Tesla loses a third of its value for the third time in a year

Tesla Inc’s stock extended losses on Monday and is now down by a third from its January record high, making it the third time in about a year that the electric car maker’s shares have corrected that dramatically. Investors worried about rising interest rates and dumping high-valuation stocks in recent weeks, Tesla’s market capitalisation has fallen by almost $300 billion since its January 26 record high to $550 billion, moving behind Facebook Inc, which it overtook in December after joining the S&P 500.

Tesla shares fell over 4% on Monday and were down almost 35% from their peak on January 26. The ARK Innovation ETF, which has 10% of its assets invested in Tesla, fell 6%. Technology and other growth stocks have fallen broadly since February 12, when the Nadsaq closed at its most recent record high. However, Tesla’s decline during that time has been much deeper than Wall Street’s other heavyweights.

Tesla is now down almost 30% since the Nasdaq peaked on February 12, reducing its gain in the past six months to about 43%. Since February 12, Apple Inc is down about 13%, with Amazon.com Inc, Microsoft Corp and Facebook Inc down less than 10%.

Since Tesla announced on February 8 that it bought $1.5 billion worth of bitcoins, its stock has steadily fallen, while the price of bitcoin has climbed over 10%. Tesla said it bought the bitcoins during January, and if it hypothetically bought them at the mid-point price of about $45,000 for that month, its investment could now be worth around $1.7 billion, according to Reuters calculations.