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Shares of electric-vehicle leader Tesla are down more than 20% from their November 52-week high.
WANG ZHAO/AFP/Getty Images
Shares of electric-vehicle leader
Tesla
crossed into bear-market territory today. That statement is technically true, but also a little tiring. Stocks, individually, don’t have bear or bull markets. That terms should be reserved for, well, the overall market. Still, the big dip in a mega-cap stock is noteworthy leaving investors wondering what might come next.
Tesla (ticker: TSLA) stock closed down 5% at $966.41. The
S&P 500 index
and
Dow Jones Industrial Average
both closed down 0.9%.
The Monday dip sent the company’s market cap below $1 trillion based on the number of shares outstanding, excluding management stock options. Shares are down 21% from the Nov. 4 closing high of $1,229.91. Shares are down 22% from the intraday high of $1,243.49.
Whether or not bear markets should be measured from a closing high or an intraday high is the source of debate on Wall Street. But again, the debate doesn’t really matter in this instance because individual stocks don’t have bull and bear markets.
Whether it’s a bear market or not isn’t the point for individual investors. The pain of a 20% drop is real.
One of the last times Tesla stock closed in bear-market territory was February 2021. (Yes, Barron’s wrote about the single stock bear market then, too.) Back then, interest rates were rising and highly valued tech stocks took it on the chin. Higher rates hurt the valuation of shares of faster-growing companies more than those of…
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