D20 Rockets to New High As BYD, 4 Other Stocks Gain More Than 10 Percent

The Driverless Transportation Weekly Stock Index (D20) exploded skyward, up 14.15 points to a new all-time high of 240.33 this week, led by Chinese automaker BYD.

Eighteen price gainers blitzed two price losers to push the D20 up 6.3 percent, the third-largest positive move ever for the D20. Five D20 stocks had price increases of more than 10 percent.

With the Chinese Government considering a ban on vehicles that use gas, Chinese electric vehicles maker BYD (BYDDY) saw its stock price leap a whopping D20 20.3 percent to close at $14.43 — the largest jump for any stock in a single week in D20 history.

The other four 10-percent-plus price gainers were D20 newcomer Autoliv (ALV) at 14 percent, Japanese-based Renesas Electronics (TYO:6723) at 12.7 percent, Tesla (TLSA) at 10.6 percent, and NVIDIA (NVDA) at 10 percent.

Neither the Dow nor the S&P 500 could hold a candle to the D20’s explosive rise. The Dow gained 2.2 percent to close at 22268.34 while the S&P 500 added 1.6 percent to rise just above 2500 and end the week at 2500.23.

Visit the Driverless Transportation D20 Stock Index page to learn more about it and its component stocks.

Up-and-Comers:

Samsung’s first investment from its new Automotive Innovation Fund was a €75 million investment in TTTech. Among other products, TTTech designs and manufactures advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). In the past, TTTech has partnered with Audi, a division of Volkswagen (VLKPY) and Renesas Electronics Corp. (TYO:6723), both members of the D20.

Driverless vehicle start-up Zoox is searching for additional investments. Menlo Park-based Zoox raised money from Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Lux Capital and others based on a $1.5-billion valuation. Rumors are that Japan’s Softbank is interested in investing. Zoox has been very secretive about product plans and strategies.