What happened
Shares of several electric vehicle stocks rose Monday morning as the broader market climbed higher.
Two reports indicated that the Federal Reserve may not hike its benchmark interest rate as sharply as had been previously anticipated. That sparked some optimism in the market. Meanwhile, two analysts offered positive comments about Tesla (TSLA -3.55%), which not only gave its stock a lift, but by association likely helped push Rivian Automotive (RIVN 1.03%) and Nio (NIO 2.30%) higher as well.
As of 12:15 p.m. ET, Tesla was up by 3.5%, Rivian had gained 4.8%, and Nio was up by 4.5%.
So what
Over the weekend, a Wall Street Journal article and Goldman Sachs' chief economist both said that it's likely that the Fed will deliver a 75-basis-point hike to the federal funds rate later this month, rather than the 100-basis-point hike that some economists have been expecting.
Image source: Getty Images.
While a 75-basis-point increase would still be significant, investors are currently looking for any positive news they can find. Those bits of news were likely what drove both the S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite higher Monday morning.
With these indices making gains, it's not surprising that Tesla, Rivian, and Nio are climbing. But they also got a lift because a Barclays analyst raised his price target for Tesla's stock from $370 to $380 and Deutsche Bank analyst Emmanuel Rosner added the EV maker to the institution's "short-term Catalyst Call Buy List."
Tesla will report its latest quarterly financial results on July 20 and Rosner believes the automaker's margins will be better than analysts' consensus expectation. He also thinks that Tesla will be able to maintain its goal of increasing vehicle deliveries by 50% in 2022 as production ramps up in the second half of the year.
With Tesla's share price down significantly this year, Rosner said that there's "a compelling opportunity to accumulate the stock" right now.
Tesla's stock rose on all of this news, and Rivian and Nio likely got swept upward in the momentum. Additionally, Rivian investors may have been optimistic after Rosner kept his buy rating for that stock, though he lowered its price target from $69 to $46 -- still about 45% higher than where it closed Friday.
Now what
Investors will get a clearer picture of how Tesla is doing when the company reports its second-quarter earnings in just a couple of days, and they'll see how Rivian and Nio are doing when they report their results, likely on Aug. 11. Until then, investors are latching onto the positive sentiment in the market and the fact that two analysts are bullish on Tesla right now.
But with the market still volatile and the U.S. continuing to grapple with high inflation and concerns about a slowing economy, long-term investors should anticipate more share price swings in the near term.
