Analyst makes mistake in his tesla report, now sees even deeper losses for stock


Analyst makes mistake in his tesla report, now sees even deeper losses for stock

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Jefferies made waves on Tuesday predicting a big decline for Tesla shares and starting coverage of the company with an underperform rating. But due to an apparent calculation error, the firm


was forced to change its price target for the electric car maker even lower. "This note corrects the PT from $280 to $240 due to an error in the DCF [discounted cash flow] share count


- No other change," analyst Philippe Houchois wrote in the revised report entitled "Erratum: Tesla and the Permanent Revolution." The corrected $240 price target for Tesla


shares represents 36 percent downside from Tuesday's close versus the 25 percent downside for the first $280 price forecast. A review of the first Jefferies report revealed the analyst


used 139.6 million for the number of outstanding shares for Tesla in his valuation analysis on page 40 versus the 165.2 million shares outstanding number in the corrected note. Apparently,


it was just mistyped as the first report had the accurate 165.2 million shares outstanding number on the cover page. Tesla reported shares outstanding of 165.2 million in its June quarter


financial results. Discounted cash flow is a widely used method to value companies. It looks at how much money a company will make in the future and what those cash flows are worth today,


according to the time value of money concept. The time value of money says any money today is worth more than the same amount in the future due to the potential for investment gains.


Houchois did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story. WATCH: TESLA IS BUILDING THE LARGEST BATTERY SYSTEM IN THE WORLD Disclaimer