For most of 2026, Tesla has been the minivan of the Magnificent Seven. In October, it is the only one to leave skid marks.
Tesla (TSLA) stock is up about 6% on Monday, on pace to have its best day since early July and its highest close in about three months. Most Big Tech is idling, with Apple (AAPL) sliding and Alphabet (GOOGL) and Meta (META) barely moving.
393.85 +21.63 (+5.81%)
At 2:58:08 p.m. EDT. Open market.
This leaves Tesla with two very different report cards. It’s still a double-digit decline this year, the worst performance of the Magnificent Seven. But it’s up double digits in October, the best of the group, while Meta, Alphabet and Nvidia (NVDA) are all down for the month.
Tesla crosses a busy spot on the chart
The stock opened above Friday’s high – a gap – and broke through the $386 area. This level is both Tesla’s October closing high and approximately its 200-day moving average, a long-term trendline that many traders monitor. Clearing both at once is what makes it an escape.
Despite this, Tesla remains about a fifth below its closing record.
The SpaceX connection
The rally was accompanied by an upgrade from Barclays betting that a Tesla merger with SpaceX (SPCX) would offer shareholders an exit premium, as Pras Subramanian reported. Barclays raised its price target from $370 to $450. Musk confirmed last week that the two companies had formed independent committees to explore a combination, although no agreement has been announced.
Tesla is already in the game. On Monday, its Robotaxi service activated a larger service area in Houston, shaped like a Starship rocket, announced with a message “Houston, we have liftoff.” “I swear it’s just a coincidence 😂,” Musk replied on X.
A suit wouldn’t just bring rockets. On Sunday, Musk said SpaceX had closed $40 billion in debt financing to buy AI chips, and he also warned about neoclouds — GPU-rental cloud computing companies such as CoreWeave (CRWV) — as my colleague Ines Ferré reported. A merged company would share that chip bill.
Look at $386. Sustaining it keeps the takeoff on track, while falling back below would turn Monday into a pop day. Above, the next stop is the low $450s, where Barclays’ target and Tesla’s 2026 closing high nearly overlap.
In-house AI tools helped analyze interview transcripts, research, and write this article. Humans reviewed, edited and fact-checked the material before publication.
Jared Blikre is the global markets and data editor for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on @SPYJared or email him at jaredblikre@yahooinc.com.
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