Thanksgiving in 2020 promises to be much different from the way it was in most years, but at least on Wall Street, the holiday mood seems to be working just as well as ever. The stock market came out of the weekend ready to move higher on Monday, and despite some bumps along the road during the day, the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC 1.59%) was up by about a fifth of a percent just minutes before the close.
Some strong trends continued to grip the Nasdaq, helping to support its move higher. Align Technology (ALGN 3.68%) made a big pitch to its investors, letting them know about some of the interesting opportunities the orthodontic alignment-device maker sees ahead. Meanwhile, a similar-sized gain awaited investors in Tesla (TSLA 1.85%), as excitement about the electric-vehicle (EV) industry continued to boost its most prestigious member.
Align sees plenty of growth ahead
Shares of Align Technology were up by nearly 7% on Monday. The company gave a virtual investor-day presentation in which it discussed some of its most promising opportunities for the near future.
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Align has had great success with its Invisalign dental aligners, with more than 9 million patients benefiting from the system. Yet CEO Joe Hogan believes that Invisalign has a lot further to go when it comes to successfully penetrating the global market. Align believes that about 15 million people worldwide will begin orthodontic treatment, and every one of those patients is a prospective sale for the clear aligner.
Moreover, Align sees digital technology as the cornerstone of its growth strategy. With its iTero scanner and its digital platform, the company hopes to reach nearly 190,000 doctors serving as many as 500 million consumers. With new market presence in countries like Brazil, Russia, Turkey, and India, as well as the Middle East and Southeast Asia regions and the continent of Africa, Align has a lot of growth ahead of it.
With more adults than ever thinking about dentistry as a way to make themselves look better, Align has a lot of trends in its favor right now. That has shareholders excited about the company's future.
Tesla won't hit the brakes
Tesla saw its stock climb almost 7% as well on Monday. The electric-vehicle pioneer continued to benefit from the recent decision by the overseers of the S&P 500 Index to add Tesla to the benchmark effective late next month.
Helping to set the tone for Tesla Monday was a favorable perspective from Wall Street analysts over the weekend. Wedbush Securities put itself out on a limb, setting a $1,000 price target in the next 13 months if its bullish-case scenario for Tesla plays out.
There's a lot that has to go well in order for Tesla to reach that milestone, according to Wedbush. The automaker needs to keep executing well on its own opportunities, while it also needs to see competitors both among established legacy automakers and new EV upstarts keep failing in their collective efforts to challenge Tesla's dominance. Tesla also needs to be able to maintain pricing power, and it'd be ideal if government subsidies for its electric vehicles got renewed at higher levels.
It's easy to criticize the ever-present hype around Tesla, but the stock has thus far managed to deliver even on outlandish predictions. Soon enough, index fund investors will join those who got in early on owning Tesla shares.
