There's nothing wrong with how Morgan Stanley's Tesla analyst thinks about technology
Jonas, the Morgan Stanley auto analyst, is becoming infamous for outlandish calls on the future of Tesla.
Last week, New York times columnist Joe Nocera took a shot at Jonas for this - calling him a "cheerleader" for rising stock prices and scolding him for puffing a company that Morgan Stanley counts as a client.
Nocera's column was prompted by the analyst's decision to put a $465 price target on Tesla (about 90% above its share price at the time), based on the assumption that it'll expand into an entirely new business model that has nothing to do with what the automaker does today. The auto industry we have known for the past 100 years - of "human-driven, privately owned, internal-combustion vehicles" - is transforming, and Tesla is poised to "dominate" a new era for the automobile, Jonas wrote.
Nocera isn't the first to accuse Jonas of being a cheerleader for Tesla. (He's also not the first person to liken Jonas to Business Insider's CEO and editor-in-chief, Henry Blodget, who in his former life as a Wall Street analyst was as bullish on Amazon.com and other Internet 1.0 stocks as Jonas is on Tesla.)
The problem isn't how Jonas looks at the potential for Tesla to change the future of transportation. It's that his day job requires him to put precise numbers on company stock prices - and the long-term thinking just doesn't sit well with shorter term targets.
It's true that Tesla - which currently builds one car in one factory and sells it for around $100,000 - has enjoyed a frothy financial ride, with shares trading up over 1,000% since Elon Musk's startup electric carmaker staged a 2010 IPO.
But that's not how Jonas is looking at the company. Over the past year, he's argued that the way we get around is undergoing a profound change, and that the shift will shake up Wall Street as well as the traditional auto industry. Tesla is a part of this change, and an excuse for Jonas to address the big issues.
Jonas is out there. On earnings calls with Tesla's executives, he has reliably become the guy who asks questions that seem to baffle Musk and his lieutenants.
Take this exchange for example, from Tesla's second-quarter call (thanks to Seeking Alpha for the transcript):
Jonas then moved on to a question about Tesla's mapping technologies. This all happened in the context of Tesla adjusting guidance downward for total 2015 vehicle deliveries and preparing to launch an new car, the Model X SUV, in late September. There was a lot to talk about that had nothing to do with Jonas' preoccupations.
But what the analyst wanted to know about was ride sharing and maps. ?The bottom line, is that Jonas is far more interested in Tesla as a signal of a massive shift in mobility, from a world in which people buy and own individual automobiles to a world in which they don't.
Nocera suggests Jonas's call, which did prompt a jump in Tesla's stock price, was timed with a sale of new Tesla shares. Morgan Stanley was an underwriter of that stock sale. But he also quickly backs away from that assertion, conceding that the analyst also seems to believe what he is predicting. He wrote:
So what's an investor, the person who Jonas is ostensibly serving with all this analysis, to make of this? You either believe the company will change the way we drive, finding millions of customers in the next five years, or you don't. If people don't buy the cars, in significant volumes, then Tesla will disappoint its most bullish investors.
If Tesla clings to the idea that it needs to primarily be a carmaker - and Musk has on occasion insisted that car sharing isn't as appealing to consumers as proponents expect it to be - then Tesla doesn't ultimately fit with Jonas' vision.
We emailed Jonas for a comment, but haven't heard back. If we do, we'll update this post.