Baird Price Target Bump Takes Tesla Shares Higher Ahead of Earnings Report

In a report published early Tuesday morning, Baird Equity Research analyst Ben Kallo reiterated his Outperform rating on Tesla TSLA, while bumping his price target up from $187 to $215. The report, which was released just a day before Tesla was scheduled to report earnings, reiterated its bullishness for the fourth quarter report which was initially stated last month. Kallo stated that he expects the EPS figure to come in at $0.21, but could come in as high as $0.25 with the increased number of deliveries, but tempered that with a warning that the additional supercharger stations could weigh the number down. Kallo also underlined the importance of additional details about the battery factory, which serves as a lynch pin for continued production capacity. He also stated there was an outside chance that a second production line could be announced, but did say this could be a bit early for the announcement to come. The street loved the price target bump, bidding the stock up above $208 before shares came back down slightly, settling on a gain of 3.42 percent to $205.01 at the time of this report.