Elon Musk may be bullish for TSLA

Elon Musk, Tesla's CEO, tweeted Monday afternoon that he would be on his company's upcoming fourth quarter conference call, which happens around late January.

That is probably bullish for Tesla ticker: TSLA stock in the short run. He might be bullish for the long run, depending on what he says.

Musk wasn't on the third-quarter earnings call after telling investors he wouldn't do all future calls in July. He took a one-quarter break now that he looks like he took a one-quarter break.

Musk said on Twitter that he intends to respond to a tweet on TWTR This year has been such a supply chain nightmare and it is not over, wrote Musk. On the next earnings call, I will provide an updated product roadmap. The supply chain nightmare doesn't sound great. All automakers have had problems with supply chain problems, including higher costs and semiconductor shortages. Musk will probably update investors about the timing of the company s pickup truck dubbed, of course, Cybertruck. The minimum investors can expect is a truck update.

An update on a new model would be bigger news — a EV that starts around $25,000. XPEV, a Chinese EV maker, launched a $25,000 sedan in October, and Tesla has hinted at that price point in the past. More of the auto market is open to EV makers due to lower priced EVs.

Tesla didn't respond to a request for comment about the product update.

There is a reason why Musk showed up, which is good news: He probably wouldn't show up if numbers were looking weak. That is speculation, but Tesla bear Gordon Johnson from GLJ Research wrote Tuesday that he expects a big number for fourth quarter deliveries. Johnson projects 280,000 deliveries, which is about 20,000 higher than consensus estimates.

If Tesla delivered 280,000 vehicles, it would push full-year deliveries north of 900,000 and up about 80% compared to 2020.

Johnson rates Tesla shares Sell. He believes that Tesla's profit margins will fall as the company opens two new manufacturing plants in Austin and Germany. He fears that Tesla will lose market share as EV models from other auto makers hit the market. Johnson's price target for shares is a Street-low $67.

The Tesla stock isn't doing much after the tweet. It came out late Monday but the stock didn't seem to react in the final moments of trading - shares were already up about 5% for the day on Monday.

The price of Tesla is down by 0.5% in premarket trading Tuesday. That isn't bad. U.S. stock futures are lower due to renewed fears about the Omicron variant of Covid. S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average futures are down 0.7% and 0.9%, respectively.