Wall Street finally caught up with Tesla stock. That could be a bad sign for the shares.

Investors don't have to worry too much, however. Analysts always struggle to keep up with Elon Musk's car company.

The average analyst target price for Tesla stock hit $400 a share for the first time this past week. Now, it sits at $400.11, according to FactSet. That values Tesla for about $1.3 trillion and 183 times estimated 2026 earnings.

It took Wall Street a while to crack the $400 barrier. Tesla stock first traded above $400, on a split-adjusted basis, in late 2021.

There's an argument to be made that peaking price targets are bad for Tesla shares. Analysts caught up with shares just in time to see the stock dip about 6% this past week. But anyone who's followed Tesla for a while knows that analyst price targets just aren't much use in evaluating shares of the EV maker.

They are lagging indicators, reflecting what's already happened.

That isn't a knock on the analyst community. Anyone who's followed Tesla for a while also knows that predicting the path of Tesla stock is nearly impossible. At points in 2025, shares had roughly doubled while earnings estimates for 2026 were halved.

Stocks gaining on lower earnings is an unusual outcome, but it reflects the idea that investors are more focused on Tesla's AI future. AI-trained robo-taxis and robots are exciting, but don't make Tesla much money yet.

Wall Street price targets can typically be read in one of two ways. It's a price an analyst expects shares to trade at in the future, typically at some point over the coming 12 months. Or it's a fair price to pay for a stock to earn a reasonable return in the future.

Most target prices are above the current stock prices. Only about 3% of the stocks in the S&P 500 currently trade above the average analyst target price. Tesla is one of them.

Others are relatively less volatile stocks where target prices are typically close to share prices, such as insurer Aflac. Others are shares of companies at the mercy, to some extent, of volatile commodity markets, such as lithium maker Albemarle.

Tesla, as always, is a little different from those. It's simply one of the most controversial stocks on Wall Street. The difference between the top and bottom price targets is often more than 100% of the current stock price, double or triple the bull-bear spread for other large tech stocks.

Price targets are just one of the services analysts provide for investors. Arguably, the more important service is understanding the industries and management teams they cover.