Tesla shares went up early Friday, setting the stage to break a three-week losing streak. Retail investors are still playing an important part in supporting the stock.
The electric-vehicle maker’s shares increased by about 0.7%, which was similar to the modest gains seen in broader index futures.
In early trading, Tesla shares were up 3.3% for the week. If the stock closes steady or higher on Friday, it will break a three-week losing streak that saw shares fall 24%, including an 18% drop during the week Tesla reported disappointing second-quaTesla reported about $400 million in operating profit for the quarter, which was much lower than Wall Street’s expectation of around $1.7 billion. Management did not share many new details about the company’s AI projects. The robotaxi service, which started in Austin in June 2025, is growing slowly, and the company still has not started mass production of its AI-powered humanoid robots.
Even though the stock has dropped recently, retail investors have kept buying, according to JPMorgan, which tracks this activity. New retail inflows into Tesla reached about $372 million over the five trading days through Wednesday, a big jump from $121 million in the previous five days. Over the past three weeks, retail traders bought nearly $800 million in Tesla shares while the stock was falling. This is a sharp contrast to late June, when retail investors took about $130 million out of the stock.
Tesla has been popular with individual investors for a long time. They own about 40% of the shares available to trade, which is about twice as much as the retail ownership seen in other big tech stocks, according to Bloomberg. Recent buying shows that enthusiasm is still strong, and this week, it seems to have helped steady the stock after its recent drop.
