Tesla Stock Just Passed a Troubling Milestone -- Barrons.com

By Al Root

Tesla stock rose early Monday. The market is helping.

Shares of the electric-vehicle maker were up 1.4% at $317.50 in premarket trading, while SP 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were both up about 1%.

Stocks jumped after fighting in Iran cooled off. Benchmark international crude oil prices were down almost 5% in early trading at about $82 per barrel.

It isn't Tesla-specific news, but investors will probably take it.

Tesla stock dropped 18% this past week, including a near-15% drop on Thursday after the company reported weaker-than-expected second-quarter results.

Tesla reported an operating profit of about $400 million. Wall Street was looking for closer to $1.7 billion. What's more, the company didn't have materially new updates about its AI-trained robo-taxi and robot businesses. Investors are looking for AI opportunities to lead to a new era of earnings growth for the auto maker after stagnant EV sales for the past couple of years.

Coming into Monday trading, Tesla stock was down about 30% this year and down 5% over the past 12 months.

The stock has just gone into the red year-over-year, according to FactSet. It's the first time in a while. Tesla stock was below $300 in the weeks leading up to the company's robo-taxi service launch in Austin, Texas, in June 2025. Shares rallied after that, hitting an all-time high of almost $500 in December 2025 as AI optimism peaked.

As things stand now, shares haven't done much over the past 12 months. It's the latest sign that investors are waiting for what's next. What they are hoping for is AI progress, with more Tesla robo-taxis on the road, or AI-trained humanoid robots coming off an assembly line in Fremont, California.

Tesla recently stopped producing the Model S and X, choosing to convert that capacity for robot production.

Write to Al Root at allen.root@barrons.com.

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July 27, 2026 08:01 ET (12:01 GMT)