New York, June 8, 2026, 15:06 ET
Tesla shares rallied Monday afternoon, up more than 5% as the stock crossed back over $400. The gain came as buyers moved back into growth names and a new China sales report helped cool worries about demand. Recently, Tesla traded at $411.66, up $20.66, after hitting an intraday high of $412.84.
The timing was key. Nasdaq-listed stocks were active in the regular session, which runs from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. ET. For 2026, June 8 isn’t included on Nasdaq’s holiday schedule.
Wall Street bounced back after Friday’s drop, with the Nasdaq Composite up 1.3% and the S&P 500 climbing 0.6% at midday. Tech buyers came back in after the steep decline last week. “Today looks like a day where investors are doing a little bit of bargain hunting off the big tech selloff,” Rick Meckler, partner at Cherry Lane Investments, said. Reuters
Tesla’s spark this time came out of China. Retail sales of Tesla cars in China jumped 22.5% in May to 47,281 units from a year ago, snapping a two-month slide, according to Investor’s Business Daily and data from the China Passenger Car Association. Exports from the Shanghai factory climbed 68% to 38,701. With both retail and exports, the total volume hit 85,982.
That’s notable with the wider Chinese car market slumping. Passenger-car sales dropped 22.3% in May to 1.53 million units, marking the eighth consecutive monthly decline, Reuters said, citing CPCA numbers. Sales of new-energy vehicles—which covers battery EVs and plug-in hybrids—were down 7.5% from last year, but still made up more than 62% of total sales.
Tesla held up better than some rivals in China but foreign players like Volkswagen still felt the squeeze. Chinese brands such as BYD stayed competitive. Eugene Hsiao, head of China equity strategy at Macquarie Capital, told Reuters China’s auto sector is “already at a mature stage of development.” He expects retail growth for the market to stay in the single digits over the next five to 10 years. Reuters
J.P. Morgan made waves Friday after analysts led by Rajat Gupta upgraded Tesla from “underweight” to “neutral” and raised the price target to $475, up from $145. The bank’s team said Tesla is now increasingly priced on autonomous driving, robotaxis, humanoid robots and software, not short-term car earnings. They wrote that the company’s hardware-software mix is “still somewhat under-appreciated and misunderstood.” Reuters
Tesla is launching unsupervised robotaxi service in the Austin metro, the company said last week. It’s part of a growing driverless ride-hailing push in the city. Reuters reported Tesla had about 50 vehicles running, which is still well below Alphabet’s Waymo. Waymo has more than 250 vehicles in Austin.
Another Musk-related market move came as SpaceX, run by Elon Musk, reportedly attracted around $150 billion in investor demand for its planned $75 billion IPO, according to Reuters. That initial public offering, which would put SpaceX shares in public hands for the first time, is set to gauge appetite for high-growth stocks as Tesla continues to trade on expectations from newer business lines.
Tesla’s surge Monday could be a stretch with data still mixed. The shares now trade at a price-to-earnings ratio around 378—high by most standards and thin on cushion if China demand slips, robotaxi approval stalls, or money moves out of pricey tech names.
Tesla is outpacing the QQQ ETF, which tracks large Nasdaq growth names, with QQQ up around 1.9% this afternoon. That suggests Monday’s gain isn’t just a market rebound. The tape is pricing in optimism about China, autonomy, and Musk’s tech push sticking around for Tesla.
