Carvana (CVNA) After‑Hours Stock Update for December 11, 2025: S&P 500 Inclusion, Analyst Upgrades and What to Watch Before the December 12 Open

Carvana Co. (NYSE: CVNA) went into Thursday’s after‑hours session sitting just under fresh record highs, as the online used‑car retailer continues one of the most dramatic rallies on Wall Street ahead of its upcoming S&P 500 debut.

The stock finished the regular session on December 11, 2025 at about $472.73, up roughly 1.1% on the day, after trading between $462.50 and $475.00 on volume a little above 4.1 million shares. In early after‑hours trading, Carvana edged higher again to around $473.26, leaving the company with a market value in the $100+ billion range and brushing its 52‑week high of $475.00. ^[1]

That after‑bell pause caps a run in which Carvana has:

Logged a 12‑session winning streak and gained more than 50% in roughly two weeks, its longest winning run on record. ^[2]
Rebounded over 10,000% from its late‑2022 lows near $4 to above $470 today, transforming a near‑bankruptcy story into an S&P 500 entrant. ^[3]
Reached a valuation now greater than legacy automakers like GM, Ford and Stellantis, despite selling a fraction of their vehicles. ^[4]

Below is a concise look at what happened after the bell on December 11 and what traders should know before the U.S. market opens on Friday, December 12, 2025.

Key Takeaways at a Glance

Price action: CVNA closed at about $472.73 (+1.1%) and was trading just above $473 in after‑hours, effectively flat but still within a dollar of its record high. ^[5]
Valuation stretch: At these levels Carvana carries a trailing P/E above 100 and a forward P/E near 70, while consensus 12‑month price targets sit closer to the low–$400s, implying downside from current prices. ^[6]
S&P 500 catalyst: The stock is set to join the S&P 500 index on December 22, 2025, forcing index funds to buy millions of shares and fueling what many describe as an “index effect” melt‑up. ^[7]
Fresh Wall Street calls on December 11: New targets include Jefferies at $550 and Barclays at $465, on top of earlier hikes from Bank of America, UBS, Needham and others, even as many models suggest limited or negative medium‑term upside. ^[8]
Fundamentals vs hype: Q3 2025 showed 155,941 units sold, $5.65 billion of revenue (+~55% YoY) and positive net income and EBITDA margins, confirming a real turnaround — but margins are still relatively slim and highly sensitive to the cycle. ^[9]
Risk signals: Heavy insider selling, extremely overbought technical readings and several quant models projecting 30–80% downside from current levels are tempering the bullish narrative. ^[10]

How Carvana Traded on December 11 — and After the Bell

Regular session (Dec 11, 2025) ^[11]

Open: ~$470.47
Close: ~$472.73 (+$5.06, +1.08%)
Intraday range: ~$462.50 – $475.00
Volume: ~4.1 million shares
52‑week range: ~$148.25 – $475.00
Market cap: ~$103.5 billion

After‑hours snapshot

Around 6 p.m. ET, CVNA was quoted near $473.26, adding a fraction of a percent to the close and holding right under its new high watermark. ^[12]

The lack of a sharp after‑hours move suggests that Thursday’s extended session was dominated by positioning and digestion, rather than any shock headline. Traders appear to be balancing:

Ongoing momentum and index‑driven demand; against
Rich valuations, technical overextension, and growing concern that a lot of good news is already priced in. ^[13]

S&P 500 Inclusion and a Historic Rally

Carvana’s current story revolves around one centerpiece: S&P 500 inclusion.

On December 5, S&P Dow Jones Indices announced that Carvana, alongside CRH and Comfort Systems USA, will enter the S&P 500 before the open on December 22, 2025. ^[14]
With an estimated $13 trillion benchmarked to the S&P 500, index and closet‑index funds are effectively obligated to buy CVNA to match the benchmark, creating a powerful mechanical demand tailwind. ^[15]

Several analyses today emphasized that:

The stock has gained more than 50% in about half a month, with 12 green sessions in a row, as traders front‑run those index flows and short sellers are squeezed. ^[16]
At recent highs, Carvana’s market value — around $100–102 billion — briefly topped that of General Motors, Ford and Stellantis, a remarkable feat for a company that sold roughly 156,000 vehicles in Q3, versus the millions sold annually by Detroit’s giants. ^[17]

Commentary from Parameter and other outlets frames this as a perfect storm of:

“Index effect” flows (forced buying by passive funds). ^[18]
Persistent short interest, which adds squeeze fuel as momentum traders pile in. ^[19]
A macro tailwind: the Federal Reserve just cut rates by 25 basis points, easing financing costs and supporting high‑beta growth stocks. ^[20]

All of that sets the stage for a stock that, heading into Friday’s open, is price‑discovery mode: the fundamentals have improved dramatically, but positioning and flows are clearly doing a lot of the short‑term heavy lifting.

Fresh Analyst Calls and Price Targets on December 11

Wall Street spent Thursday updating models to catch up with Carvana’s vertical move — and in some cases, still falling short of the current quote.

New and recent targets

According to Quiver Quantitative and other broker‑tracking services: ^[21]

Jefferies today set one of the most aggressive targets on the Street at $550 per share.
Barclays issued a $465 target on the same date.
In recent days,
- Evercore ISI raised its target to $420,
- Bank of America to $455,
- UBS to $450,
- Wedbush to $400, and
- Needham to $500.

Screens of analyst data now show that:

Roughly 22–25 analysts cover CVNA. ^[22]
Most major aggregators classify the stock as “Buy” to “Strong Buy.” ^[23]
However, average 12‑month price targets cluster around the low–$400s (roughly $415–$430), which is below today’s ~$473 share price, implying mid‑single‑ to low‑double‑digit downside from here. ^[24]

That disconnect — overwhelmingly bullish ratings, but targets lagging the live market — is a core tension heading into Friday’s session. It tells you that:

Many analysts like the business trajectory, but
Their valuation frameworks haven’t fully followed the squeeze, or they’re reluctant to chase numbers after such an extreme run.

Trefis, in a detailed note published December 11, struck that balance explicitly, arguing that Carvana’s 130% run is underpinned by real operating improvements but that much of the good news already appears reflected in the price. ^[25]

Fundamentals Check: Growth Is Real, Margins Still Delicate

For all the talk about memes and momentum, Carvana’s financials have genuinely turned a corner.

Q3 2025 performance

Recent coverage of the company’s Q3 2025 results highlights: ^[26]

Retail units sold: about 155,941, up roughly 44% year‑on‑year.
Revenue: around $5.65 billion, up about 55% YoY.
Net income: roughly $263 million, for a 4.7% net margin.
Adjusted EBITDA: about $637 million, an 11.3% margin.
EPS: around $1.03, which actually missed Street expectations near $1.29 despite the revenue beat.

On a trailing‑12‑month basis:

Revenue has climbed from around $13 billion to roughly $18 billion — a ~46% jump — with a three‑year average growth rate near 11–12%, well ahead of the broader market. ^[27]
Net income over the last year is about $629 million, implying a 3–4% net margin, while operating income of about $1.7 billion yields an operating margin under 10%, still below the roughly 19% average for S&P 500 companies. ^[28]

Balance sheet and credit

The balance sheet, previously a red flag, is materially stronger than in the 2022 meltdown: ^[29]

Debt: around $5.6 billion.
Assets: roughly $9.9 billion, including about $2.6 billion in cash and equivalents.
Cash‑to‑assets ratio: close to 27%, unusually high compared with the single‑digit percentages typical for the broader market.
Credit rating: S&P Global Ratings upgraded Carvana to around “B” in 2025 as leverage metrics improved.

In short, Carvana is no longer fighting for survival, and its Q3 numbers show that the e‑commerce model can generate positive unit economics at scale. But margins are still relatively thin, and the business remains highly sensitive to:

Used‑car pricing,
Consumer credit conditions, and
Broader macro shocks.

Who’s In, Who’s Out: Institutions, Insiders and Retail Sentiment

Big money flows

Institutional ownership of Carvana has surged alongside the share price.

A MarketBeat review of recent 13F filings shows that hedge funds and other institutions now own about 56–57% of the float. ^[30]
Major holders like Price T. Rowe, Sands Capital, Norges Bank, MFS and Arrowstreet have either boosted or initiated substantial positions in recent quarters, with some adding hundreds of thousands to millions of shares. ^[31]
At the same time, funds such as Mane Global Capital Management have been taking profits — Mane trimmed its stake by about 23.9%, selling nearly 70,000 shares in the second quarter, though CVNA still remains one of its larger holdings. ^[32]

Quiver’s hedge‑fund tracker similarly counts 455 institutions increasing and 361 decreasing CVNA positions in their most recent quarter, underscoring how hotly contested the name is among sophisticated investors. ^[33]

Heavy insider selling

If institutions are net buyers, insiders are clear net sellers.

Over the past six months, Quiver logs 2,382 insider sale transactions and zero open‑market purchases, led by Carvana’s founding Garcia family and senior executives. ^[34]
One recent example: Vice President Paul W. Breaux sold 20,000 shares on December 8 for about $8.77 million, at prices between $429 and $448, while exercising options priced near $10. He still holds more than 69,000 shares, but the sale highlights how insiders have been monetizing the rally. ^[35]

Insider selling doesn’t automatically mean a top, but the scale and persistence of these sales — especially as the stock approaches S&P 500 inclusion — is a key risk flag traders will be weighing before Friday’s open.

Retail traders: Wary even as price soars

On the retail side, the mood is more mixed.

A Stocktwits feature published this morning described Carvana’s S&P 500 run as a “dream sprint” but noted that platform sentiment for CVNA has actually flipped to “bearish” as the stock ripped higher. ^[36]
Many retail traders quoted in that piece point to:
- Flat overall used‑car industry growth,
- The 50% year‑to‑date slump in peer CarMax, ^[37]
- Surging subprime auto delinquencies and recent bankruptcies among smaller auto‑finance names, and
- Past short‑seller allegations about Carvana’s accounting and governance (no lawsuit has followed so far, but the overhang remains). ^[38]

The result is an unusual setup heading into December 12: Wall Street and index funds are largely bullish, insiders are selling, and a vocal part of the retail crowd is either skeptical or actively shorting the stock. ^[39]

Quant and Price Forecasts: From Mild Pullback to Severe Long‑Term Downside

Alongside human analysts, algorithmic and quant‑driven models fired off updated forecasts on December 11.

Short‑term models

CoinCodex, whose models blend technical and on‑chain‑style indicators for stocks, projects Carvana will slip modestly over the next few weeks, with its base case calling for a move to about $449–$462 by early January 2026 (roughly 1–5% below current levels). ^[40]
Their dashboard currently labels CVNA’s technical sentiment as “Bullish”, notes that the stock has logged 19 green days out of the last 30 with roughly 13% 30‑day volatility, and yet shows a Fear & Greed reading of 39 (“Fear”) — another sign that the tape is hot but nerves are fraying. ^[41]

Longer‑horizon projections

StockScan, which mixes fundamental and technical inputs, is much more downbeat at today’s price: ^[42]

Its 12‑month CVNA target averages around $302.59, implying nearly 36% downside from $472.73.
Oscillator readings (RSI above 80, Stoch and StochRSI pinned near 100) classify the stock as overbought, with the overall short‑term technical summary skewing to “Sell.”
Its long‑term forecast table sketches scenarios in which, by 2027–2030, average annual prices sit well below $200, in some years under $100, assuming a substantial re‑rating from today’s exuberant multiples.

Meanwhile, older algorithmic services that had projected multi‑hundred‑percent upside for CVNA by 2027 now look stale, with some models having once forecast prices above $1,000–$2,000 per share — levels that would require another order‑of‑magnitude rally from today’s already stretched valuation. ^[43]

The key takeaway for tomorrow’s open: there is no consensus on where CVNA “should” trade next. Human analysts see modest downside from here, some quant models see deep long‑term downside, and a handful of earlier automated forecasts were wildly optimistic and are already being overtaken by reality.

Macro Backdrop Heading Into the December 12 Open

Beyond stock‑specific drama, Carvana will trade Friday against a busy macro background:

The Federal Reserve cut rates by 25 basis points this week, taking the federal funds range down to roughly 3.50–3.75% and signaling a cautious path for further easing in 2026. ^[44]
U.S. weekly initial jobless claims jumped to about 236,000 for the week ending December 6 — the biggest one‑week increase in more than four years, though economists largely attribute the spike to seasonal noise around Thanksgiving rather than a clear deterioration in the labor market. ^[45]

For a high‑beta, consumer‑sensitive name like Carvana, that mix matters:

Lower rates support auto financing and risk appetite, which is a plus.
A shakier labor outlook could undercut demand for used cars and pressure credit quality over time, especially in subprime segments — one of the concerns repeatedly raised by skeptical analysts and retail traders. ^[46]

Market futures and sector rotation going into Friday’s pre‑market session will therefore be critical context for any CVNA move, even if there’s no new Carvana‑specific news.

What to Watch Before the December 12, 2025 Market Open

Here are the key angles traders and investors are likely to focus on overnight and into the opening bell:

1. Price behavior around record highs

Thursday’s high of about $475 is also the 52‑week high, making it an obvious line in the sand. ^[47]
A clean break and hold above that region on Friday could extend the momentum trade, especially if volumes expand.
Failure to push through — or a sharp reversal from that level — would add weight to the “blow‑off top” argument that many skeptics are now voicing.

2. Signs of index‑driven flows

As the December 22 S&P 500 inclusion date approaches: ^[48]

Watch for unusually large pre‑market or closing auctions, block trades, or ETF volume that might indicate index and closet‑index funds ramping up their CVNA exposure.
Parameter and others have floated estimates that passive funds may ultimately need to acquire tens of millions of shares, which could keep a floor under the stock in the near term — but once that buying is done, the technical bid could fade quickly. ^[49]

3. Any new analyst notes or rating changes

Given how fast CVNA has moved:

Further target hikes, coverage initiations, or downgrades could hit before or just after the open as firms update clients following today’s Jefferies and Barclays calls. ^[50]
Pay special attention to any analyst who moves from Buy to Hold on valuation grounds — that’s the sort of sentiment shift that can matter once the inclusion catalyst is fully in the price.

4. Insider or institutional filings

New Form 4 filings overnight or in coming days showing additional insider sales, or unusually large 13D/13G disclosures, could influence sentiment. ^[51]

Given the already‑heavy selling by key executives, another wave of insider activity right into S&P inclusion would likely be read as management taking advantage of peak liquidity, which some traders view as a contrarian signal.

5. Macro headlines and risk appetite

Any follow‑through coverage on the jobless claims spike or evolving expectations for 2026 Fed cuts may influence appetite for richly valued growth names at the open. ^[52]
If markets continue to reward high‑beta stocks after the Fed’s move, CVNA could benefit; if the mood shifts defensive, Carvana’s 3.5+ beta and stretched multiples make it a natural candidate for profit‑taking. ^[53]

How to Frame CVNA Here (Without Making a Call)

From a news and analysis perspective going into December 12:

The bull case leans on:
- Demonstrated revenue and unit growth,
- Positive earnings and cash flow after years of losses,
- A strengthened balance sheet and credit rating, and
- The validation (and forced flows) that come with S&P 500 inclusion, plus a wall of Buy‑rated analyst coverage. ^[54]
The bear case emphasizes:
- Extreme valuation (P/E >100, forward P/E ~70),
- Historically violent drawdowns (the stock fell ~99% from its 2021 peak during the 2022 crisis), ^[55]
- Heavy and ongoing insider selling,
- Quant models and technicals flagging the stock as deeply overbought with substantial long‑term downside risk, and
- Macro worries around employment, consumer credit, and used‑car demand. ^[56]

For traders and investors reading this before Friday’s bell, the most important point is that Carvana has become a highly event‑driven, high‑volatility stock. Its near‑term path is likely to be dominated by:

Ongoing S&P 500 positioning and short‑term technicals, and
How quickly the market shifts from “story + flows” back to “valuation + fundamentals.”

This article is informational only, not a recommendation to buy or sell CVNA. If you are considering trading or investing in Carvana, it’s wise to evaluate:

Your risk tolerance,
Your time horizon, and
How a highly volatile name like this fits into a diversified portfolio, possibly in consultation with a qualified financial professional.

References