Electric vehicle stocks traded lower on Friday as the sector reacted to the general market downturn and sudden shift to risk-off trading.
Also in the mix, short-term headwinds for the EV sector include pricing pressures, mixed signals on consumer demand, and regulatory transitions. EV names are also high-beta stocks in general, meaning that they are generally more volatile directionally with broad market moves.
In morning trading, VinFast Auto (VFS) was down 11.8% after reporting Q3 earnings. Other decliners included Aptera Motors (SEV) off 6.0%, Rivian Automotive (RIVN) shedding 4.0%, Tesla (TSLA) declining 2.4%, and Lucid Group (LCID) dropping 2.0%.
Notably, over the last six weeks, General Motors (GM) and Ford Motor (F) have outperformed the broad auto sector, due in part to reeling in some of their more ambitious EV plans. As for Tesla (TSLA), its share price has its highest correlation in its trading history to Nvidia (NVDA) and other tech names at the forefront of the AI trade. The trading correlation between Nvidia (NVDA) and Tesla (TSLA) is now one of the highest of any S&P 500 Index component pairs.