Shares of Carvana Co. (NYSE:CVNA) jumped nearly 8% on Tuesday after Jefferies reiterated its bullish stance, pointing to stronger-than-expected retail unit growth and improving pricing trends early in the first quarter.
Jefferies maintained a “Buy” rating on the company with a $485 price target, implying roughly 67% upside from current levels.
The firm said its proprietary data signals accelerating demand despite seasonal and macro headwinds. “Our Carvana web scrape estimates Retail Unit grew 39% year-ove-year in February and 42% in the first week of March, which are nearly consistent with 43.5% in 4Q despite inclement weather and tough comparisons,” analysts wrote.
Based on those trends, Jefferies sees potential upside to consensus expectations for the quarter.
The analysts added that improving visibility into first-quarter performance supports their above-consensus outlook. “If we assume March follows last year's week-over-week seasonality, Carvana's first quarter retail units would grow approximately 42% year-over-year and imply 7% upside to consensus estimates.”
While inventory growth has moderated in recent months, Jefferies suggested this could reflect temporary factors. The firm said ending inventory growth slowed from 39% year-over-year in the fourth quarter to roughly 22–30% in early 2026, which it attributed to a combination of harder comps and efforts to rebuild unit economics at facilities that underperformed in the fourth quarter.
Pricing has also emerged as a key tailwind. “Our scrape indicates CVNA's avg vehicle selling price ($25.4k) increased by 2% year-over-year in Feb, which compared favorably to the 3% decline observed across the industry,” the analysts wrote.
Jefferies expects pricing gains to support higher revenue per unit, modeling a 13% year-over-year increase in retail revenue per unit in the first quarter, driven by a mix impact from higher-end vehicles and an accounting change with Carvana's largest commercial marketplace partner.
User growth trends remain solid as well, reinforcing the demand outlook. The firm noted monthly active users rose 32% year-over-year in the first quarter, marking one of the fastest growth rates in roughly four years.
Jefferies said it will be watching whether Carvana can sustain that traffic growth without significantly increasing advertising spend, which could signal further margin expansion potential.
Despite the strong data, the firm left its forecasts unchanged, citing a conservative approach while awaiting more complete quarterly data. It continues to project retail unit growth of 36% year-over-year in the first quarter, below its web-scraped estimate but still ahead of consensus.
Jefferies’ $485 price target is based on a 28-times 2027 EV/EBITDA multiple, representing a premium to peers due to Carvana’s faster expected growth trajectory.