The 10 top-searched stocks of 2014: Tesla is No. 4
“Tesla is whatever the beholder wants it to be,” said Yahoo Finance Senior Columnist Michael Santoli, essentially summing up the case for and against Tesla (TSLA). “Either it’s a complete hype story or it is the ultimate future in terms of business and cars.”
No wonder people searched for it so much in 2014, making it the fourth on Yahoo's list of the year's most-searched stocks.
Let’s take the bullish case first. Proponents of the stocks tend to focus on two things: The genius of Elon Musk and a potential battery revolution.
In 2014 Musk officially launched his “gigafactory,” a $5 billion battery factory in the middle of the Nevada desert that will eventually be one of the biggest factories in the world, period. Everyone from businessmen to techies has long-lamented the lack of improvement in battery technology, and Musk’s push to improve the batteries in his cars could lead to breakthroughs that help other industries – from phones to airplanes.
“No one’s really sure what Elon’s gonna do with batteries,” said Yahoo Finance’s Jeff Macke. “It’s more than just a car maker, they’re also just a general threat to utilities because of the way that they’re making their batteries. They’re different. They’re faster. They’re innovative.”
The problem, then, may lie with price – both of products and the stock. The cheapest Tesla Model S retails for over $50,000. The new Model X, announced this year, was expected to be the cheaper option some investors were looking for. Instead it turned out to be an even more expensive model.
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Some consider the stock expensive as well. “I bought Telsa this spring, there was a sharp fall in the stock,” said Yahoo Finance Editor-in-Chief Aaron Task. “It got down below $190/share and I just thought it was an opportunity.”
Tesla stock is up some 1000% since it’s 2010 IPO despite the fact that Tesla is still selling a relatively small number of cars – we’re talking roughly 35,000 for the year worldwide depending how things shake out.
Which brings us to the bearish case. Yahoo Finance’s Rick Newman summed it up when he said, “[It’s a] cool company doing great technology but they still only make one car. Every automaker in the world is gunning for Tesla, and I don’t know if they can go fast enough to stay ahead.”
In fact, earlier this year Ford’s (F) new CEO Mark Fields told Yahoo Finance that the company plans to make a ‘Tesla’ for the masses.
Related: Ford CEO: We're making a 'Tesla' for the masses
“The critics say it’s nothing but hype and electric vehicles are never going to take over the car business,” said Santoli. “The bulls say in the year 2020 they’re gonna sell a half a million of these things.”
The problem is, there’s still quite a few years in between now and 2020 when things can go wrong. “There’s a lot of time for that to be either be confirmed or denied by the near-term data.”
More of the top-searched stocks of 2014: