When Tesla’s sharemarket value soared through $US1 trillion this week, it created a new benchmark for capitalising optimism in a market where exuberance, rational or not, has returned.
It might also owe something to the internecine wrangling within the Congressional Democrats over the Biden administration’s initially very ambitious and market-threatening, but now dwindling tax and spending plans. The prospect of a rise in corporate taxes to fund the spending has almost disappeared.
The oft-cited stat about Tesla is that it is now worth more than the next nine auto manufacturers combined. Another is that it produces about a 10th of the vehicles that Toyota does, but has about four times Toyota’s market value. By valuing Tesla so aggressively against the major carmakers the market is effectively saying that Tesla will capture almost half the value attributed to the industry in future. That’s a bold call.