Papafox's Daily TSLA Trading Charts

[Papafox]

What do you think of Ihors post:

Ihor Dusaniwsky on Twitter



And a longer conversion with roughly the same content. It starts with:

Carmine DI VIRGILIO on Twitter

* Carmine: @ihors3 Is $TSLA plummetting due to shorts opening or long closing positions? Can you figure out whether the shorts are increasing?
* Ihor: long shareholders selling is the overwhelming reason behind today's price dump.
* Jolly: How csn you tell its not the short sellers?
* Ihor: The amount of net short activity I saw on the street relative to the total trading volume was too small on its own to move the market so much ... So it had to be long shareholder selling that drove the stock price down so much.

Ihor Dusaniwsky is talking about net short activity, which directly affects short interest. One short interest number that Dusaniwsky gave in his tweet, 20.30% short possession of float, is the same number that his short sight email put out Friday morning, so I find this number to be suspect. I believe we'll see that number a tad higher on Monday morning, but the number is missing the point because it is net shorting activity and a lot of manipulations can take place with zero net shorting for the day. We saw huge selling streaks on Friday that had the fingerprints of the short methodologies. It is my guess that shorts were indeed manipulating heavily, and when I say manipulating I mean selling in big chunks at critical times, covering more slowly at lower price points, then repeating the process to have maximum negative effect upon the stock price.

Quite simply stated, Dusaniwsky's statement that shorting activity was low on Friday is inconsistent with the FINRA data that shows 66% of TSLA selling was tagged as short. We know that the 66% number does not at all mean 66% of selling was done by shorts, but it does indicated significantly elevated short selling activity. My best guess continues to be targeted selling in huge numbers by shorts, followed by covering that was much more spread out, followed by a repeat of this pattern. It's the pattern of price manipulations that we've seen for years and that the SEC has no interest in investigating.

 

[Papafox]

Today the small investors were ready to bid TSLA up, as seen in pre-market trading, but the game changed at 9:47am when 66K shares traded hands in one minute and with the usual icicles of short-seller manipulations appearing in the morning hours it was clear that the shorts were still on the rampage. Volume was still high. Looking at Dusaniwsky's "short sight" email this morning, I saw that short interest had barely budged in yesterday's trading. My take: shorts lack the conviction to grow their positions at the moment. It's all about FUD and doing as much damage to TSLA in order to bring the SP lower for a possible exit. The only way that the shorts could keep this much pressure on TSLA today was with significant manipulations enhancing the FUD, and we saw our second day in a row with extremely high 66% short-seller percent of TSLA selling.

News included:
* Tesla gets a sell rating from RBC Capital (here's an analyst trying to help the SP get closer to his target)
* A few right-hand drive VINs were registered by Tesla, suggesting that testing will soon be underway, leading to production
* Ark Invest has been knocking it out of the ballpark this year so far with their investment gains. It's good to know that the sharpest fund manager on Wall Street, Cathie Wood, is a big believer in Tesla

Then this tweet appeared:

Needless to say, the tweet didn't inspire confidence. Investors were hoping that the M3 SR would be an immediate answer to any shortfall in March deliveries, but the tweet indicates only limited deliveries this month. Perhaps the awesome Grohmann battery assembly unit at GF1 is not yet in full operation. In any event, my guess is that Tesla has realized you can't always rev up sales on a dime, and so they're getting the full range of M3s out there in specs and price for buyers to consider. They will likely see that the M3s they do have available, the MRs, LRs, and performance versions, carry most of the load in March and that their price cuts are what will do March deliveries in North America the most good. The previous cuts on these vehicles likely was for the same reason but were seen as too small to get the desired result. Tesla is setting up for a strong future, but Q1 certainly has the potential to be weaker than expected, especially with the "Estimated delivery: within 2 weeks" messages for MR, LR, and Performance M3s still posted in the design studio.. I expect robust demand for the Model 3 in the future, but I suspect the majority of buyers need time to shift into purchase mode when the car will be ready in less than 2 weeks. With the bears focused on Tesla's cash position, perceived weakness in U.S. Q1 deliveries could be part of the reason why the stock is under such pressure right now. Again, the best answer will be confirmation that orders have picked up.

The NASDAQ lost 0.23% today and TSLA showed little correlation with it. The Dow was down quite a bit more.

For the second day in a row, shorts were tagged with 66% of TSLA selling

For the tech chart, I have put a large chart here so that you can see samples how the lower bollinger band affects dips. Look especially at how the slope of the lower bb affects its ability to be support. It's rare to see the SP remain below the lower bb for more than 2 days in a row. Either the bollinger band descends at a rather steep angle to catch up with the SP or the stock price bounces and TSLA begins a climb. What I don't like to see is a situation such as we have today with the lower bb sloping significantly downhill, because it is setting the lower bollinger band to move quickly in a downward direction.

For us investors, it is madening to see the stock price so low when the future of TSLA looks so positive, but the issue is that when there's dread in the longs, many of us are waiting for a bounce before we move in with our dry powder and start buying again. Although I bought some yesterday (because we looked ready for a lower bollinger band bounce), I didn't see that setup today and I held off. When the news becomes more positive regarding deliveries, the bounce could be quite a large one, and so if you are planning to pick up more shares, watch judiciously. Once there's a bounce, some shorts will start covering, delta-hedging for options (which is presently helping to push the SP down) reverses and helps TSLA rise, and overall the dynamics change greatly. Looking forward to that moment. Volume is lighter than yesterday and losses are lighter as well, so we're getting closer.

Conditions:
* Dow down 207 (0.79%)
* NASDAQ down 18 (0.23%)
* TSLA 285.36, (3.20%)
* TSLA volume 17.1M shares
* Oil 56.3

 

[neroden]

I'm seeing a lot of dread among longs about the store closings, which explains a lot of the skittishness. I think it's a great move, but then I was recommending it several years back, sooooo.

 

[Papafox]

I started buying again after 1pm when the shorts' small push down failed.

 

[pz1975]

I did this too, but rather sold a lot of OTM puts between $273-275.

 

[Papafox]

What a wild day. It began with all sorts of FUD, including an overreaction to word from China that customs was not allowing Model 3s to proceed. It turns out a re-printed label was acceptable and the Model 3 crisis was solved, but not before TSLA had a morning deep dive into the low 270s before recovery. I was impressed with the strength of the recovery and invested a bit in TSLA today. Unfortunately, in the final two hours of trading TSLA turned around and did a dip on steroids into the close.

Stinker Analyst Note of the Day Award
Brian Johnson of Barclays wins today's "Stinker Analyst Note of the Day Award" for his reiterating an underweight rating for Tesla and lowering his price target from an already subterranean 210 to 190. This move puts him in contention for the coveted David Tamberino "how low can you go and how often you can repeat yourself" award. Moreover, he says that Tesla's abandoning its retail store presence and pricing aggressively removes all doubt about Tesla being the Apple of the Auto world. Truth be told, Johnson never believed in the first place that Tesla was an Apple-like company because if he did, he wouldn't be pricing the stock so low. I imagine he has lots of company wishing that Tesla would remain a high-priced niche product. Johnson is seeking to exploit the dread that @neroden recently suggested, which is concern in investors about the upcoming change is sales and marketing.

My theory is that with afternoon volume being light enough, well placed selling in spurts by shorts was a major catalyst in the dip. Take a look at the chart above. The climb that was threatening to bring TSLA into the green was reversed about 1:50pm-1:55pm when 92,000 shares were sold in this short timespan. The chart shows three other selling spurts which all add up to less than 350K shares (less than 2% of the daily volume), but these four selling frenzies very much established and protected the dip into close.

With the exception of the final 15-20 minutes of trading, the NASDAQ was up to neutral and no news of consequence came out during the afternoon that I am aware of.

Both the NASDAQ and the Dow closed near neutral today.

Although the percent of selling tagged to shorts decreased today to 56% (still a high number), we saw a push in the afternoon that very much looked like some heavy lifting by shorty.

Here's the tech chart. Two hours before close the SP hovered near to the lower bb, which is where you'd expect it to be after today's dip but no news of great substance. The dip well below the lower bb on no news and in light trading hours on a day with neutral macros is rather bizarre. Such behavior suggests manipulation to me, but I am certainly open-minded for other explanations.

Production vs. Deliveries
Here's a link to the main TMC threat where @hacer suggests an explanation of how Alpha Hat determines when a Tesla has been delivered to a customer. Alpha Hat has projected significantly higher deliveries by Tesla than our usual sources, and if the methodology is good we might give their statements more credibility.

Conditions:
* Dow down 13 (0.05%)
* NASDAQ down 1 (0.2%)
* TSLA 276.54, down 8.82 (3.09%)
* TSLA volume 18.8M shares
* Oil 56.09
* Percent of selling tagged to TSLA shorts: 56%

 

[Papafox]

Wow, today was an entire day of "whack the mole." Strong trading in pre-market hours suggested today could be strong, and even though we saw pressure from the shorts leading into market hours, within 3 minutes TSLA was climbing fast and had to be bopped with the sledgehammer, to keep the rally from turning into something big. I counted around 18 crosses of the red/green line today as shorts sold as necessary to contain any TSLA rally that would allow it to close in the green. Finally, in the last minutes of market trading, a big sale of 24K shares allowed TSLA to finish the day 30 cents in the red.

The NASDAQ dipped 0.92% today, which would normally lead to about a 2% drop for TSLA, but it did not.

Stinker of the Day Award
Adam Jonas of Morgan Stanley wins our Stinker of the Day Award for his negative comments about Tesla's upcoming manufacturing in China. Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs both appear to still be miffed by Elon's decision to forego any capital raise using these two institutions (who would have made millions on selling an equity bond) and instead fund Tesla's newest Gigafactory with loans from Chinese banks. To today's good news that the GF3 building should be completed in May, Jonas felt the need to rain on Tesla's parade, as if there's not already sufficient precipitation falling at the Shanghai site. His points were stale (competition, China is unpredictable, etc.) with no point adding any real value to the discussion.

Shorts were tagged with only 38% of the selling today on a day when the manipulations were rampant. When have we seen short % of selling so low in the past year? Twice, when Tesla was near the peak of a climb did we see the short % of selling dip into the 30s. Today did not fit the pattern because it was a false signal. Shorts have been known to move their shorting to non-FINRA exchanges when they are doing something they wish to hide from scrutiny, and judging by today's finish, I can understand why they wished to hide their activity today.

Looking forward to tonight's Supercharger 3 demo. I suspect there will be more than just a supercharger with good charging speed revealed.

Conditions:
* Dow down 133 (0.52%)
* NASDAQ down 70 (0.93%)
* TSLA 276.24, down 0.30 (0.11%)
* TSLA volume 10.3M shares
* Oil 56.13
* Percent of selling tagged to shorts: 38%

 

[Papafox]

After yesterday's day-long "whack the mole" session, I suspected TSLA was ready to climb higher today, and we saw an increase of over $6 before the afternoon fade began. Looking below at the NASDAQ chart, you can see the NASDAQ began a downward trajectory after about 1:00pm. Normally, TSLA would lose about 2% on a day when the NASDAQ is down 1%, but just as with yesterday, TSLA outperformed the market and even closed with a small gain. Was the TSLA dip simply a response to the NASDAQ dip? If you compare the two charts you'll see that the TSLA dip began around 12:00pm while the NASDAQ was still heading upwards, so I doubt it.

My take? Shorts set up a dip for TSLA on a slope that would easily get the stock to close in the red. The NASDAQ going into a dip itself one hour later only made the job of the shorts easier. When the NASDAQ turned around and started climbing after 3:00pm, the shorts sold enough to keep TSLA in the red for the close, but they just didn't have enough ammo to hold back the buyers and we inched into the green for the close.

TSLA shorts likely set up a descent to get TSLA into the red before close, but the rebound of the NASDAQ in the final hour made their job too difficult.

The NASDAQ lost 1.13% today. TSLA outperformed the NASDAQ yesterday and today, showing a tendency of wanting to rise.

Shorts were tagged with 44% of TSLA selling today. More importantly, though, for the last two days we've seen a big upturn in short interest, to the tune of about half a million shares a day. You can do lots of damage with that many shares deployed at just the wrong times.

Looking at the technical chart, you can see that TSLA has been doing a fair amount of rising and falling the past few days, but shorts are expending the resources needed to keep the closing price from changing much. Yesterday I took advantage of the manipulations by buying some trading shares at end of after-market trading and selling today before the big afternoon fall. I'll try again for a purchase today and sell tomorrow if a downtrend develops. If one doesn't all the better.

At some point, though, TSLA will rise because it seldom just sits here on the lower bb and stagnates. We saw a jump above 280 at the beginning of after-hours trading as word arrived that the China loans for GF3 have come through and a substantial increase is available for the ABL line of credit so that several hundreds of millions of dollars of liquidity has now been freed up. If tomorrow is a green day with the macros, it'll take considerable effort to hold TSLA back from climbing.

Conditions:
* Dow down 200 (0.78%)
* NASDAQ down 84 (1.13%)
* TSLA 276.59, up 0.35 (0.13%)
* TSLA volume 9.3M shares
* Oil: 56.49
* Percent of selling tagged to short-sellers: 44%

 

[Papafox]

Holding my trading shares over the weekend. TSLA looks too strong.

 

[MP3Mike]

Holding my trading shares over the weekend. TSLA looks too strong.

Expect an overreaction from the market on Monday from this: Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the 2019 Investors' Roundtable (Assuming he actually releases anything that appears relevant.)

 

[roblab]

I'm seeing a lot of dread among longs about the store closings, which explains a lot of the skittishness. I think it's a great move, but then I was recommending it several years back, sooooo.

I've been long since 2006 and I have never shed a tear of dread over store closings nor am I skittish. I bought both of my cars on line, easy peasy, don't need no stores. Don't need no service, either, so what is everyone crying about?? I'm in California and my dealer is hundred fifteen miles away, same as the Factory, and I have not been to a service center in 175,000 miles of driving, other than to pick up my Model 3.

Shorts are just playing games. The stock always goes down in the winter, is up July and August, and if you're long it doesn't matter. How in the world is it critical to not have a showroom in every town? It's not.

This isn't a gas car.

 

[Papafox]

To put today's trading into perspective, please step back in time with me to last Friday, when we saw the first full day of trading after Tesla's announcement of the SR version of Model 3 about to be shipped and the moving of all its orders to online only.

* Fri., March 1- A number of investors apparently became concerned after store closings while the majority of us took a more open view, and with someone (shorts I strongly suspect because of 66% share of selling tagged to them) began selling like madmen starting a couple minutes after market open, TSLA lost $25 that day on volume of 22M shares. The tactic is simple: shorts start selling hard on market open to give investors with some doubt about Friday's news the impression that big investors are selling big on the news and they should too if they know what is good for them. Unfortunately, many investors took the bait.
* Mon., March 4- This was a continuation of last Friday's big losses and high volume, but with both less than the previous trading day, Shorts were tagged with 66% of the selling, again.
* Tues,, March 5- This was another down day with an enormous MMD that nearly hit 270 then almost bounced all the way back to the 295 beginning price. Thus it was the first serous hint of a bottom. Unfortunately, shorts began selling after 2pm and engineered a dip on steroids into close with a 56% share of selling tagged to them. Dusaniwsky's "short sight" reported that short interest grew by more than 500K shares this day.
* Wed., March 6- The entire day was a game of whack the mole as TSLA gyrated up and down between green and red and closed slightly negative. Why do I think the 38% of selling tagged to shorts was an indication of short manipulators moving their shorting to non FINRA exchanges? The gyrations indicate intervention by shorts, coupled with Dusaniwsky's revelation that again short interest grew by over 500K this day. I generally regard a whack the mole day as an indication the trading is about to turn positive. With negative macros and the NASDAQ descending throughout the afternoon, TSLA's performance showed strength.
* Thurs., March 7- Yesterday, TSLA rallied and exceeded 284 before the shorts began a push down an hour before the NASDAQ began its descent into close. TSLA closed a fraction in the red and once again showed strength against the macros.
* Fri., March 8- Today TSLA gained over $7 on yet another day with negative macros. Fortunately, the NASDAQ was climbing in the afternoon, which is the vulnerable time for TSLA. Looking at the chart above, you can see that volume didn't fall off much in the afternoon, suggesting that investors grew wise to the pattern of shorts selling in the afternoon and many waited to afternoon for their buying. The result was that shorts lacked the horsepower to sink the stock, and after the NASDAQ and TSLA both started climbing after 3:15pm, a good day for TSLA was pretty much assured.

The days were a progression from fear to bullishness, with lots of short manipulations thrown in. Wednesday suggested it was the turning point, with the full day of whack the mole, and normally Thursday should have been stronger but for a descending NASDAQ and some residual dreads. That all disappeared today, with the longs very much in control.

I fully recognize that the vast majority of selling on a big day of manipulation by shorts is done by longs, along with algobots and market makers with their delta-hedging. What the shorts accomplish with their heavy selling on opening, their MMDs, their capping and their low volume dips on steroids into close, however, is to suggest to longs that someone else is selling because they know better, they know something that you don't know. It's the psychology of suggestion and it works with an unstable stock like TSLA, especially when combined with FUD. Once Tesla evolves into a company that produces lots of positive cash flow every quarter, the dread in long is lessened to the point where the SP no longer bounces from bollinger band to bollinger band like the ball in a pinball machine. Looking forward to that day, it shouldn't be far away.

The NASDAQ opened low but staged a nice comeback in the afternoon, closing only 0.18% down

Shorts were tagged with 40% of TSLA selling today. As you know, I called Wednesday's 38% selling tagged to TSLA as being an effort by shorts to avoid drawing scrutiny to their tactics, and today's 40% and yesterday's 44% are both likely part of the same tactic.

Looking at the technical chart, you can see that the previous 3 days of trading was relatively flat once the ups and downs were evened out. In the past, we have not seen many examples of TSLA trading flat for a prolonged period of time after hitting the lower bb. Generally, we see a bounce, and today looks like the first real day of the bounce.

Below, I include most bounces off the lower bb that we saw during the past 12 months. It's helpful to look for patterns in the bounces to better predict what comes next in the current bounce.

Here's the Dec18/Jan19 double dip. Double dips are not uncommon and the second dip so far this year has typically been less low than the first. The good news is that we typically see a robust climb after the second dip, when one occurs.

Here's the Oct 18 dip, the lowest of the year In a way it's a triple dip because TSLA recovered from dip 1 for one day before revisiting that dip, it started to recover, almost repeated the dip for a third time, then recovered with great speed. Notice how steeply the lower bb was slanting downward and therefore making the second dip easier to engineer. Look at the speed of the recovery after dip 3.

Here's the July 18 dip. It's a double dip off the lower bb, but look at the relatively flat slope of the lower bb which ended up being very good as support. The climb afterwards was dramatic.

Here's the May 18 dip. It was a double-dip off the lower bb, separated by one trading day, and then we entered several days with small prices changes between open and close. The climb eventually steepens and then the climb becomes very robust. I think we're likely to see our current dip perform similarly to the May dip after several days of relatively flat trading. Soon enough the flat trading transitions into a robust climb.

Notice how enthusiastically the stock price climbed once it was established in the uptrend. This is of course because of the unstable nature of TSLA with its high number of shorts (who will do some buying as the recovery kicks into high gear), high ratio of options to shares (causing delta-hedge buying on the run upwards), and the rather instantaneous change in psychology of investors when the SP turns around.

TSLA closed this week at 284.14, down 10.65 from last Friday's 294.79. Looking forward to next week. Over in the main investor thread, they're posting that the delivery timing for various Model 3 cars is increasing, which is good news. Enjoy your weekend.

Conditions:
* Dow down 23 (0.09%)
* NASDAQ down 13 (0.18%)
* TSLA 284.14, up 7.55 (2.73%)
* TSLA volume 8.8M shares
* Oil 56.07
* Percent of selling tagged to TSLA shorts: 40%

 

[PaulusdB]

Max Pain was $285 for the March 8 expiry...

 

[Papafox]

Late Sunday night, Tesla announced that only about half of its stores may be closed (although all sales are still going to be done online) and that there would be an average 3% price increase coming to Model 3 variants other than the $35,000 version after March 18. Personally, I like this solution because the least performing stores get closed, the best stay open for Tesla to better evaluate their contribution, and a price increase (after an opportunity to stoke March sells) of a manageable 3% come to those models which buyers are likely willing to absorb the increase. Those investors and analysts who were fretting about the death of the stores no longer have a big issue. Tesla is free to resume pruning of stores if it feels they're not worth the expense. Basically, the option has been left open to go one way or the other. Making such a quick decision can unsettle the market in the near term, but today was a big up day for macros and so the macro fairy was smiling on a day Tesla could really take advantage of it and TSLA climbed.

Percent of selling by TSLA shorts was low today, 40%, which suggests a little intelligence shown by shorts once the Tesla steamroller picked up some momentum climbing the hill and they were smart enough to stay out of its way. That was not the case early in the morning, however, and bears pulled TSLA down into the red before the beginning of market trading and then we saw a short-lived MMD, followed by a brief session of whack the mole before TSLA climbed away. Notice the attempt to clip Tesla's wings after that first climb. Once TSLA shrugged that attempt off, there was no stopping it for the remainder of the day.

In other news:
* Tesla issues $13.8M worth of stock to buy trailers for transporting Teslas
* The alleged big scoop by Tesla whistleblower attorney Stuart Meissner fails to gain traction

The NASDAQ climbed 2.02% today, with barely a moment to look back over its shoulder on the way up.

Many of you know that 284 has been a strong point of resistance, but TSLA sailed through it today with the help of a monster run of the NASDAQ. Option_Sniper thinks there are higher prices ahead because 294 has fallen.

TSLA shorts were tagged with only 40% of the selling as they stood aside after their morning manipulations and refrained from getting run over by the TSLA steamroller

Looking at the tech chart, you can see the uptrend is nicely defined now. Fortunately, we had lots of warning this time that TSLA was about to bounce. Now, let's climb enough to get that 50 DMA rising above the red 200 DMA, to make our technical traders happy.

Conditions:
* Dow up 201 (0.79%)
* NASDAQ up 150 (2.02%)
* TSLA 290.92, up 6.78 (2.39%)
* TSLA volume 7.4M shares
* Oil: 56.94
* Percent of selling tagged to TSLA shorts: 40%

 

[Papafox]

Today's negative trading pretty much took away yesterday's gains. The selloff was primarily cause when Adam Jonas of Morgan Stanley issued a downgrade to Tesla and voiced concerns that only about 48,000 vehicles would be delivered in Q1.

Meanwhile, the flip side of that argument appeared as Wolfe Research's Rod Lache said he had recently spoken with Tesla executives and Tesla is selling every car that they can produce.

Who should we believe? I certainly feel the 48,000 number is low, given the high output of Model 3s this quarter. Shipments to China and Europe are now completed for the quarter. It's entirely possible that some cars will not get delivered, but with about 40,000 vehicles on those ships, Jonas's numbers look too low. Consider, too, the rate at which Model 3 has been rolling off the production line this year. If you figure 13 weeks at 6K/wk, that's 78K M3s produced, plus some S&Xs (expect S and X to be lower in Q1), so Jonas's model would require something in excess of 30K Teslas to be somewhere without homes at quarter's end. Unless there's a giant sea monster gobbling up RORO ships and their contents at the edge of the earth, I don't think so.

Looking at the estimated delivery times for various Tesla vehicles, all are at 2 weeks, with the exception of SR+ with 2 to 4 week estimated wait time and SR with 4 to 6 week waits. These numbers, particularly when you consider that SR and SR+ are at reduced production pacing right now, suggest that the full impact of the recent price cuts has not clearly eliminated the Q1 dip in demand here in North America that we've been talking about for weeks now.

Likely, we're going to see a big rush in the final two weeks of the quarter as European and Chinese ships offload their Teslas and hopefully we see a positive response to the sale that is going on until March 16 for order placing. Looks like another nail-biter ahead, and I wouldn't want to be betting short term. Again, long term we'll see the needed demand as SR and SR+ increase in production numbers. The good news is that SR and SR+ are now officially available and families can at last make informed purchasing plans for the coming year.

The NASDAQ closed up 0.44% today and with a possible exception of a dip around 3pm, there wasn't much correlation between TSLA and the NASDAQ

In other news, when the NASDAQ updated their short numbers today, Dusaniwsky adjusted his numbers upward by about a million shares, so we're seeing about 22% of TSLA shares shorted at present. I also inquired about whether the "short sight" email numbers include some changes on the morning of the email or whether they're strictly for the previous day. Here's his answer:

Shorts were tagged with 40% of TSLA selling today. Ever since the % of selling numbers plummeted from the 60s to the high 30s and low 40s, I've been skeptical of the reason for such a dramatic drop and looking at the quantity of icicle type dips in TSLA today I'm inclined to believe the shorts are still manipulating away but with many short shares obtained outside of FINRA monitoring.



Conditions:
* Dow down 96 (0.38%)
* NASDAQ up 33 (0.44%)
* TSLA 283.36, (2.60%)
* TSLA volume 7.5M shares
* Oil 57.17
* Percent of selling tagged to TSLA shorts: 40%

 

[Papafox]

Today's mandatory morning dip was so small a microscope might be needed to see it, and such a quick defeat of the MMD set TSLA up for a green day. Why the optimism after yesterday's red? Part of the ironic reason was Goldman's hit piece. GS's David Tamberrino wished to restate his sell rating for TSLA (and the sun still rises in the east), and pronounce an abysmally low $210 price target. The problem with giving a super-lowball delivery number such as Jonas did yesterday is that such a number might lower the FactSet expectations of deliveries and make it more difficult to declare Q1 a miss. So, Tamberrino stuck with his 57,500 deliveries estimate, which made Jonas's numbers nearly 10,000 lower look rather silly, and he thereby removed some worry investors were having after Jonas's low estimate yesterday. So, it now appears that analysts have to make up their mind to either overstate the results in order to help call a miss on deliveries day or understate the deliveries (like Jonas) and do some damage to the stock in the short run. You can't have both.

Probably the biggest help to the SP today were expectations about Thursday's upcoming Model Y reveal. I'd expect some additional green on Thursday morning and then perhaps some derisking in the afternoon. We'll see.

The NASDAQ had a good day, gaining 0.69%. TSLA and the NASDAQ charts are both positive but otherwise there's no perceivable correlation between the two.

Short percentage of selling remained suspiciously low at 37%

Today's climb has reinforced TSLA's status of climbing. The Model Y reveal event will either propel TSLA higher or serve as a sell the news event, depending upon what we learn during the event.

Conditions:
* Dow up 148 (0.58%)
* NASDAQ up 52 (0.69%)
* TSLA 288.96, up 5.60 (1.98%)
* TSLA volume 6.8M shares
* Oil 58.37
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to short-sellers: 37%

 

[Sudre]

I am wondering if the shorts are saving ammo (cash) to attempt to make the Y reveal look like a flop by massively shorting Friday morning... maybe even start now before the reveal to imply some bad news leaked.

 

[Papafox]

I am wondering if the shorts are saving ammo (cash) to attempt to make the Y reveal look like a flop by massively shorting Friday morning... maybe even start now before the reveal to imply some bad news leaked.

That's entirely possible, it fits with their history. That said, remember that raising the percent of TSLA selling by shorts number doesn't necessarily mean that short interest is changing. Rather, it's an indication (to me) that shorts are doing short-interest-neutral selling and buying paired together for purposes of manipulations.

 

[Papafox]

To no one's great surprise, TSLA has a lively opening, but the stock went up faster than I would have suspected and when it fell from the peak, that was the signal for those longs who want to derisk before the Model Y event to get out. The stock price overreacted, went red momentarily, and then experienced another climb and dip as traders positioned themselves (plus or minus) for the event. There was a rather deep dip (short lived) in after-hours trading which some explained as the result of FUD stating that Elon was no longer on the Tesla board. That FUD was quickly proven false and TSLA recovered.

In other news:
* Zach Kirkhorn begins role as CFO, Vaibhav Taneja as Chief Accounting Officer. Tesla likely made the official announcement today to bury the news in the Model Y coming stream of news.
* China allows Model 3s to proceed through customs . In the past week I've become more bullish about Q1. It's going to be a guessing game, but with maybe 40,000 M3s on ships to Europe and Asia and with demand in North America apparently keeping pace with production, it's going to be a wild end of the quarter delivery rush that could go well if all falls into place and could come up short if logistical issues pop up. Best strategy: bet long term so that you can take the gain or sit through the speedbump until it recovers, whatever the case may be.
* Ron Baron tells why he is big on Tesla. It's always refreshing to hear why such a successful investor as Ron Baron continues to be so positive on Tesla.

The NASDAQ lost a smidgen today (0.12%) and didn't exert much effect upon TSLA's trading

Looking at the tech chart, you can see the trend continues upward into the Model Y event. The bad news is that once the Model Y event is through, if the news doesn't generate positive traction with the stock price, we've lost a short-term catalyst that has helped with the past week's climb. The good news? Once the Q1 P&D report and then ER and CC are out of the way, the dread that has had a negative impact on TSLA will be gone. That's for unsurprising results. For noticeably good or bad results, the SP will respond accordingly.

Model Y reveal begins at 8:00pm Pacific time tonight. Hoping for a positive surprise.

Conditions:
* Dow up 7 (0.03%)
* NASDAQ down 13 (0.12%)
* TSLA 289.96, up 1.00 (0.35%)
* TSLA volume 7.1M shares
* Oil 58.55
* Percent of selling tagged to TSLA shorts: 41%

 

[madodel]

View attachment 386396There was a rather deep dip (short lived) in after-hours trading which some explained as the result of FUD stating that Elon was no longer on the Tesla board. That FUD was quickly proven false and TSLA recovered.

Today it was announced that Kimbal Musk is stepping down from Chipotle’s board of directors. Perhaps people are too stupid to comprehend that there is more than one person with the last name of Musk who is a corporate board member. Or some scumbag shorts saw it as a way to deceive people as they are apt to do.