In early trading on Friday, shares of Tesla topped the list of the day's best performing components of the Nasdaq 100 index, trading up 1.8%. Year to date, Tesla has lost about 40.5% of its value.

The Nasdaq-100-- which tracks the largest 100 nonfinancial companies on the Nasdaq stock exchange -- had a tough run in March as it finished the month down 7.7%. That marked one of the index's ...