Tesla Shares Drop on Weak Forecast by Cowen Analyst

Shares of electric vehicle maker Tesla were headed lower on Monday after a Cowen analyst said that the company would miss its sales target in the fourth quarter.

According to Cowen auto analyst Jeff Osborne, Tesla could even see its stock price cut in half in 2020.

Osborne believes the company will come in short of its fourth quarter sales target. Tesla has a goal to see its sales in the range of 360,000 to 400,000 this year. Even to hit the low end of this year’s target, Tesla would have to sell 105,000 vehicles in the fourth quarter.

The Cowen analyst has forecast deliveries of 101,000 cars in the last three months of 2019 and attributes most of that dour forecast to softer-than-expected sales of Tesla’s Model S and Model X.

Osborne has an “underperform” recommendation on the stock but raised his price target on the stock from $190 to $210. Shares of Tesla are around $420 currently.

“We continue to see risks to the company’s growth story, which we believe is likely to be challenged as competition enters the market,” Osborne wrote Monday. “Simply, we see a lot more that can go wrong than can go right …. we don’t see sustainable profitability in the near to mid-term.”

In other news, Tesla announced on Monday that it is producing its Model 3 electric vehicles at a rate of 28 per hour at its new Shanghai factory. Tesla recently secured a $1.29 billion loan to advance construction and production at the Shanghai facility.

Disclaimer: We have no position in Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) and have not been compensated for this article.