NEW YORK — Tesla stock finished Wednesday's regular session softer and then gave back more ground after the closing bell, as one of the biggest revenue quarters in company history collided with a heavy investment bill.
Shares of Tesla — NASDAQ: TSLA — closed the July 22 session at about $374, down roughly 1% on the day, before the company released its second-quarter results after the bell. In after-hours trading, $TSLA slipped another 4% or so toward the high-$350s as investors worked through the details of the report.
The move
Wednesday's regular-session drift was modest and largely positioning ahead of the numbers. The bigger move came after hours, once the shareholder deck landed. The stock has been volatile all week, swinging between the high-$350s and roughly $396 as traders repositioned around the print, which followed our preview of the biggest implied earnings move in a year.
The why
The catalyst was unambiguous: Tesla's Q2 report. The company beat handily on the top line, posting record revenue of $28.24 billion and record deliveries of 480,126, and it kept gross margin steady at 16.8%. But non-GAAP earnings of $0.33 came in below the roughly $0.53 Wall Street wanted, as operating expenses jumped 47% and capital spending more than doubled to $5.8 billion on robotaxi, Optimus and AI. A collapse in regulatory-credit revenue, down 67% from a year ago, took away another slug of easy profit. Electrek walked through the full Q2 financial results, and the after-hours reaction reflected traders weighing near-term margins against a record top line.
