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Tesla

Dan Levy, a Tesla bear who has predicted the stock will fall as much as 44%, wrote on Monday that the company is ahead of the competition on batteries.

The note came after Levy and his team visited the Tesla Gigafactory 1 in Nevada.

Shares of the company rose as much as 4.7% in early trading on Monday.

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A Tesla bear who has estimated the stock could fall as much as 44% is giving the company "credit where due."

"Tesla is likely ahead of others on batteries — the core of the electric powertrain," Dan Levy of Credit Suisse wrote in a note to clients on Monday. He maintained his "underperform" rating and target price of $200 on shares of the company, the third-lowest of 22 firms that have published new research on Tesla in the past month.

"We believe Tesla is leading in the areas that will likely define the future of carmaking — software and electrification," Levy wrote.

Shares of the automaker rose as much as 4.7% in early trading on Monday.

The surprisingly positive note came after Levy and his team visited Tesla's Gigafactory 1 in Nevada. Last year, Tesla's battery capacity was a total of 44 gigawatt-hours, with 35 coming from the Nevada factory and nine from Panasonic, Levy wrote.

That's impressive, as the rest of the auto industry has a combined battery capacity of 46 GWh: "33 GWh from Chinese OEMs, and another 13 GWh from non-Chinese OEMs," Levy wrote.

Levy said that going forward he expects Tesla to "highlight why its work in battery gives it a clear competitive advantage vs. other automakers." More information on the battery strategy will likely come at Tesla's "Powertrain Day," scheduled in the first half of 2020.

Levy expects that, its lead in batteries aside, Tesla will face increasing competition as other automakers develop their own electric vehicles. If Tesla doesn't capitalize on its position leading the electric-vehicle pack, it could be unseated, Levy argued in November.

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Tesla was up nearly 8% year-to-date through Friday's close.

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