Tesla Stock Hasn't Closed at a Record in Nearly 11 Months. Here's How Its Past Record Droughts Ended.
Key Points
Tesla's last record close was $489.88 a share, on Dec. 16, 2025.
The stock has gone 300 days or longer without a record close six times before, once for 1,133 days.
Tesla's two largest rallies after a drought came when the company swung to a profit.
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Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) last closed at a record on Dec. 16, 2025, at $489.88 a share. That was 327 days ago, or nearly 11 months. With Tesla shares trading near $346 as I write this, the stock would have to gain about 41% just to tie it.
Long gaps between records are nothing new for the EV maker, though. Since its IPO in June 2010, Tesla stock has gone 300 days or more without a record close six other times, based on daily split-adjusted closing prices.
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Every one of those droughts eventually ended. But what happened next was very different. Two of them gave way to rallies of over 600%. The other four were followed by a new drought within months, and twice within days.
And the difference between the two groups probably boils down to whether Tesla's profits were turning higher.
Image source: Getty Images.
Long waits are common for Tesla
The first two droughts came early in the electric-vehicle maker's life as a public company. The stock spent 474 days without a record from Nov. 24, 2010, to March 12, 2012, and then exactly 300 days from April 3, 2012, to Jan. 28, 2013. The next two lasted longer, at 942 days from Sept. 4, 2014, to April 3, 2017, and 821 days from Sept. 18, 2017, to Dec. 18, 2019. Most recently, shares went 1,133 days from Nov. 4, 2021, to Dec. 11, 2024, and then 364 days from Dec. 17, 2024, to last December's record.
That makes the current 327-day wait the second shortest of the seven. The middle of the six past droughts is around 650 days, or almost twice as long as this one has lasted.
Of course, the drops along the way were steep. In the 2021-to-2024 drought, the stock's lowest close was around 74% below its prior record.
And in every one of the six, shares closed at least 31% under the old high at some point. This time, the low so far was $298.32 on July 29, around 39% below the December record.
What happened when the droughts ended?
Two of them ended in huge runs. Once the 300-day gap closed on Jan. 28, 2013, Tesla stock kept setting records until Sept. 4, 2014, rising around 652% in that time.
And once the drought ended on Dec. 18, 2019, shares climbed about 1,464% to the November 2021 record that started the longest wait of all.
The other four runs were short. The March 2012 record led to just 22 days of new highs before the next drought began. The April 2017 record brought around five and a half months of records and a 29% climb.
The December 2024 run of records lasted six days. Last December's record ended one drought and began the current one the same day.
In other words, a new record on its own hasn't said much about what happens next. For shareholders, I'd say this matters more than the length of any drought.
Profits made the difference
What the two big runs share is a turn in profits.
In May 2013, Tesla said it had become profitable in the first quarter "for the first time in our ten year history," earning $11 million. The stock gained about 24% the day after the letter came out.
The 2019 run followed a similar swing. The company made $143 million in the third quarter of 2019. That was a sharp turn from losses of $702 million and $408 million earlier that year. Even more, its net income hit $721 million in 2020 -- after losing money in each of the four years before that.
But the four short runs had nothing like that behind them. The company lost $396 million in 2012 and almost $2 billion in 2017.
And its operating income (profit from the business before interest and taxes) was falling in both 2024 and 2025, down 20% and then another 38%.
That trend hasn't turned yet. In the first nine months of 2026, Tesla's operating income totaled about $2.1 billion, down about 30% from the same period in 2025.
What does this history suggest for anyone owning the stock now?
I don't think 11 months without a new high is a reason to sell on its own. After all, waits this long have been normal for the growth stock, and every one of them has ended.
But the next record might matter less than what's behind it. One that comes with operating income climbing again may look a lot more like 2013 or 2019. Without that, a new high might fade as fast as the last two did.
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Daniel Sparks has clients with positions in Tesla. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Tesla. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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