Tesla reports second-quarter results after Wednesday’s close, with the Q&A webcast following the release. The stock trades near $370–380, roughly 22% below the $489.88 record close set in December 2025, and sits under both its 50-day ($396.49) and 100-day ($401.24) exponential moving averages with RSI around 38.
Options are pricing an expected move in the 6% to 7.6% range.
For a futures trader the relevant question is not whether Tesla beats. It is what a beat or a miss is worth to the contract you are actually trading.
The Street cannot agree on the number
Tesla pre-announced the good news. Second-quarter deliveries came in at a record 480,126 vehicles against a compiled consensus of 406,024 — an 18% beat and a 25% year-on-year gain — with production of 451,758, meaning deliveries outpaced production and drew down inventory. Energy storage deployments rebounded to 13.5 GWh from 8.8 GWh in Q1.
What follows is unusual dispersion for a company this size. Revenue estimates run from roughly $25.3 billion to $27.4 billion. EPS estimates run from $0.31 to $0.55, with Deutsche Bank’s Edison Yu modelling $0.36 on more aggressive promotions and rising lithium and copper input costs, against a Street consensus nearer $0.51–$0.54.
Tesla’s own investor relations page publishes a compiled GAAP figure of $0.36 and non-GAAP of $0.55. Price targets span $19.05 at GLJ Research to $600 at Wedbush, with 29 analysts averaging a Hold.
That spread is the story. It is not a disagreement about demand, the delivery number settled that. It is disagreement about what the volume cost. Tesla is expected to post negative free cash flow near $3.25 billion on quarterly capex of roughly $6.6–$6.7 billion, with full-year capital expenditure guided up from $20 billion to $25 billion. Q1 operating margin was 4.2%. Automotive gross margin excluding regulatory credits is the single line that matters.
What it is worth to the index
Tesla carries an index weight of about 1.71% in the S&P 500, ninth largest, roughly level with Micron. Weights float daily; That is almost exactly where Tesla entered the index in December 2020 at 1.69% — five and a half years of narrative, and the same slice of the benchmark.
Tesla Impact on Indexes
| Tesla Move | Index Impact | S&P 500 Points |
|---|---|---|
| +/- 5% | +/- 8.6 bps | Approximate 6.4 Point Move |
| +/- 6% (implied) | +/- 10.3 bps | Approximate 7.6 Point Move |
| +/- 7.6% (implied high) | +/- 13 bps | Approximate 9.7 Point Move |
| +/- 10% | +/- 17.1 bps | Approximate 12.7 Point Move |
| +/- 20% | +/- 34.2 bps | Approximate 25.5 Point Move |
A useful desk heuristic falls out of that: at today’s share price and index level, every roughly $3 Tesla moves is worth about one S&P 500 point. When Tesla joined the index in 2020, S&P’s Howard Silverblatt put that figure near $11.
The weight has not changed; the share price has halved and the index has doubled, so each dollar of Tesla now travels considerably further.
The real risk is sitting next to it
Alphabet reports the same evening, and carries roughly 5.89% of the index across both share classes — about three and a half times Tesla’s weight. A 5% move in Alphabet is worth close to 30 basis points, or some 22 index points, more than double what Tesla’s full implied move delivers.
The nuance worth writing down is that these two cut differently. On implied and historical moves, Tesla is the larger expected contributor — 6–7.6% priced against Alphabet’s 1.3% average reaction on results days. But Alphabet owns the tail.
Tesla is the volatility; Alphabet is the exposure. A correlated downside night — Tesla off 8%, Alphabet off 5% — costs the index roughly 32 points combined, and that is the number ES traders should be sizing against, not either name alone.
Scenarios into Wednesday’s close
| Scenario | Trigger | Implications for the S&P 500 |
|---|---|---|
| Bull | Auto gross margin ex-credits holds above 18%; concrete Robotaxi and Optimus milestones | TSLA closes its gap toward the 100-day; index effect still under 10 points — trade the single name, not the contract |
| Base | Margin lands mid-range, capex guidance unchanged, autonomy commentary directional | Tesla chops inside the implied move; ES trades Alphabet and the ceasefire tape instead |
| Bear | Margin compression confirms volume was bought; free cash flow worse than −$3.25bn | A 10–20% TSLA drawdown is 13–25 index points — painful only if Alphabet disappoints alongside it |
Retail trader positioning data based on the Positioning Edge Tool on MarketFramework shows successful traders are holding significantly more long positions.
This could suggest bullish momentum for the index.
However, there are those who adopt a contrarian view to crowd sentiment and thus see this as a reason the index could be set for another leg to the downside.
