Tesla Stock Rose 12.7% in October While the Nasdaq 100 Fell 6.7%. Most of the Gain Came in Two Days. Here's the Month in Numbers.

Honest fence (read first): This is a look back at October's closing prices, not a forecast. A month is a short window, and one good month says nothing certain about the next one. We covered Barclays' upgrade (Oct 28) and ARK's $4,400 model (Oct 29) separately; this post uses them only to explain when the gains came. Today's Neuralink Sunday flagships are about Neuralink's speech trial and aren't related to this post.

Editorial Thesis

October ended with a tech sell-off. The Nasdaq 100 fell 6.7% for the month, and the Nasdaq Composite had its worst month since March 2025, Yahoo Finance reported, as Amazon, Alphabet and Intel results revived worries about how much Big Tech is spending on AI.

Tesla went the other way. TSLA closed Friday, Oct 30, at $399.81, up 12.7% from $354.81 on Sep 30. That's Tesla's best month since August, when it rose 18.2%. The catch is how the gain was built: about $35 of the $45-a-share rise came in just two sessions, Oct 26 and 27, after Barclays upgraded the stock on a possible SpaceX deal that hasn't been agreed.

Honest Verdict

Believe the scorecard. The closing prices are exchange data, and two data providers agree. Believe that Tesla held up unusually well on Friday's rout.

Don't read October as proof that Tesla has "decoupled" from tech, or that the merger story is priced correctly. Most of the month's gain rests on two days of reaction to one analyst note about a deal with no terms. If that story fades, so can the gain.

October in numbers

Prices are from Yahoo Finance's daily history, cross-checked with StockAnalysis for TSLA. Percentages are our math from those closes. October 30 was the last trading day of the month.

When Tesla's gain happened

• Oct 1: $354.11, the lowest close of the month.
• Oct 2: up 4.65% to $370.59 on the day Tesla reported 486,532 third-quarter deliveries, which CNBC reported topped expectations.
• Oct 16: back down to $354.72, roughly where the month started.
• Oct 21 to 23: Tesla reported Q3 after the close on Oct 21. The stock fell 3.08% the next day and closed Oct 23 at $372.22.
• Oct 26 and 27: Barclays' Dan Levy upgraded Tesla to Overweight with a $450 target, betting on a Tesla and SpaceX combination. TSLA rose 5.21% and then 4.04% to $407.46, the month's highest close. Those two days added $35.24 a share.
• Oct 28 to 30: small declines to $399.81.

So of the $45.00 October gain, about 78% came from the two Barclays days. Without them, Tesla's October would look close to flat.

Friday's sell-off, up close

On Friday, Oct 30, the Nasdaq 100 fell 3.46%, more than 1,000 points. Tesla closed down just 0.87%. It wasn't a calm day for the stock, though: TSLA traded as low as $387.52 intraday, about 3.9% below Thursday's close of $403.30, before recovering most of the drop by the close.

Yahoo Finance said tech and communication services were the only sectors to fall in October, so this was a rotation out of AI-heavy names more than broad selling. Tesla, which investors treat partly as an AI and robotaxi story, mostly avoided it this time.

The SpaceX contrast

SpaceX (SPCX) had the opposite month: down 10.7%, from $150.86 to $134.72. Yahoo Finance reported SpaceX had lost more than $400 billion in market value since its Oct 6 high, and it now trades almost exactly at its $135 June IPO price. Investors are trading SPCX with the AI spenders, while Tesla rose partly on the hope that a combination with SpaceX would come with a premium for Tesla holders. That's a gap worth watching, because the two stories are linked: if a deal ever gets terms, the price relationship between the two stocks will matter more than either chart on its own.

What it doesn't tell you

• A monthly gain isn't a valuation. Wall Street's average target, about $409 on S&P Global's count after Q3, is barely above Friday's close.
• No merger has been agreed. Both companies have special committees studying a combination, and Tesla's shareholder approval would be a high hurdle.
• One month says little about the next. Tesla fell 26% in July and rose 18.2% in August this year.

What to watch next

• Early November: October sales data from China and Europe, the first hard demand numbers after Q3.
• Dec 3: Tesla's annual shareholder meeting.
• December: the Federal Reserve's next decision. Yahoo Finance reported two Fed officials on Friday said rates may need to rise, which tends to weigh on high-valuation stocks like Tesla.
• Any merger news: terms, or a decision not to proceed, would reset the reason for October's biggest move.

The video

NBC News' short report from Friday evening (2:28) explains the market drop that wiped out more than a trillion dollars in value, the backdrop for Tesla's month. For Tesla-specific context, Yahoo Finance's Oct 21 interview with Morningstar's Seth Goldstein on Tesla's Q3 cash flow is the alternate.

Bottom line

Tesla rose 12.7% in October while the Nasdaq 100 fell 6.7%. That's real, and Tesla held up well in Friday's sell-off. But most of the gain came from two days of reaction to a merger-driven analyst upgrade, so the month says more about hopes for a SpaceX deal than about cars, robotaxis or earnings.