Papafox's Daily TSLA Trading Charts

[Papafox]

How Short Selling Percentage Is Calculated

Shortvolume.com receives their data from FINRA, a private entity that is tasked with monitoring certain aspects of the stock markets. On their website the following explanation of short percentage is given:

"Pursuant to a Securities and Exchange Commission request, FINRA has agreed to make reported short sale trade data publicly available."

Notice that they say short sale data and not short transactions. Looks like the "sell to open" transactions are what they monitor. I looked at data from Friday and here it is:

Date|Symbol|ShortVolume|ShortExemptVolume|TotalVolume|Market
20180406|TSLA|2854214|4762|5389970|Q

You can see that when you divide the short volume of 2.85M by the total volume of 5.39M you get 52%, which was indeed the short percentage of trading for Friday. Why they are looking at volume of only 5.39M when TSLA had a volume of 13.2M shares is unclear. Anyone know the answer? In any event, if we're only looking at the selling side of the short equation, covering by shorts would not register on the percentage of short-selling numbers. That's the way way I see it, at least.

 

[neroden]

FWIW, Schwab wants to borrow my shares again... apparently the short-sellers are selling so hard they're running out of shares to borrow. Again.

 

[MacRocket]

FWIW, Schwab wants to borrow my shares again... apparently the short-sellers are selling so hard they're running out of shares to borrow. Again.

What interest rate are they offering?

 

[ValueAnalyst]

What interest rate are they offering?

Not sure about Schwab, but I've seen fee rates between 3% to 5% and rebate rates about half of that... changes wildly from broker to broker, but rates should continue to increase as Model 3 production ramps, and bears stick to their guns, as most undoubtedly will.

 

[Papafox]

I'll have to give the shorts and their cooperative media outlets credit for some nice manipulations today. Notice how ragged the climb was to the daily high this morning? The shorts kept selling to force TSLA down but it kept popping higher. The NASDAQ stayed high until about 2pm and then began a descent while TSLA peaked before 11am and then began the long descent. Reuters and other media picked up a story from China about the (yawn) power-steer bolt recall that was old news last week but by recycling the China version of the same story they managed to create concern in longs who weren't clever enough to tell this was recycled old news. By 12:30pm, shorts were playing a game of whack-the-mole. In the closing hour, word of the FBI raid on Trump's lawyer's office set the market on edge and it started down, but keenly-executed dip on steroids allowed TSLA to descend considerably faster than the rest of the market. How do shorts reload after such an adventure? They buy in the final minute of trading and thereby avoid changing the SP. Thus, over 565,000 shares traded hands in that final minute.

The NASDAQ peaked between noon and 2pm then fell on political news not-directly related to economics

Shorts accounted for about 1% lower TSLA trading than on Friday. Meanwhile, the cost to borrow shares of TSLA to short continue to rise, indicating lots of pressure to acquire more short shares

I still feel that TSLA should do well this week. Monday's trading was a really nice setup for manipulations by shorts. In contrast, the markets should be happy Tuesday morning upon word of decreased threat of a trade war after China's Xi spoke of lower automobile tariffs and also making manufacturing of autos in China more open for foreign automakers. These developments stand to help Tesla considerably and so we should see some additional upward push from the news on Tuesday.

Conditions:
* Dow up 46 (0.19%)
* NASDAQ up 35 (0.51%)
* TSLA 289.66, down 9.64 (3.22%)
* TSLA volume 10.3M shares
* Oil 64.20, up 0.78 (1.23%)

 

[Papafox]

Today the good news about TSLA could be ignored no longer and TSLA had a 5%+ rise. Congratulations longs. The Bloomberg Model 3 production tracker indicates 2394 M3/wk production rate at last check, which is very bullish. Add in good news from China regarding auto tariffs and auto building by foreigners within China, and the bears simply could not succeed today.

No doubt the shorts and their allies tried, however. Goldman tried to rain on Tesla's parade but nobody paid attention. Shares purchased during the first and last minute of the day totaled about half a million shares, which suggests hefty covering for short-selling activity yesterday and today. We saw a mandatory morning dip that got snipped before it could find red this morning and then lots of plunges throughout the day that were neutralized by buyers. Check out the action after 3pm as shorts tried to plunge TSLA into the close in light trading (a favorite tactic these days).

Looking at the technical chart, you can see what the technical types like to refer to as an inverted head and shoulders formation, which is bullish. TSLA has now been consolidating in the 300ish area after recovering from its deep plunge but now needs to climb out of the shoulder. A climb back to more reasonable levels for this stock looks possible from here. As long as good news continues, as long as the macros behave, and as long as the next FBI probe doesn't find Stormy Daniels and Vladamir Putin sleeping together in the Lincoln Bedroom, we have a continued opportunity to climb from here.

Conditions:
* Dow up 429 (1.79%)
* NASDAQ up 144 (2.07%)
* TSLA 304.70, up 15.04 (5.19%)
* TSLA volume 10.7M shares
* Oil 65.54, up 2.12 (3.34%)

 

[Papafox]

Today was one of those days when I thought TSLA would be doing the whack-a-mole for the entire day. Finally, about 2:40pm the NASDAQ started losing ground and shorts saw this as an opportunity to engineer a dip on steroids to exaggerate the macro's influence. Thus, the NASDAQ was down 0.36% while TSLA dropped 1.28% on the combination of whack-a-mole pressure for most of the day and a dip on steroids at day's end.

Elon will appear on CBS's morning show on Friday (originally scheduled for Thursday) and we'll get a chance to see the hugely-automated Model 3 assembly line. Shorts probably are trying to gain a little ground before an event that has the potential to raise the SP. Stay tuned.

Most interesting is the bigger picture when you place the tech chart above the short percentage of TSLA selling chart. You can see that in late February as TSLA approached a high just shy of 360, the short percentage of trading started rising rapidly, suggesting a big short push was coming (wish I had figured it out then!). The mid-60% short trading numbers persisted through the drive down to the 290s and then through the deep dip and recovery into 300ish territory. It has only been with the unavailability of additional shares to short that we've seen the short percentage of trading dip. Notice that today it has retreated to a much more typical 46%.

Notice the exceptionally high volume on the dip to 244.59 and the recover above 295. A positive sign is that volume has retreated today back to more typical numbers, which suggests investors have resumed a wait and see approach rather than actively trading their shares.

The big question is this: with the short percentage of trading dropping off this month-long high level, what are the implications for us longs? Judging by the apparent whack-a-mole tactics being put to use as well as the dip on steroids we saw today, I'm inclined to believe that the shorts are still wielding considerable influence on TSLA. This is possible with 46% of selling done by shorts because if there's far less churning of shares (selling-buying-selling-buying) and instead more straight selling into new positions, a smaller percentage of selling by shorts can still be significant because you don't have the buying that also goes along with churning. A note today from S3 Partners lists shorts as holding $10.7B worth of TSLA, which, if you used 303 as a SP at the time the computation computes to shorts holding nearly 35 million shares of TSLA, which is very high and not likely to get considerably higher. Borrowing rates are way up in the past two weeks. What I'm watching is when the number of shares held by shorts levels off and assuming the percentage of trading done by shorts remains well below the mid-60s (because shares are not readily available for those who churn the shares multiple times during a day), perhaps then we will see the significant reduction in influence wielded by short manipulations. The other key point is that when longs get serious about buying TSLA, no amount of manipulations by shorts matter and the price will rise. The exception to this statement is that if longs have a considerable dread at the time of manipulations, then the manipulations are far more likely to succeed (such as a very positive ER before the Solar City merger that could not hold its gains due to longs with dread of the merger allowing the manipulations to overwhelm their better judgments.

So, let's see what happens as the shares held by shorts stabilizes and the trading by shorts remains well below the mid-60s. My guess is that the shorts will then have less success with their manipulations.

Looking at fundamentals, lots of evidence continues to come forward that the Model 3 ramp-up is accelerating. Photos of Fremont parking lots show LOTS of Model 3s and the image below by Bloomberg from their Model 3 tracker page should send shivers down the spines of the shorts, due to a trend of 3,000 M3s/week if the ramp continues to accelerate at this pace. As long as macros don't tank, I think longs are going to win this short-term grudge-match between shorts and longs.and determine TSLA's direction up or down from its current price range.

Conditions:
* Dow down 219 (0.90%)
* NASDAQ down 25 (0.36%)
* TSLA 300.93, down 3.77 (1.24%)
* TSLA volume 7.3M shares
* Oil 66.82, up 1.31 (2.00%)

 

[Lbkmxp100d]

@Papafox, I can’t thank you enough for the charts and breakdown of action during trading.

I have a few questions.
Why do you think shorts aren’t covering and instead staying in the game? My thought is that many my have puts expiring shortly and they are trying anything they can to keep price down.

Do you think the model Y news and Elon enterview will push price up or do you think shorts have the ability to cover?

What volume in shares by buyers do you think it would take for shorts to not be able to keep the lid on the price?

 

[Papafox]

@Papafox, I can’t thank you enough for the charts and breakdown of action during trading.

I have a few questions.
Why do you think shorts aren’t covering and instead staying in the game? My thought is that many my have puts expiring shortly and they are trying anything they can to keep price down.

Do you think the model Y news and Elon enterview will push price up or do you think shorts have the ability to cover?

What volume in shares by buyers do you think it would take for shorts to not be able to keep the lid on the price?

Two sources give a good idea of net covering vs. net expansion of short interests: S3 Partners (Ihor Dusaniwsky) twitter posts have a good handle on short shares outstanding for TSLA. Reports on the various threads about interest charged for shorting TSLA gives us an idea of demand for shares. Right now increased fees for borrowing TSLA shares tells us that demand has been growing for shares to short, which tells us short interest is growing (unless there's a reason for institutions recalling shares to short, which isn't presently the case).

Model Y production date is still a rumor and not likely to affect SP at present

I had always thought there was a volume level where shorts couldn't keep their typical percentage of selling, but in the past weeks as TSLA approached 20 million trade volume, shorts managed to churn enough short shares over and over again to maintain a mid-60s% portion of the selling. Of course they had to do lots of buying (covering) to make the selling possible, but I just haven't seen a volume level where they don't keep up. Instead, when longs see Tesla worth more from news and developments and there's a sudden move to buy, then shorts cannot affect the stampede. The price is going up.

What I mostly like about being part of this community is that we're right now seeing and sharing indications of tremendous progress in Model 3 production ramp and the market doesn't yet get it. It will, though, soon enough, and that's when the fun begins.

 

[Lbkmxp100d]

Great insight @Papafox and much appreciated!

 

[Papafox]

Whereas most of yesterday was a game of whack-the-mole by shorts, today was an up day for the broader markets that required a sizable mandatory morning dip to send the day traders scurrying. The day then evolved into a series of dips and recoveries that lasted until about 3:20pm, at which time TSLA had recovered to within a penny of $300. The broader indexes took a small dip towards close and that's all the shorts needed as an excuse for pushing hard to exit the day with a deep dip on steroids that didn't give the market time to correct (as it did with the previous 10 dips of the day.

Might the final dip have been related to the NTSB quarrel with Tesla regarding the Model X accident? I don't think so because news of the NTSB being the one that initiated the expulsion of Tesla from the investigation was already out in the morning. Might the NTSB recommend that autopilot be discontinued because of this accident? Not at all likely, since less capable versions of autopilot have already resulted in a 40% decline in accidents and since by the time the NTSB completes its investigation, autopilot will have matured so significantly that any criticisms of the autopilot software used in the accident vehicle will be criticisms of a product that no longer exists. From my aviation background, I know that NTSB gets preliminary findings out much quicker than the final report, but the preliminary findings should not include any recommendations.

How then could TSLA have dipped so deeply in the final minutes of trading, then? Look at the short percentage of trading image below, please.

Short percentage of trading was nearly 59% today, a noticeable reversal of the declining trend. My interpretation: shorts used whatever short selling was necessary to achieve their goal of dropping Tesla today as much as possible. If they rely on this technique of late-afternoon dips, however, clever longs will start waiting to end of day to pick up TSLA at discount rates and we will see a rebound before the SP changes anywhere near as much as it did today. Stock traders do indeed learn and adjust their tactics, just as the shorts are doing.

What the shorts are trying to engineer is some type of fear in longs so that they get another flash crash like the one that sent TSLA below 250. The problem is that things have changed in a very positive way at TSLA since that dip and it's not likely to be repeated. More likely, we have seen shorts using brute muscle as well as cunning to slowly erode the SP of TSLA, only to see one big up day for the stock where those small gains are all erased. History has a tendency to repeat itself.

Friday morning we should see a CBS morning news story about the Model 3 production line. Can't wait. Here's hoping that Elon can help viewers and market participants realize that Model 3 production is way up from just two weeks ago.

Conditions:
* Dow up 294 (1.21%)
* NASDAQ up 71 (1.01%)
* TSLA 294.08, down 6.85 (2.28%)
* TSLA volume 7.2M shares
* Oil 66.83, down 0.24 (0.36%)

 

[Lbkmxp100d]

It will be interesting to see today’s chart. It wanted to shoot up but every time it tried getting momentum the shorts loaded up. What a crazy day of trading!

 

[Papafox]

With the broader markets down today but TSLA up, there was no doubt that buyers wanted in, especially if you look at the pre-market trading. Two events helped propel TSLA higher today, CBS morning news coverage of Elon in the Model 3 factory and talking about other items, and Elon's tweet that reaffirms his expectations of profits and positive cash flow in Q3 and Q4 this year.

One particularly important piece of information coming from the TV interview today was that the GF1 (and therefore the battery modules) are still the bottleneck with M3 production. Tesla produced over 2000 Model 3s this week and with the typical burst-mode testing that companies use when ramping up production, Tesla probably already knows they can do well over 2000 Model 3s/wk at Fremont now. This is great news because when the Grohmann line is up and running at GF! in the Reno area, we will see a substantial increase in M3 production.

Unfortunately, yesterday was the day when the broader markets would have better supported Tesla's good news, and we did see TSLA dragged down a bit in the morning by a sinking NASDAQ and again around 3pm for the same reason. Each of these dips was exaggerated, which suggests the shorts were at work limiting damage. Check out how deep and how steep the 10:15am and 3:20pm valleys are and you will realize they were artificial creations that were eventually rejected by the market. Also, you can see smaller peaks that were quickly drawn down at times when the broader markets were neutral to up (suggesting again that shorts were busy limiting the damage).

Friday's NASDAQ chart

Looking at the short percentage of trading chart, you can see that shorts managed to find the shares to elevate their mischief today. Whether the extra shares are from more longs responding to the higher interest rates paid or whether some shorts are bowing out and covering, it's hard to determine quite yet, but the higher percentage of trading by shorts the past two days suggests that shares are becoming easier to find for shorting.

Looking at the technical chart, you can see that TSLA is creating a mightly wide left shoulder to the inverted head and shoulders formation and seriously consolidating at the 300ish price range. This consolidation is problematic for the shorts, who have been selling the idea that TSLA's run up from 250 to 300 was just a lark and the stock was quickly going to return to where it belongs. Oops.

For the week, TSLA closed at 300.34, up 1.04 from last week's 299.30. That doesn't sound like a big deal, but it really has been a good week for Tesla, and here's why. We've literally seen millions of additional shares taken up by the shorts in the past couple weeks and yet TSLA rose over $33 last week and put in a positive showing this week too. Considering the immense resources the shorts have been throwing at TSLA, gaining a dollar and holding onto the $33 gain of last week is an accomplishment. You will know when the Grohmann line is up and running well because shortly thereafter we'll see a nice bump upward in Model 3 production (and a nice bump up in the SP too, I imagine). Can't wait. Have a good weekend.

Conditions:
* Dow down 123 (0.50%)
* NASDAQ down 34 (0.47%)
* TSLA 300.34, up 6.26 (2.13%)
* TSLA volume 7.0M shares
* Oil 67.39, up 0.32 (0.48%)

 

[Papafox]

Market Action: 2018 Investor Roundtable

Today was a nice up day for the broader markets. In TSLA pre-market trading, investors were rather ambivalent about running the SP up or down. Of course that all changed on open as the mandatory morning dip kicked in hard. As usual, it had spikes downward (can you say short-selling?) which were reversed by buyers taking advantage of the discount on TSLA, with half the losses pretty much removed by 1pm. Then we saw another dip and then a news-related dip around 3pm which was discounted into the close. So, now TSLA is trading towards the bottom of the recent trading range. A further dip occured about 7pm in after-hours trading as word got out that Tesla will be doing a pause in Model 3 production for a few days as the company tweaks the assembly line. This is an entirely normal process when ramping up a production line, and it is especially appropriate because when the Model 3 line restarts, it will have both a better production rate (from the changes performed) and it will also have an accumulation of Model 3 battery modules to work with since there's no reason to stop production at GF1, the bottleneck for Model 3 at the moment. Nonetheless, expect to see some weakness in the stock tomorrow as the shorts run wild with this idea of the Model 3 line shut down.

How have the shorts achieved such a negative view of the Model 3 ramp? I think it goes back to Elon's CBS interview last week in which he confessed to using too much automation. He specifically referred to an elaborate parts conveyor system that has since been removed, but some media outlets of compromised journalistic talent reported that the too much automation referred to too many robots (which is not at all true). So now you have shorts thinking the pause is to try to sort out a Fremont assembly line that is gorked by too many robots when in fact the reality is that the pause is yet another tweaking session to speed up the line. If you have dry powder you may want to take advantage of the discount after this silliness bottoms out (my dry powder is almost gone from a buying session when TSLA was trading at 250).

Another issue that has confused the bears and shorts is the Bloomberg Model 3 production tracker. As you might remember, I suggested when Tesla acquired two exceptionally-large groups of VIN numbers to assign, the likely break from tradition was to foil attempts at following Tesla's Model 3 production quantities too easily. These changes have helped throw a wrench into Bloomberg's estimates because they went from about 2400/wk to a projection of 3,000/wk (too high by my observations) to a trend of 4,000/wk, and then this morning rolled the numbers back to a trend of less than the 2800+/wk that they're currently looking at. If Tesla meant to confuse the production number guessers, I think they succeeded brilliantly if Bloomberg is any indication.

I'm going to guess that Tesla will be producing over 3,000 M3/wk when the early May 1Q ER takes place, and we will likely see burst runs that are over 4,000 M3/wk. The 1Q financials are going to be disappointing (everyone already knows that), but if a month into Q2 Tesla is already well on its way to the 5,000/wk Model 3 production pace, then I suspect the financials will be forgiven and emphasis will fall on profitable Q3 and Q4 that will happen because of the significant Model 3 production ramp-up.

This post in the market action thread shows a nearly million shares change in available shares to short at one brokerage today. Notice the interest rate that shorts are paying.

Conditions:
* Dow up 212 (0.87%)
* NASDAQ up 50 (0.70%)
* TSLA 291.21, down 9.13 (3.04%)
* TSLA volume 6.15M shares
* Oil 66.58, up 0.38 (0.54%)

 

[Papafox]

Today's trading was classic short manipulations combined with a bit of undeserved fears about a few days pause in the Model 3 production line, during a positive day for the broader markets. We began with a deep mandatory morning dip that included selling as high as 75,000 shares in a minute to try to get the stop loss targets to trigger as shorts pushed for a deep dip. Alas, longs stopped the plunge not far below 284 and bid the SP up until it turned green for the day. Interestingly, Option Sniper called for a dip to 284 before TSLA turned around and started its run higher. Nice call. We saw a few games of whack-a-mole as shorts sold as necessary to keep TSLA from venturing into the green, and then the usual push downward into close took place (without a decline in NASDAQ, btw), but with a twist as buyers started bidding the SP back up 20 minutes from close. Yep, buyers learn when shorts repeat the same strategy too often. The market day ended at 4pm as nearly 200,000 shares traded hands in the final minute (can you say shorts reloading after today's short-selling?)

Yesterday the short's percentage of trading climbed 3% to 61%. Today one of the brokerage houses reduced interest on borrowing short shares, and I suppose that means that some short covering was done. We may well have seen shares shorted max out a couple days ago and beginning heading down. Finally.

The really cool part of the day came in after-market trading when electrek.co released this story about Elon's most recent letter to employees, talking about the Model 3 pause being used to increase production capability so that production jumps to 3,000-4,000 M3/wk in May (who could possibly have seen that coming??, hehe) and a burst mode capability of 6,000 M3/wk by end of June so as to ensure 5,000/wk by end of quarter. When this story broke, TSLA climbed into the green after hours, but then the shorts have played a game of whack-a-mole to suggest that nothing of consequence is happening. Something of consequence is indeed happening, however, as 5,000 M3/wk makes Tesla a profitable company with positive cash flow and sends the SP over 400 at last. Of course there's no guarantees that these numbers will be reached, but Elon believes they can be within two months, which is mighty encouraging to me. If you bought shares at 284 today, pat yourself on the back.

Unless the macros are in the dumpster tomorrow, I would expect a positive day for TSLA.

Conditions:
* Dow up 214 (0.87%)
* NASDAQ up 125 (1.74%)
* TSLA 287.69, down 3.52 (1.21%)
* TSLA volume 6.7M shares
* Oil 66.67, up 0.45 (0.68%)

 

[Papafox]

Here's the end of after-market trading with TSLA up $6.80 above the market close price. Such a nice jump bodes well for tomorrow's trading.

TSLA shorts traded 60% of Tesla shares today, down from 61% yesterday. Shortvolume.com has missed reporting TSLA short data for the past two trading days and so I am getting the data directly from the FINRA site.

 

[Papafox]

With good news about China loosening up restrictions on 100% foreign ownership of EV manufacturing this year, and with a leaked letter to employees by Elon calling for burst mode of 6,000 M3s/wk in June to ensure 5,000/wk production rate, TSLA had a good after-hours session yesterday and built on it this morning (only to have much of it chiseled away by afternoon).

The day began with an immediate mandatory morning dip as shorts wanted to get the message across to traders that Elon's letter yesterday was P.T. Barnum poppycock and nothing more, but before the dip could find red, buyers began a rally that took TSLA to spitting distance from 300. At this point, with the rally based upon an optimistic letter but no hard evidence to insure that the plan would indeed work as planned, short sellers started jumping in and playing a lucrative day-trade game, which is the slow descent to close, started way early in the morning. With enough shares available, a short can sell in a big block at a high number to reinforce the descent and then slowly cover in small increments, then repeat the process and do so profitably, as long as the trend is a descent, and with so many shorts frothing for a chance to get in, the descent becomes a rather self-perpetuating maneuver. Remember when I said that sharp traders learn to anticipate a repeated pattern such as the descent into close? Shorts have used that technique too frequently lately and now you see traders who will buy at the end of the day and then sell in the morning the next day to take advantage of the pop in SP. I believe that is what we saw today because if you look at the NASDAQ chart below, you can see that after 3pm the NASDAQ was in a noticeable descent while TSLA was climbing.

There's much misinformation out there which is throttling the buying back a bit right now (volume of only 6.4 million shares today) and I again bring your attention to the widespread misinformation that Elon needs to eliminate robots to get the Model 3 production line working better.

Here's a story from oilprice.com that mistakenly takes Elon's statements about the conveyor system and substitutes "robots" instead. The problem with suggesting that robots are the problem is that the concept implies that there will be very substantial substitution of human labor for those robots they pull out. This substitution of labor for failed robots is then supposed to gork the yields on Model 3. The problem is that the story simply isn't true.

Speaking to my own brother yesterday about investing in Tesla, he said he recently investigated and decided not to buy because as Tesla replaces inefficient robots with humans, the margins on Model 3 are going to fall substantially, right? I straightened him out, but he's still not willing to buy. The good news is that when this misconception is finally erased during the 1Q ER or sooner, it should provide a nice boost to the SP. The bad news is that the 1Q ER will contain some dismal financial numbers and so the shorts are particularly embolden lately. We could see some choppy trading conditions until either the 1Q ER or word gets out about how many Model 3s are rolling off the assembly line after this pause. Let's hope we Tesla gets above 3,000/wk on M3 production quickly. I much prefer green to red in daily trading charts.

It's worth noting that Option Sniper, who some time ago said that TSLA was going up but had to descend to 284 first, put out the following tweet about TSLA:

Conditions:
* Dow down 39 (0.16%)
* NASDAQ up 14 (0.19%)
* TSLA 293.36, up 5.66 (1.97%)
* TSLA volume 6.4M shares
* Oil 68.77, up 0.30 (0.44%)

 

[Lbkmxp100d]

Great write up @Papafox. What’s your background? I always look forward to your daily trading recap and insight and truly appreciate you taking the time to but it together.

 

[Papafox]

Great write up @Papafox. What’s your background? I always look forward to your daily trading recap and insight and truly appreciate you taking the time to but it together.

I have little exposure to technical analysis, I've not spent a great deal of time trading other stocks, and I've never worked in any business having to do with stock trading. My focus is on trading just one stock, TSLA, and learning the nuances of the stock, especially how short-sellers affect TSLA trading. Since short-sellers typically trade about 60% of TSLA at this time, I think studying the effects of the shorts on TSLA is a valuable area in which to concentrate. When I first started pointing out the techniques used by TSLA short-sellers to give their selling maximum effect upon the stock price, I created terms such as "mandatory morning dip", "sticky dip", "capping", "decline into close", etc. to describe what I was seeing. At first I was pretty much ridiculed for suggesting the shorts had so much effect upon TSLA trading, but now the terms are used every day by other forum members and the effect of short-sellers upon the stock price is widely understood as significant.

What I suggest is that investors look at a wide range of different approaches to trading a stock. Take a look at my words (specialist), look at someone like option-sniper (technical analysis) and use the threads in TMC to stay up to date with fundamentals (TMC longs are much better informed about fundamentals than most shorts). I have made a living as an airline pilot, as a college professor, and nowadays mostly as a writer, innovator and investor.

 

[MacRocket]

Thanks again for your great posts Papafox.
I have a question for you and anyone else with charting knowledge.

Over the last year or so (prior to the recent dip) TSLA seemed to find support around the $292 to $300 level. Every time the SP dropped to this level it bounced strongly upward.
When TSLA broke through this support level it dropped to around $245 where it found strong support and bounced quickly up.

Does the previous support level of $292 to $300 now provide overhead resistance which the stock has to break thru?
The stock seems to be testing this Level quite a bit over the last few days.

When it does break thru will it rise fairly quickly to the next resistance level? Oh, and does anyone know what the next resistance level is?

Thank you in advance