Stock in
VinFast Auto,
a Vietnamese electric vehicle startup, is rising after picking up a new bullish rating on Wall Street.
Tuesday, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives launched coverage of VinFast (ticker: VFS) with a Buy rating and a $12 price target.
That values VinFast stock at about $25 billion. Ives also rates
Rivian Automotive
(RIVN) shares Buy and has a $25 price target for that stock. That target values Rivian shares just under $25 billion.
Rivian has more cash than VinFast on its books though. Net of cash and including debt, Ives’ targets value Rivian at roughly $20 billion and $25 billion, respectively. Today, Rivian, including debt and cash, is valued at about $11 billion. VinFast is valued at about $12 billion.
Rivian sells more EVs than VinFast for now, but Ives sees potential in the Asian auto maker. “We have seen the impressive VinFast operations in Vietnam firsthand and came away extremely impressed with its EV footprint,” wrote Ives. VinFast makes EVs in Vietnam and has also started construction on a plant in North Carolina.
That plant will cost some $4 billion.
Ives projects sales at VinFast will grow from $1.4 billion in 2023 to $3.1 billion in 2024 and $5.5 billion in 2025. Over that span, operating losses will drop from $1.7 billion in 2023 to $1.5 billion in 2025.
He doesn’t provide delivery figures in his launch report, but VinFast expects to deliver about 45,000 units in 2023. Ives didn’t immediately return a request for comment.
VinFast shares are up 3.7% at 5.56 in premarket trading while
S&P 500
and
Nasdaq Composite
futures were both down about 0.2%.
Investors should brace for some trading volatility following the new rating. Coming into Tuesday trading, VinFast stock was off about 4% over the past month. Shares are down about 94% from an intraday high of $93 reached in late August shortly after the company completed its merger with a Special Purpose Acquisition Company, or SPAC.
VinFast stock was incredibly volatile post-merger. Shares moved up or down an average of about 35% a day in the 20 days after the stock symbol changed to “VFS” from “BSAQ,” the stock symbol of the publicly traded SPAC.
Volatility has come down. Shares have moved up or down an average of about 5% a day over the past 20 days.
Overall, there are now three analysts covering VinFast stock. All three rate shares Buy. The average price target is $10 a share.
The average Buy-rating ratio for stocks in the S&P 500 is about 55%, but an S&P 500 company typically has some 20 analysts covering the stock.
Write to Al Root at [email protected]
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