The Tesla stock has fallen 44% in December and more than 59% during the fourth quarter of this year.
It seems that there’s no end to the free fall in the price of Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) stock. On Tuesday, December 27, the TSLA stock ended another 11% in red with its year-to-date losses now surging to 72%.
What seems is that Tesla might hit a negative record on three fronts making it the worst month, quarter, and year for the electric carmaker. Among all valuable tech companies, Tesla has now even surpassed Meta for being the worst-performing stock of the year 2022.
The latest negative sentiment around the TSLA stock comes as the company plans for a weeklong production halt at its Shanghai gigafactory as the Chinese workforce faces the onslaught of rising Covid cases. Shanghai has been currently battered by a fresh wave of rising Covid cases.
As per the Reuters report, Tesla’s Shanghai plant will reopen in January, and that too for just 17 days. Tesla stock has dropped the most among its other competitors in the automobile space. For e.g. the stock price of Ford is down by 46% and that of General Motors is down by 43%. Since its IPO in 2010, the TSLA stock price has fallen and ended in negative only in one year, 2016, before 2022.
Part of Tesla’s recent fall is also due to Elon Musk’s selling of the TSLA stock holdings to fund his $4 billion Twitter acquisition. As per the filings mid-December, Elon Musk sold nearly 22 million more shares of Tesla worth around $3.6 billion.
Elon Musk Won’t Further Sell His Tesla Holdings
During his recent Twitter Space on December 22, Elon Musk assured that he would be not selling the rest of his Tesla holdings for 18 to 24 months from now. Musk also said that the Fed rate hikes are responsible for the TSLA price drop. He added:
“People will increasingly move their money out of stocks into cash, thus causing stocks to drop”.
Musk’s assurances, however, have played little role in halting any further fall in the TSLA stock. The trading volumes for the TSLA stock have skyrocketed this month. This month, the TSLA stock price plunged by 44% making this its worst month ever. Similarly, during Q4, the TSLA stock is down by more than 59%.
Elon Musk’s major focus on Twitter recently has irked Tesla investors. Wedbush Securities’ Dan Ives wrote that Musk’s leadership issues are posing deeper problems for the electric carmaker. “At the same time that Tesla is cutting prices and inventory is starting to build globally in face of a likely global recession, Musk is viewed as ‘asleep at the wheel’ from a leadership perspective,” he said. However, Ives still maintains a buy recommendation on the TSLA stock.
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