Tesla unveiled a flying supercar, and traders love it

Tesla shares rose 3.62% pre-market on Friday to trade at $375 following the company’s unveiling of the Tesla Roadster, an electric supercar that can drive upside down and flip in the air, supported by spatial maneuvering thrusters akin to those used by SpaceX to maneuver spaceships and capsules in space. 

Traders piled on the news, generating more than $1 million in Tesla-related contracts on Polymarket. The contract Tesla Roadster 0-60 miles in under a second had been the hottest in the last 24 hours, with over $280k in volume, while the contract “what will Tesla hit in October 2026 now has nearly 50k in volume, but over $101k in liquidity. This demonstrates just how much more money has gone into this contract recently, relative to the total volume accumulated since it opened on September 25.

Subsequently, odds for various price targets on the contract are rising, especially those targeting an upward movement. The $405 target saw odds spike from 22% to 56%, before falling back to 35% after the market opened. Traders can buy yes on Tesla stock price hitting $405 at $0.44 per share on Polymarket.

This is after the stock shed most of the pre-market gains back to $366, just $4 above Thursday’s close of $362. The last time the stock traded above $406 was July 9, the day before it fell below $400. It has not come close to $400 since, most recently falling short after hitting $382.

What could fire Tesla stock to $405?

The first impression of the new Tesla supercar did not disappoint. However, with Wall Street still trying to quantify how this plays out in the grand scheme of the company’s strategic growth plan, the real impact on TSLA valuation will likely come later. At the moment, the stock is riding on the enthusiasm that came with the unveiling.

What could make a real impact on the Tesla stock price is its Q3 earnings results, scheduled to be released on October 21, if they turn out to be positive.

But the company does not have a good record of beating consensus analyst estimates, managing to do so just half the time over the last 8 quarters. 

In Q2, the stock fell sharply after Tesla missed the earnings estimate of $0.50 per share, posting adjusted EPS of $0.33. It took it over a month to fully recover from the post-earnings collapse. The earnings miss was partly attributed to the company’s $5.79 billion capital expenditure deployed towards Cortex AI, Gigafactory, robotaxis, and humanoid robots for integration into various products.

However, the stock rallied nearly 15% between April 22 and May 11 after Tesla released better-than-expected earnings per share. The current EPS forecast is about $0.43-$0.46, lower than the forecast for Q2 forecast of $0.50. Perhaps the chances of beating estimates again are higher than in the previous quarter. The last time it missed earnings in two straight quarters was in 2023.