Tesla shares continued sliding Thursday, a movement that began the prior day during the company's investor day event, which provided investors with a long-term vision but lacked detail on new products or services.
The electric vehicle manufacturer's closed down Thursday over 5.8%, paring earlier losses, despite positive analyst reaction to CEO Elon Musk's presentation and to Tesla's overall outlook. Musk and his executives reiterated a 2030 production target of 20 million vehicles annually at the event, which consisted of a three-hour presentation followed by a question-and-answer session.
"In a race to the bottom, we seriously question how the competition can keep up," Morgan Stanley auto analyst Adam Jonas wrote in a Thursday note. Jonas has an overweight rating and set a $220 price target for the stock.
Goldman Sachs maintained a buy rating and a $200 price target, with analyst Mark Delaney writing Thursday that "the event reinforced our positive view of the company's long-term competitive positioning."
But Delaney cautioned that "the lack of clarity beyond the comment that they're working as fast as they can and it could be in the next couple of years is likely to be viewed as a disappointment to some."
Musk presented the third installment of his "Master Plan," an update to his ambitious 2016 "Master Plan, Part Deux." The objectives of that plan, which included enabling Tesla owners to "make money" on their car while it otherwise would have sat idle, have not yet been fulfilled. The company's shares are up over 50% year to date but remain well off of the 2021 high, which propelled the stock price above $400.
— CNBC's Lora Kolodny and Michael Bloom contributed to this report.
Correction: Tesla shares are up over 50% year to date. An earlier version misstated the percentage.
