Well, Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) stock is back in the headlines, and for all the right reasons. Tesla has increased the remarkable run it has been going on over the entirety of 2023 dramatically in recent weeks.
On Monday night (our time) the US battery and electric vehicle manufacturer rose by another 6.9% to US$279.82. That extends Tesla's performance over the past month alone to an astonishing 28.6%.
But in 2023 to date, the gains are even more jaw-dropping. Since the start of the year, Tesla stock is now up by almost 159%, as you can see below:
But of course, we're still not quite at a new all-time high for Tesla, even after these mind-blowing gains. Tesla's all-time high currently sits at US$414.50 a share, which we saw back in November 2021. Tesla hit that high after rocketing more than 50% in just a month. The company still sits more than 30% off of that all-time high watermark today.
The $1 trillion club
Speaking of today, this latest stock price gives Tesla a market capitalisation of US$876.81 billion. But back in 2021, Tesla crossed a market cap of US$1 trillion for the first time.
That enabled Tesla to join a very exclusive club of companies that can say they've been valued at over a trillion dollars.
This club counts the likes of Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL), Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT), Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG)(NASDAQ: GOOGL), Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ: AMZN), Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ: META), Saudi Aramco, and most recently, NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA).
So now the question Tesla shareholders are probably wondering today is this: when will Tesla re-join the trillion-dollar club, and sport a valuation with 13 digits behind it?
Well, that's a difficult question to answer. There's no doubt that some fundamental factors are behind this latest run higher.
What's more, Tesla is continuing to post impressive growth metrics. Just yesterday, we covered the company's latest quarterly production figures.
Tesla reported that it had manufactured 479,700 vehicles and delivered 466,140 in the past quarter – a new record. As my Fool colleague Bernd covered, these numbers handily beat analyst forecasts of 448,350 deliveries.
So no doubt this is all helping to boost investor confidence, and thus the Tesla stock price.
But Tesla arguably has many qualitative tailwinds behind it as well.
What else is driving Tesla stock higher?
As we've just discussed, the company continues to grow rapidly, branching out into more and more markets with its electric vehicle range.
We all know that vehicle production is moving away from petrol and diesel and towards zero-emission technologies. This is one powerful tailwind behind Tesla. But investors are also excited about new models in the pipeline, including the famous (or perhaps infamous) Cybertruck, which should finally be launching in 2023.
Finally, we can't ignore the elephant in the room: speculative buying. Tesla has long been one of the most volatile and over-traded shares in the world. Once derided as a 'meme stock', it has always been subject to vicious mood swings, from investors.
The company may be up tremendously in 2023 so far, but remember that over 2022, Telsa shares lost around 65% of their value. Before that, the company rocketed around 50% in 2021.
It wouldn't be naive to speculate that this same volatility could well be working in the company's favour right now, just as it was in 2021.
But long-term Tesla shareholders are well used to this by now. So strap in, and let's wait and see if Tesla's next journey above a US$1 trillion market cap is indeed imminent.
