Papafox's Daily TSLA Trading Charts

[Artful Dodger]

Anyone know what short interest has done over the past week? Are they bailing while they still can or are they doubling down?

Short-selling might have been heavier than the 55.32% that we saw today, because shorts could have moved a fair portion of their activity to non-FINRA-monitored exchanges in order to avoid drawing attention with another day of nearly 68% selling.

Another good report on short-selling, @Papafox @Right_Said_Fred

Note: the Volume Data Reported to FINRA today was as follows:

Date: Short_Vol: Total_Volume: Short_Percent
12-20-2018 1,838,848 3,324,216 55.32%

However, today's total TSLA vol reported by NASDAQ was 9,049,389 shares.

This means only about 3.3M/9.1M or 36.7% of shares traded today were reported to FINRA.

This leaves mega-room for short shenanigans with 5.8M shares unrated, and we should therefore take the apparent drop in Short_percent today with a 2x dose of salt.

Thanks again for all you do for us @Papafox you are greatly appreciated!

Cheers!

 

[jbih]

Matthew S Unterman on Twitter
Ihor’s colleague Matthew posted the update yesterday.

$TSLA real-time short interest update: 27.6 million shares short, 21.5% of float, $9.3 billion exposed to short side of trade. Tesla remains #1 US equity short in terms of notional, $AMZN #2 at $8.5 billion, $AAPL #3 at $7.6 billion @S3Partners @ihors3 shortsight.com

 

[neroden]

I'm going to suggest that we're seeing panic sales due to the severe governmental crisis, which is approaching constitutional-crisis levels. The President has narcissistic personality disorder, is mentally unstable, and is under roughly 15 criminal investigations; he's surrounded himself with idiots, apparatchiks, and criminals; the Senate is unable or unwiling to remove him; and the Justice Department is still following an unsound legal theory that they can't prosecute him. The Fed Chair seems to be a fool. The House is still run by lunatic fanatics until January. The Supreme Court is stacked with known crooks with histories of perjury and bias, as are other parts of the federal courts (though thankfully not all). Tariffs come and go at random. Cash probably seems to be necessary as a hedge against disaster. I mean, this is governance worthy of an unstable third-world country, and that tends to lead to volatile and low stock markets. They could only do worse if they started messing directly with the banknotes like Modi.

 

[BLSmith2112]

There are other, dedicated threads, for oil and politics.

Mod: moving posts. Take followup there. --ggr.

 

[Papafox]

I'm going to suggest that we're seeing panic sales due to the severe governmental crisis, which is approaching constitutional-crisis levels. The President has narcissistic personality disorder, is mentally unstable, and is under roughly 15 criminal investigations; he's surrounded himself with idiots, apparatchiks, and criminals; the Senate is unable or unwiling to remove him; and the Justice Department is still following an unsound legal theory that they can't prosecute him. The Fed Chair seems to be a fool. The House is still run by lunatic fanatics until January. The Supreme Court is stacked with known crooks with histories of perjury and bias, as are other parts of the federal courts (though thankfully not all). Tariffs come and go at random. Cash probably seems to be necessary as a hedge against disaster. I mean, this is governance worthy of an unstable third-world country, and that tends to lead to volatile and low stock markets. They could only do worse if they started messing directly with the banknotes like Modi.

Neroden, no need to sugar coat it, you can speak your mind freely if you wish.

Friday's update might be Saturday morning but more likely coming on Sunday. BZ here.

 

[neroden]

Neroden, no need to sugar coat it, you can speak your mind freely if you wish.

You don't really want to hear the non-sugar-coated version.

 

[madodel]

BZ here.

Who is BZ and what did they do with Papafox?

 

[Artful Dodger]

Who is BZ and what did they do with Papafox?

Lol, he's just BizZee (cuz 'busy' would be BS?) with Xmas stuff, he'll be back.

Cheers!

 

[Papafox]

Friday was a strong day for TSLA compared to the broader markets, with the NASDAQ down 3% and TSLA up over 1%. It was a tough environment for TSLA as the NASDAQ fell throughout the day (a perfect setup for shorts making money from their manipulations), but TSLA regained its mojo after a mid-day dip and surprised the market with a climb into close. One possible reason for the late afternoon strength? Lots of options were expiring (so called "triple witching") and open interest contained a big quantity of 320 puts. The sellers of those puts wanted the SP to close at or above 320 to make them worthless and with a 319.77 close, they came close to their goal. The tug of war between sellers and buyers of those puts got intense in the final 10 minutes of trading with one of those minutes showing more than 47,000 shares traded. Both sides that manipulated the close were inclined to close temporary positions in the final minute of trading and so an enormous 826,000 shares traded hands that minute. I don't recall a higher number ever.That's more than 10% of the day's total trading in one minute!

The NASDAQ lost 2.99% of its value during the day, with a slide that lasted most the trading day

Shorts elevated their selling to 59.21% on Friday, but they still couldn't get much value out of those 320 puts that expired that day

Looking at the tech chart, you can see that the 200 day moving average provided support for the second day in a row. If the broader markets would just settle down, we could get the lower bollinger band to flatten out a bit and provide some support as well. Friday's strength suggests TSLA is ready to start recovering lost ground if the macros turn around. That's still a big "if" because the market is presently afraid of its own shadow after the combination of the China trade war plus the Fed Chairman's poor judgement this past week spooked investors.

So, the end of December was to be the time when the SP rises in order to position for the first week in January Production and Deliveries report, right? Well, a few things happened. The macros tanked (S&P 500 down over 7% this past week), and a huge gulf is being created between the Model 3 delivery expectations between bulls and bears. Bulls are looking at recent info such as comments from Carsonight to calibrate TSLA's current output at more than 6K M3/week. On the other hand, the Bloomberg tracker and Troy have been cutting their expectations back recently on M3 production, and these lower numbers are being used by the bears to suggest that M3 production is falling due to demand issues. Thankfully, Elon responded to a tweet in the past couple days with a statement that those in the U.S. who have been waiting for the Medium Range Model 3s should receive them before year end (killing the demand is too low theory), and next he tweeted that those who have been promised a Tesla before year end and make a serious effort to pick it up in a timely fashion will be covered by Tesla for the amount of the decline in the value of the tax credit if delivery misses 2018 (thereby suggesting confidence that the vast majority of the promised Model 3s will be delivered before year's end).

We also remember Vicki Salvador's tweets from the paint shop suggesting that Tesla's total production exceeded 1300 vehicles/day in certain days this month, and forum members reported lots of activity at Fremont, which works against the significantly falling weekly output shown in the Bloomberg tracker. Three Fives Investments suggests in this tweet that Troy's and Bloomberg's methodology depends too heavily upon estimating the participation rate of people submitting information to the tracker sites, and so there are likely errors made by these two otherwise-accurate trackers this quarter. Bottom line is that this uncertainty means a likely big move one way or the other when the Q4 P&D report numbers come out in the first week of January. My personal inclinations are to lean toward the bullish interpretation, but I will keep expiration dates of options far enough in the future to be able to bounce back from any surprises.

For the week, TSLA closed at 319.77, down 45.92 from last Friday's 365.71. There's a good chance that the coming week will be noticeably better. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Conditions:
* Dow down 414 (1.81%)
* NASDAQ down 195 (2.99%)
* TSLA 319.77, up 4.39 (1.39%)
* TSLA volume 8.0M shares
* Oil 45.59, down 0.29 (0.63%)
* Percent of TSLA selling by shorts: 59.21%

 

[Papafox]

Yikes, what a tough day. TSLA suffered from three issues today:
* News that was translated as FUD
* A huge plunge in macros with a downward trajectory as the day progressed
* A shortened trading day which made a bear attack on top of the macro decline a viable option

The news translated into FUD was that Tesla has cut the price on some Model 3s in China (again). The FUD translations is that there are demand issues at Tesla and this is a necessary step. The more reasonable translation is that Chinese consumers are anticipating the availability of duty-free Model 3s in late 2019. These cars should also be eligible for some of China's EV subsidies, making them attractive purchases. Tesla right now has to compete with expectations for Model 3 late 2019 prices, though, if it is going to sell some cars there and keep its people busy until the big rush in late 2019. It's really a case of Tesla Model 3 competing against future Tesla Model 3 pricing, which isn't the worst problem for a company to face. Also, the media picked up upon Elon's tweet about Tesla reimbursing the difference in tax credits to anyone promised a car in 2018 if Tesla cannot deliver it in time. The truth is that the liability is likely just hundreds of cars when all is said and done, and so the cost is small but the reassurance to buyers is great.

The good news is that Tesla as a company remains ready to charge forward in 2019. The bad news is that the market is presently afraid of its own shadow and the correction has been overplayed. We need the market to get out of its funk to see a nice price recovery of TSLA. The good news is that Tesla eventually runs back above 360 once the craziness of a dip is completed.

The NASDAQ lost 2.21% today, with a downhill run after 11am and a steep cliff dive in the final minutes

Only peek if you are brave. That's one heck of a dip, but you can see by the late October rally that recovery can be quick. What we need is a combination of the macros starting to recover and good production and delivery numbers in the first week of January. Remember that just a couple weeks ago analysts were upgrading TSLA to mid 400s. Nothing within the company has changed dramatically. Other stocks are at fire-sale prices right now, so those stocks are going to need some recovery as well. In the meantime, if there's someone selling Jerome Powell dartboards, I'll probably buy one to keep myself distracted until things recover.

Ihor Dusaniwsky publishes an email update known as Short Sight, and this mornings message shows short interest at Tesla as 22.11%. So, 128.6million float x .2211 = 28.43 million shares sold short right now, up about a million shares during this dip. We have a heavy load of shorts on board right now. All we need now is the rally.

Seriously, if you are freaked out about the dip, please look at the dozen or more other deep dips this stock has taken in the past couple years. Once Tesla shows nice cash flow and profits in Q4, it will wake the market up. We've been LOTS lower than this and the thing to do is to sit on your hands and wait for the inevitable recovery. Also, keep an eye on production and delivery data.

Here's a Merry Christmas wish to all (feel free to change the warm sentiment to one you embrace). I'll be volunteering at my local Tesla service center this coming week, helping with the deliveries process and making sure that the hundreds of Teslas coming off the ships are delivered to happy owners this quarter. Consider volunteering at a local sales center if your schedule allows. We're in crunch time and there's a great reward for all of us if we pull this quarter off well.

Conditions:
* Dow down 653 (2.91%)
* NASDAQ down 140 (2.21%)
* TSLA 295.39, down 24.38 (7.62%)
* TSLA volume 5.5M shares
* Oil 42.68, down 2.91 (6.38%)

 

[neroden]

This is a market-wide bear market. However, for TSLA, this 20% drop is nowhere near the February 2016 *37%* drop, which happened for essentially no reason.

 

[madodel]

Here's a Merry Christmas wish to all (feel free to change the warm sentiment to one you embrace). I'll be volunteering at my local Tesla service center this coming week, helping with the deliveries process and making sure that the hundreds of Teslas coming off the ships are delivered to happy owners this quarter. Consider volunteering at a local sales center if your schedule allows. We're in crunch time and there's a great reward for all of us if we pull this quarter off well.

Conditions:
* Dow down 653 (2.91%)
* NASDAQ down 140 (2.21%)
* TSLA 295.39, down 24.38 (7.62%)
* TSLA volume 5.5M shares
* Oil 42.68, down 2.91 (6.38%)

Thanks for all this detail. I want to buy more but when? 4 more trading days of 2018. Will the general bloodletting continue until the New Year? When will the deliveries be reported? Considering what most of us are expecting to be reported in the next month or so to me this is bargain pricing.

 

[neroden]

Deliveries have been reported as early as the 2nd of the month, though usually a bit later. If you are worried about a "deliveries rally", you would buy next Monday. Which is also a "lone" trading day followed by a holiday, which is a classic day for TSLA bear raids.

They can't report deliveries before the month ends, so if you expect no news before deliveries but think a rally on delivery news is possible, that would be the day to buy, I would say.

 

[Mike117]

I hope we see 350$ in January

 

[Papafox]

I hope we see 350$ in January

Another day like today and we'd see it tomorrow.

 

[madodel]

Another day like today and we'd see it tomorrow.

Guess I'm not going to see a bottom to $250 this week. Shorts are worthless idiots. Can't drive the price down when I need it.

 

[Papafox]

Yep, TSLA is capable of climbing every bit as fast as it can descend. The macros staged a record-breaking rally today, which propelled TSLA upwards by more than $30. The NASDAQ closed up nearly 6%, with many tech stocks closing between 4.5 to 9.8% higher than yesterday. TSLA beat even Amazon with its 10.39% rise. Congratulations longs!

In morning trading, TSLA jumped up with the NASDAQ (see chart below) but then began a downhill run towards 11am, where it descended into red territory through some hefty large sales (25K shares sold at 10:59am), likely led by the short shorts. By 11am the shorts were likely congratulating themselves on turning a positive macro day into a loser for TSLA. Up until about 11:17am you could see attempts at "whack the mole", but the rapidly rising macros were too much and TSLA lifted off and kept climbing for the remainder of the day.

Today would be a big loser of a day for the manipulators because after 11am they had no chance at covering their day's shorting without significant penalties. Additionally, look at the extremely mild 8.2 million shares volume today. It's hard to cover on such a day without a big penalty because the price is rising constantly and not often dipping. I suspect not too many shorts covered today. The low volume is particularly problematic to shorts trying to exit. The reason why volume was so mild on such a huge move is that not many TSLA longs want to exit right now. They see better prices and better news ahead for TSLA. This is a really bad scenario for shorts, and with about a million extra shares shorted since the dip began, there's plenty of shorts who will want to extract themselves at some point.

The NASDAQ climbed 5.84% today

Shorts were tagged with 63% of TSLA selling today, an extremely high number for such a positive trading day

The tech chart nicely illustrates just how significant today's move was. TSLA regained all of yesterday's losses and then almost reclaimed the previous two day's trading as well. Look at how high we are above the 200 day moving average now. The 200 DMA should once again provide support if we need it. Meanwhile, both upper and lower bollinger bands are widening, with the upper above 387 and providing lots of headroom for climbing.

It is great to have such a powerful up day for the macros because such a day suggests that the extent of the macro decline had been exaggerated beyond all reason and the market finally sobered up today and realized what bargains are out there. Such a big macro and TSLA move marks a nice bottom for the TSLA dip as well.

Conditions:
* Dow up 1086 (4.98%)
* NASDAQ up 361 (5.84%)
* TSLA 326.09, up 30.70 (10.39%)
* TSLA volume 8.2M shares
* Oil 45.98, down 0.24 (0.52%)
* Percent of TSLA selling by shorts: 63%

 

[EVNow]

@Papafox : Where do you think the Macros & TSLA go from here ? As people were joking on r/investing on Reddit, I doubt the bear market is now cancelled. Nothing has changed fundamentally between yesterday & today. All the political & economic uncertainties remain.

 

[Papafox]

@Papafox : Where do you think the Macros & TSLA go from here ? As people were joking on r/investing on Reddit, I doubt the bear market is now cancelled. Nothing has changed fundamentally between yesterday & today. All the political & economic uncertainties remain.

I'm not an expert in such matters but I believed that the strength of the recovery today reflected the realization that the macro movements downward had been excessive for the economic environment we're in. One expert I have listened to suggests we'll see more macro climbing for another week or so and then another dip in macros. Who really knows, though? The problem with trying to time the market is that we're getting pretty close the the Q4 production and delivery numbers, and there may not be another better buying opportunity between now and then. I think if Q4 P&D report plus ER are strong, TSLA will do well even in a difficult macro environment. I'm hanging in there. Sooner or later there will be an agreement with China (this trade war is much more painful for them than for us) and then the market will breathe a sigh of relief and rally. I solve problems with macro volatility the same way I solve problems with TSLA volatility, and that is to invest with a sufficiently long time horizon in mind.

 

[oneday]

Historically Tesla quarter end delivery reports have not been a big positive catalyst to the TSLA SP. However, I think it is very likely that this pattern will be broken for the Q4 delivery reports. For a couple reasons: 1. The market now knows that every S,X & 3 vehicle sold now produces PROFIT. 2. It will definitely be a record revenue quarter.

There is a chance that the Q4 delivery report underwhelms. Based on some data there is a possibility Tesla sees flat quarter over quarter model 3 deliveries. I would say this would be casted in a negative light. There is also a possibility they miss their S&X year target.

Assuming none of these things happen, Q4 deliveries could provide a substantial pop. I don’t think it’s worth sitting on the sidelines personally.

Macro black swan events will pull Tesla down as the last couple weeks have shown. I think Trump does not like what is happening in the markets and this might push him to try to really make some quick market appeasing moves on trade which I think would push markets up. Let’s hope. There are plenty of potential political black swans flying around and surely some of them will land. Even in a market downturn Tesla’s massive continued growth plan can/should give it a safe haven investment status.

Just my $.02