Millennials were unloading their Tesla shares ahead of its disappointing first-quarter deliveries (TSLA)

Arjun Reddy

April 4, 2019 6:00 PM

Millennials shifted out of Tesla shares ahead of Wednesday evening's first-quarter-deliveries announcement according to data from Robinhood, the trading app popular among millennials.

Tesla Model S Elon Musk

Tesla deliveries came in below expectations, sending the stock plunging more than 8%.
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Millennials were dumping Tesla shares ahead of the company's disappointing first-quarter delivery numbers that sent shares tumbling by more than 8%.

Over the past week, a net 5,600 accounts on the free trading app Robinhood, which is popular among younger users, exited out of their Tesla position. The number of accounts holding shares of the electric-car maker declined by more than 4%, the biggest percentage drop among all stocks listed among Robinhood's top-100 holdings. Even after the selling, Tesla still ranked as the 13th most widely held name on the app, just ahead of Amazon and just behind Snap.

Analyst had predicted a significant drop in deliveries, with Goldman Sachs analyst David Tamberrino citing a "pull-ahead" of demand into previous quarters due to a decrease in federal tax credits. International deliveries failed to make up the gap.

Tesla underperformed the lowered expectations, delivering 63,000 vehicles compared to the 64,000 vehicles that analysts surveyed by Bloomberg were expecting. The electric-car maker reaffirmed its delivery forecast of 360,000 to 400,000 for 2019.

"Barring a near-term refresh in these models, we would prepare for the remainder of the year's volume of S and X to remain weak," wrote Morgan Stanley Adam Jonas.

Tesla was down nearly 20% this year, including Thursday's decline.