What happened
Shares of Tesla (TSLA +2.96%) jumped on Friday, rising as much as 5.4%. As of 11:50 a.m. EDT, the stock was up 4.1%
The growth stock's move follows a sell-off of the automaker's shares in recent days, implying that the stock price's gain on Friday may simply reflect a bounce higher as investors pile into the stock after some big selling, trying to take advantage of the lower price. Even including the stock's rise on Friday, shares are still down 8% this week and 15% this month.
Image source: Getty Images.
So what
Also likely helping Tesla stock's rise higher on Friday is a bullish morning in the overall market, as evidenced by the Nasdaq Composite's nearly 1% rise as of this writing.
Notably, since Tesla split its shares earlier this month, its stock has been constantly making big moves both up and down. Today continues this trend. While day-to-day volatility has been all over the place, shares have generally trended lower over the last few weeks. Perhaps there was too much hype going into the company's stock split last month and its Battery Day event earlier this week, which seemed to have left some analysts mostly underwhelmed.
But with shares rebounding nicely on Friday, some investors clearly think Tesla is attractive at this level.
Now what
Going forward, investors should expect significant volatility in Tesla's stock price to persist. Shares are up more than 800% over the past year -- and investor expectations for Tesla's business are extremely high. To provide support for the stock price, Tesla will need to continue growing its vehicle deliveries rapidly and keep making progress on its energy business and the self-driving technology it is developing.
