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TSLA 4-hour chart showing Tesla holding 348.78 above a 346 moving-average shelf with 357 overhead

Tesla Stock Forecast: TSLA Defends $346 With $357 the Gate

By Saqib Iqbal2 min read
  • TSLA trades at $348.78, holding the 346 moving-average shelf after a 1.71% Friday decline.
  • Record quarterly revenue of $28.24bn came with an operating margin of just 1.4%, down from 4.1% a year earlier.
  • The 357.06 average is the level that decides the next move; above it, the July earnings gap comes back into play.

Fundamental Analysis: TSLA Stock

The volume story is working. Second-quarter deliveries of 480,126 vehicles were up 25% year on year and the best second quarter the company has recorded, while energy storage deployments rose 40% to 13.5 GWh. Revenue of $28.24bn, reported on 22 July, beat a $26.4bn consensus and set a record. On the top line there is genuine momentum.

The profit line tells a different story. Adjusted earnings came in at $0.33 per share against $0.53 expected, operating income fell 57% to $398m, and the operating margin compressed to 1.4% from 4.1%. The single largest culprit was regulatory credits, which collapsed 67% to $146m after the $7,500 federal EV credit expired and fuel-economy penalties were removed; that revenue cost almost nothing to produce, so its disappearance came straight out of profit. Free cash flow swung to negative $1.09bn as spending on autonomy and robotics lifted operating expenses 47%.

So the market is being asked to fund a heavy investment cycle out of a thin margin, at exactly the moment the Fed is being repriced towards a hike rather than a cut. That is why the recovery off the August base has been steady rather than spectacular. The stock can keep grinding higher on delivery momentum, but a re-rating needs either a margin inflection or visible commercial progress on the autonomy programmes absorbing the cash.

Technical Analysis: TSLA Stock

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The 4-hour chart is dominated by the 22 July earnings gap, which dropped the stock from roughly 400 to the low 330s and eventually to a base near 318 in early August. From there the recovery has been methodical: a higher-low sequence through the 330s, a push to 365 on 25 August, and a controlled pullback into the 346-347 average cluster where price now sits at 348.78.

Resistance is the 357.06 average, then the 365 swing high, with the unfilled portion of the July gap above 372.86 beyond that. Support is the 346.17 average, then the 336 shelf that launched the mid-August leg, with the 318 base the structural floor. A four-hour close beneath 336 invalidates the recovery read and reopens the base.

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