Cinderella-like" outcome, with optimistic figures in a "brutal supply chain backdrop" that reflects a fairly strong demand trajectory for its electric vehicles. This is not surprising that this has led to the target of a 50% increase in average annual deliveries, although the company acknowledges that supply chains are becoming a limiting factor.

Piper Sandler analyst Alexander Potter gave a $1260 price target, representing nearly 30 percent upside. So far, he said, Tesla has successfully relied on operational efficiency and pricing power to overcome obstacles such as supply chain disruptions and increased input costs, while generating a lot of cash. Despite uncertainties in the second half of the year, even if future performance is mitigated by inevitable macro shocks, the impact may only be temporary.

Of course, the most eye-catching in the bullish Tesla faction is the "bull market queen" wood sister Cathie Wood. Her analysts said last week that if Tesla could provide a self-driving/robo-taxi network, the stock price would quadruple to $4,600 by 2026, and even in the bear market scenario, the stock price is expected to be $2,900, which is still about three times the closing price on Wednesday.

Wood's Ark Investment Management predicted last year that Tesla shares would reach $3,000 in 2025. It can be seen that although Tesla once soared nearly 12% on Thursday, it was originally down 7.5% this year, and Wood Sister's confidence in it has not declined. She sold nearly 68,000 shares for $66 million on Wednesday's Tesla earnings day, but Tesla remains the largest stake in her flagship fund, ARKK, accounting for 10 percent of the ETF's holdings. Before wednesday's sale, she held a total of 1.47 million shares of Tesla worth $1.5 billion through three ETFs.

"Hold" rating: Stocks have been "perfectly priced", and once imperfect, the price will fall, and the gross profit margin may have peaked

At the same time, analysts who "hold" Tesla's rating after earnings reports also generally praised its strong delivery growth and favorable pricing environment:

Wells Fargo's Colin Langan raised its price target to $960 from $910, narrowing its decline from nearly 7 percent to nearly 2 percent from Wednesday's close. He acknowledged that higher pricing, along with the leverage of labor and indirect costs, could once again help offset potential material cost inflation. But before the earnings report, he pointed out that if Musk successfully acquires Twitter, it will have a negative impact on Tesla, because Musk may have to sell Tesla shares to raise funds, which will put downward pressure on Tesla stock.

Bank of America's John Murphy gave a $1,300 price target and said the risk of a future sell-off of Tesla shares remains. Despite solid first-quarter results, he worries that Tesla stock may have been "priced for perfection"—falling if imperfect occurs," and that recent earnings better than expected may not be enough for bulls to become increasingly bullish on the stock.

RBC Capital's Joseph Spak also maintained a "flat broader" rating, but raised its price target to $1,175 from $1,035.

Cowen's Jeffrey Osborne gave a $790 price target and "praised the company's first-quarter execution." But he thinks there's room for improvement in profit margins, "and given that gross margins are likely to peak, we're less enthusiastic about the stock's current high valuation."

In addition, Philippe Houchois, a Jefferies analyst with a "buy" rating on Tesla and a $1,250 target, warned that equipment capacity, the pace of deployment of new manufacturing technologies and supply chain disruptions remain limiting factors in 2022.

Sing the bad point: Profits are record unsustainable, growth will always stall, too much noise pushes up a quarterly report, but raises the target price

It is worth noting that most of the analysts who maintained Tesla's "sell" rating raised their target price and believed that the first-quarter earnings report and the optimistic outlook of the company's management were still impressive:

Citi's Itay Michaeli raised its price target to $375 from $313, still around 1/3 of Wednesday's closing price. But he also agrees that the company's overall outlook for 2022 is encouraging, and agrees with Tesla that there are value creation opportunities in the broader self-driving space.

JPMorgan analyst Ryan Brinkman also raised the price target from $335 to $395, acknowledging that "given Tesla's usually long backlog of orders and a loyal customer/fan base, the company may be in a better position than some of its competitors." But he believes the better-than-expected earnings in the first quarter were partly due to higher-than-expected revenue from the sale of carbon credits ($679 million in the quarter, doubled sequentially and doubled Wall Street's forecast of $312 million).

Laura Hoy, an analyst at British financial services firm Hargreaves Lansdown, questioned the sustainability of Tesla's record-breaking margins, and since profits ultimately depend on the success of the yield ramp-up, any loss of production is one of the biggest fundamental risks to profit margins. And the constant price hikes could dampen strong consumer demand, and stock pricing has long reflected all the optimistic expectations.

Gordon Johnson, an analyst at Tesla bears GLJ Research, gave an ultra-low target price of $67 two weeks ago and accused Musk of lying about "the company's unit sales will not grow stall in the second quarter."

He believes that the reason why Tesla's earnings report looks so good is because it is mixed with a lot of "noise", such as regulatory policies that give Tesla a one-time carbon credit incentive of $288 million; $377 million of "magical" cost reduction, which is largely related to the cost capitalization of new gigafactories in Berlin, Germany and Texas, and Musk's low CEO equity incentives. "Tesla's GAAP earnings of $2.87 per share amounted to $1/3, with the help of non-core projects."

There is also an analysis that in the short term, we should continue to pay attention to the voting results of the tesla stock split shareholders' meeting, the company announced at the end of March that it plans to split shares for the second time in two years, by reducing the price per share to facilitate more retail positions, which has caused the stock price to soar by 8% on the official announcement day.