Which is madder, bitcoin at $41,500 — oops, make that $31,000 on Monday — or Tesla shares at $880 apiece? Don’t get me started on the crypto-mania in which the Financial Conduct Authority has warned gamblers ‘they should be prepared to lose all their money’. But Tesla, relatively speaking, is a real thing: a California-based carmaker which has expanded the frontiers of the electric vehicle market that’s going to become huge in the next decade and could soon make carbon–fuelled road transport extinct.
Put that way, it’s not so surprising — in tech stock terms — that investors should value Tesla higher than the rest of the US auto industry combined. But those investors are not making an objective calculation based on projected profits or dividend flows. They’re just betting on the self-propulsion of a share that has risen tenfold since March and, while the old economy remains on its knees, may have a way to go yet.
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