Stifel reiterated a Buy rating and a $22.00 price target on Rivian on Monday, implying 29.6% upside from Friday’s close of $16.97.
Analyst Stephen Gengaro wrote that Rivian’s second-quarter results and 2026 guidance support the firm’s positive view, and set out six supporting points alongside four he flagged to watch.
The EV maker reported its second-quarter results on July 30. Rivian shares were trading slightly higher on Monday morning.
What Beat
Revenue exceeded Stifel’s own estimate by 7.2% and rose 27.2% year on year, which Gengaro attributed to regulatory credits and the software and services segment.
Stifel’s estimate was already above consensus. The beat is therefore against a bar the firm had set higher than the Street’s.
Adjusted EBITDA came in at a loss of $379 million, against Stifel’s forecast of a $642 million loss and consensus of $547 million. The result was 41.0% better than Gengaro’s own number and 30.7% better than consensus.
Gross profit reached $179 million, which the analyst described as a sharp year-on-year increase.
The automotive loss narrowed to $36 million from $335 million, an improvement of 89.3%.
What Changed in Guidance
R2 external deliveries began on June 9, and Gengaro wrote that Launch Edition order conversion has run above plan.
Rivian pulled its second shift forward into the third quarter, raised 2026 delivery guidance, and moved adjusted EBITDA guidance to a loss of $1.80 billion to $2.00 billion.
Capital expenditure guidance was cut to $1.70 billion to $1.80 billion.
Liquidity stands at $7.2 billion on a pro forma basis, with a further $1.25 billion committed from Volkswagen and Uber.
Already Disclosed
The analyst listed four items to watch, and put regulatory credits first.
Rivian booked $164 million of regulatory credit revenue in the first half. Gengaro expects none in the second.
That figure is not a Stifel estimate.
CFO Claire McDonough gave it on the July 30 earnings call, describing $164 million of regulatory credits that benefited the company’s gross profit outlook in the first half, and identifying their absence as the bigger driver of a steeper second-half adjusted EBITDA loss.
Second-quarter automotive revenue included $103 million of those credits.
Gengaro’s second item, an automotive gross margin headwind in the third quarter before a fourth-quarter benefit, is also company guidance.
McDonough said automotive gross profit would be negative in the third quarter, on a full quarter of ramp inefficiencies and second-shift labour costs, before turning positive in the fourth.
His third and fourth items follow the same pattern.
McDonough attributed pressure on the EBITDA range to higher raw material, memory and logistics costs, and said autonomy spending would rise in the second half, driven mainly by graphics processor sourcing for model training.
All four of the analyst’s cautions restate disclosures Rivian’s own management made a month earlier.
The improvement in adjusted EBITDA guidance rests partly on the same credits. McDonough said the $50 million midpoint improvement came from higher than anticipated first-half regulatory credits and the 3,000-unit delivery increase, partially offset by the input cost rises.
Capital expenditure guidance was cut by $250 million, which McDonough attributed to project efficiencies and timing.
The Target
Gengaro raised the target to $22.00 from $20.00 on July 9, citing second-quarter deliveries, expectations for the R2 rollout and what he described as the company’s 75 million share equity offering, the base size before any overallotment.
Stifel has maintained a Buy rating on Rivian without interruption since initiating coverage on December 7, 2023 at $23.00, when the firm simultaneously started Lucid at Hold with a $5.00 target.
The target has been through $23.00, $18.00, $16.00, $18.00, $16.00, $17.00, $20.00 and now $22.00, without the rating changing once.
Gengaro lifted the target to $17.00 in November after third-quarter results, when gross profit per vehicle excluding software and services improved to a loss of $985 from a loss of $3,142, against his own forecast of a $2,039 loss.
He raised it to $20.00 in February after Rivian guided 2026 deliveries at 62,000 to 67,000 units, against Stifel’s own pre-release forecast of 52,000.
In March he reaffirmed $20.00 following the Uber agreement, which he described as a meaningful positive for both the autonomy programme and the commercial expansion of the R2 platform.
Rivian closed at $16.97 on Friday, a gain of 6.00%, on volume of 35.32 million shares against a 65-day average of 32.63 million.
The stock traded at $17.02 on Monday morning.
Shares have gained 29.4% over a year, but remain down 13.9% for 2026 to date.
