Papafox's Daily TSLA Trading Charts

[Papafox]

Today was the last-chance day to get into TSLA before Q2 delivery numbers are released. It culminates a weekly rise of about $22 in TSLA, not bad. With short positions near historical highs, with technicals all hovering around critical levels, and with the potential for good news on Q2 deliveries, the upside potential remains high. Negative trading in pre and early market were the results of fears stemming from the Tesla autopilot fatality reported on Thursday, but as the news revealed details of the accident the press and the public lightened their stance on the significance to TSLA of this accident.

Conditions:
* DOW up 19 (0.11%)
* NASDAQ up 20 (0.41%)
* TSLA up 4.22 (1.99%)
* TSLA volume 5.4M shares
* SCTY down 0.22 (0.92%)

 

[Papafox]

Today was the day after the three-day weekend in which Tesla announced a miss with the 2Q deliveries. Naysayers see the miss as 14,3XX vehicles delivered instead of the expected 17,000. Optimists see the 2,000/week vehicle production rate at quarter's end as confirmation that Tesla is set up to produce vehicles at a greater than 2000/week rate for the remainder of the year and that the 80,000-90,000 2016 vehicle delivery target is still possible. Further, the 5,000+ vehicles in transit will likely not be exceeded to a great extent in 3Q and therefore the 24,000+ production in the thirds quarter should translate nicely into deliveries that quarter, too.

The big question I had coming into today was whether the buyers of the past week were traders hoping to make a quick buck on 2Q delivery numbers or whether the buyers had longer time horizons. Looking at the chart, I would say the short-term traders exited in the morning (and most still made money on their bets) and then in the afternoon, institutional investors and others with time horizons of 6 months or greater started buying in when they saw that TSLA wasn't going to plunge today.

An important point about today's trading is that such a muted response after a delivery shortcoming would not have been possible if lots of shares were available to short. Shorts would have jumped on this opportunity to define the delivery miss as a big negative event. Since the shorts lacked the ability to go in deeper, a moderate response to the numbers was possible.

SCTY's good showing today suggests that the confidence shown in TSLA by investors today bodes well for the acquisition.

Conditions:
DOW down 109 (0.61%)
NASDAQ down 40 (0.82%)
TSLA down 2.52 (1.16%)
TSLA volume 5.2M shares
SCTY down 0.05 (0.21%)
News: In early morning, Ben Kallo of Baird reiterated his Outperform rating for TSLA with a PT of $338

 

[Papafox]

Today TSLA brought to an apparent end the stock price fall from somewhat disappointing Q2 delivery numbers and closed in the green. For much of the day, TSLA followed the broader markets in trading but diverged from following the NASDAQ as it transitioned to green. At least five changes of momentum took place before TSLA successfully claimed a gain for the day. Typically, when TSLA transition from a down cycle to closing up for the day we see at least 2 days of positive trading that follow.
Conditions:
DOW up 78 (0.44%)
NASDAQ up 36 (0.75%)
TSLA up 0.46 (0.21%)
TSLA volume 4.9M shares
SCTY up 0.42 (1.78%)

 

[Papafox]

Here's a chart of the full July 6 after-hours trading. Notice that the tug-of-war between longs and shorts persisted throughout the after-market hours. The shorts are really trying, but their ammunition is running short and they lack the ability to stop an enthusiastic rise once it gets going.

Note: The one deep dip in after-hours trading was likely a market-time trade that got posted late.

 

[Papafox]

Today was the day after TSLA reversed its down trend and as expected it was an up day for the stock. Obviously, pre-market trading did nothing positive to forecast the day's activity and I remain very skeptical of pre-market as an indicator. Since the gains today were modest, tomorrow's trading is a question mark, but I suspect if the broader markets are up that TSLA will show gains as well.
Conditions:
DOW down 23 (0.13%)
NASDAQ up 18 (0.36%)
TSLA up 1.50 (0.70%)
TSLA volume 3.6M shares
SCTY up 0.46 (1.91%)

The bigger picture is that brokerage houses are increasing the interest fees charged for shorting TSLA, and although some shorts are bailing, new TSLA shareholders are offering their shares for loan in order to gain interest on the transactions. The pressure on shorts would normally lead to some type of short squeeze, but we lack the catalyst at this time to get longs to join in the buying, and so TSLA gains have been modest today.

 

[Papafox]

Today the broader markets were way up and TSLA started up with them, but then came a series of downhill runs that took the stock into the red before it pulled out in afternoon for a small gain. As I mentioned before, on days with large gains underway for the broader markets, if TSLA fails to keep up with the market we see traders move their money to stocks that more-reliably respond to the market rise, and TSLA misses out on the action. Such was the case today.

While the stock price was near the zero-gain, zero-loss point, it moved up and down enough times to suggest that we were seeing a tug-of-war between longs and shorts, as we had seen two days earlier. Interpretation: shorts were providing some manipulation today in an attempt to get TSLA to close in the red, but they lacked the shares to short in order to continue the effort and TSLA rose. The after-hours trading included an error dip which distorted the chart, which is a shame because we saw the stock close at 215, down nearly 2 points from normal hours close, with no substantial news and with a dip at the very last minute. With volume so slim late on a Friday night, the late dip can be regarded as non-consequential.
Conditions:
DOW up 251 (1.40%)
NASDAQ up 80 (1.64%)
TSLA 216.78, up 0.84 (0.39%)
TSLA volume 4.1M shares
SCTY 23.8, down 0.74 (3.02%)

 

[Papafox]

Today was another positive day for the broader markets, but this time TSLA took off and outperformed the broader markets. Why? We've been seeing shorts subjected to much higher interest rates on borrowing TSLA shares, as part of a shares recall, and shorts have been making a very orderly exit with small gains to the SP. Unfortunately for us longs, a short squeeze was not taking place because there has been little news to entice longs to jump in and buy. In other words, we have a fertile setup for a squeeze, but no trigger. Along comes word from Musk that he's going to reveal the secret plan, part 2 this week, and now longs have a catalyst to entice buying. The result: A gain of $8 for the day.

In after-hours trading, a tweet by cnbc said that Tesla was being investgated by the SEC for securities violations related to not informing buyers of the equity offering about the fatal autopilot accident. The tweet may have overstated the situation. This information caused a near-instantaneous loss of about half the day's gains.

I post a chart of SCTY today so that you can see how closely it responds to TSLA's movements

Conditions:
* DOW up 80 (0.44%)
* NASDAQ up 32 (0.64%)
* TSLA 224.78 up 8.00 3.69%
* TSLA volume 5.4M shares
* SCTY 24.52 up 0.72 (3.03%)

 

[Papafox]

Today was a classic day of stock manipulation by the shorts. Tesla took off strong out of the gate but quickly reversed itself and went negative. Then it started climbing back into the green until some mysterious force brought it red again. From here it traded above and below the red/green line for the remainder of the day. TSLA's trading chart showed no resemblance to the charts of broader markets, another clue that some sort of manipulation was underway. Why manipulate? Today was going to be another up day for the broader markets and the shorts didn't want to risk another runaway up day like we had yesterday. So, as TSLA approached 228, enough short selling took place to get the stock on a downward trajectory. Once the stock bottomed out, whoever sold the short shares had a chance to partially reload by purchasing low. As TSLA approached 227, the series repeated itself until TSLA spent the rest of the day trading barely above and below the green/red line. Notice that someone with enough capital to actually affect the market with their trades could actually make money in this scenario by selling high and then buying back in low. If TSLA rose just a bit too high, a short could bop it down with a quick short sale. With so little volatility during the last half of the day, you would expect volume to be light, right? Take a look at the volume indicators, though, and you see that volume was anything but light. The only way you can see so little movement of the SP with this much volume is if someone is "managing" TSLA's share prices.

Conditions:
DOW up 121 (0.66%)
NASDAQ up 34 (0.69%)
TSLA 224.65 down 0.13 (0.06%)
TSLA volume 4.6M shares
SCTY 24.61 up 0.09 (0.37%)
News: Curt Renz reported that the appearance of FUD articles today was somewhat in sync with price dips, and so this theory also speaks of manipulation, but one using FUD rather than creative short-selling and repurchasing.

 

[austinEV]

View attachment 185131
Today was a classic day of stock manipulation by the shorts. Tesla took off strong out of the gate but quickly reversed itself and went negative. Then it started climbing back into the green until some mysterious force brought it red again. From here it traded above and below the red/green line for the remainder of the day. TSLA's trading chart showed no resemblance to the charts of broader markets, another clue that some sort of manipulation was underway. Why manipulate? Today was going to be another up day for the broader markets and the shorts didn't want to risk another runaway up day like we had yesterday. So, as TSLA approached 228, enough short selling took place to get the stock on a downward trajectory. Once the stock bottomed out, whoever sold the short shares had a chance to partially reload by purchasing low. As TSLA approached 227, the series repeated itself until TSLA spent the rest of the day trading barely above and below the green/red line. Notice that someone with enough capital to actually affect the market with their trades could actually make money in this scenario by selling high and then buying back in low. If TSLA rose just a bit too high, a short could bop it down with a quick short sale. With so little volatility during the last half of the day, you would expect volume to be light, right? Take a look at the volume indicators, though, and you see that volume was anything but light. The only way you can see so little movement of the SP with this much volume is if someone is "managing" TSLA's share prices.

Conditions:
DOW up 121 (0.66%)
NASDAQ up 34 (0.69%)
TSLA 224.65 down 0.13 (0.06%)
TSLA volume 4.6M shares
SCTY 24.61 up 0.09 (0.37%)
News: Curt Renz reported that the appearance of FUD articles today was somewhat in sync with price dips, and so this theory also speaks of manipulation, but one using FUD rather than creative short-selling and repurchasing.

Since there are so few shares available to short, where would black hats be getting them? If there is in fact net increase of longs it shouldn't be possible to keep using new shirts to hold things down right?

 

[Papafox]

Since there are so few shares available to short, where would black hats be getting them? If there is in fact net increase of longs it shouldn't be possible to keep using new shirts to hold things down right?

I was pondering this same question. If the smart shorts have already parted with their TSLA positions, who would be manipulating, then? Here are a couple possible scenarios.
1) Maybe some "black hats" are still in the game. These are individuals who have enough trading horsepower to move TSLA and aren't willing to give up their short positions quite yet.
2) Maybe we're seeing the work of "sell then reload" types. You sell your shares to create the top of a peak and sell some to get the stock headed downward. Frightened longs and follow-the-leader new shorts join in with the selling. Once the descent has progressed sufficiently, you start buying back stock to replenish your supply so that you can repeat this scenario multiple times during a day. The net result is you're selling higher than you are buying, and you're making money while discouraging TSLA from climbing. Your selling when the stock shows any hesitation in the climb and buying towards the bottom of a descent has the effect of stabilizing the stock, Once you can get it trading even, right about at the starting point for the day, you only need small sales to keep it under control unless we have what we saw on Friday, an afternoon breakout that couldn't be contained.

The reason I believe manipulation is taking place is because of the patterns we keep seeing repeated that effectively take the wind out of the sails of a possible TSLA run up that day (and thereby serve the purposes of the shorts), and secondly because the stock behavior cannot reasonably be explained without some manipulation involved. Look at the volume of trading this afternoon and you will see that with this much action and the stock not bumping much past a quarter point up or down, someone truly is putting effort into managing the stock price. I'm open for other explanations. Feel free to mention one if you think it is reasonable.

 

[austinEV]

I was pondering this same question. If the smart shorts have already parted with their TSLA positions, who would be manipulating, then? Here are a couple possible scenarios.
1) Maybe some "black hats" are still in the game. These are individuals who have enough trading horsepower to move TSLA and aren't willing to give up their short positions quite yet.
2) Maybe we're seeing the work of "sell then reload" types. You sell your shares to create the top of a peak and sell some to get the stock headed downward. Frightened longs and follow-the-leader new shorts join in with the selling. Once the descent has progressed sufficiently, you start buying back stock to replenish your supply so that you can repeat this scenario multiple times during a day. The net result is you're selling higher than you are buying, and you're making money while discouraging TSLA from climbing. Your selling when the stock shows any hesitation in the climb and buying towards the bottom of a descent has the effect of stabilizing the stock, Once you can get it trading even, right about at the starting point for the day, you only need small sales to keep it under control unless we have what we saw on Friday, an afternoon breakout that couldn't be contained.

The reason I believe manipulation is taking place is because of the patterns we keep seeing repeated that effectively take the wind out of the sails of a possible TSLA run up that day (and thereby serve the purposes of the shorts), and secondly because the stock behavior cannot reasonably be explained without some manipulation involved. Look at the volume of trading this afternoon and you will see that with this much action and the stock not bumping much past a quarter point up or down, someone truly is putting effort into managing the stock price. I'm open for other explanations. Feel free to mention one if you think it is reasonable.

I just imagine myself trying to do that and how hard it would be. It's like market timing but more difficult and with high stakes (you can't manipulate with 100 shares). So your ideal situation is a thinly traded "top" where you can unload your inventory, cause a higher volume downward trajectory, quietly reload into higher volume (so your fixed qty of trading shares doesn't spike the price back up) and wait again for the nasty tesla cheerleaders to bid it back up again and repeat.

All it would take is one failure to be really upside down. The stock drifts up, you sell your "hammer" to cap the move--- but it doesn't. today volume was too high and the ticker goes up. Now what? Your black hat "job" is to stop it. You can't rebuy without contributing to the run up. Now you have to wait for the stock to go down on its own to reload at a lower price. But since the price action has been mysteriously resilient, it's character is that it just refuses to do it's sawtooth leg down. That is the interesting thing post-merger news. Since the stock has refused to leg down the black hats MUST be running out of inventory. They cannot borrow, and they cannot manufacture shares.

 

[Papafox]

Today the bears tried to see how low TSLA could go, and it wasn't much. At about 10:05am, more than 50,000 shares were sold in a 4 minute period. Then at 1:30pm, more than 110,000 shares were sold in 2 minutes. The results? In both cases, TSLA bounced back almost immediately. The reason why I suggest such rapid selloffs are induced by shorts when there's no pressing news to warrant such a quick sale is because selling in blocks this big depresses the stock price momentarily and reduced the average selling price for the seller. If he had merely sold slowly over time, those 110,000 shares could have blended into the other 3.5 million shares trading hands without much of a hit on selling price at all. So, selling in these massive blocks makes no sense for profit maximization. It only makes sense if the sale is used to knock the SP down to help another short position.

Anyway, I was very impressed by the resilience of TSLA to the bear assaults today. This resistance demonstrates that the longs are confident, and that confidence should be chilling to the shorts.

Conditions:
* Dow up 24 (0.13%)
* NASDAQ down 17 (0.34%)
* TSLA 222.53, down 2.12 (0.,94%)
* TSLA volume 3.5M shares
* SCTY 24.22 down 0.39 (1.58%)

 

[Papafox]

I just imagine myself trying to do that and how hard it would be. It's like market timing but more difficult and with high stakes (you can't manipulate with 100 shares). So your ideal situation is a thinly traded "top" where you can unload your inventory, cause a higher volume downward trajectory, quietly reload into higher volume (so your fixed qty of trading shares doesn't spike the price back up) and wait again for the nasty tesla cheerleaders to bid it back up again and repeat.

All it would take is one failure to be really upside down. The stock drifts up, you sell your "hammer" to cap the move--- but it doesn't. today volume was too high and the ticker goes up. Now what? Your black hat "job" is to stop it. You can't rebuy without contributing to the run up. Now you have to wait for the stock to go down on its own to reload at a lower price. But since the price action has been mysteriously resilient, it's character is that it just refuses to do it's sawtooth leg down. That is the interesting thing post-merger news. Since the stock has refused to leg down the black hats MUST be running out of inventory. They cannot borrow, and they cannot manufacture shares.

I've thought of trying the sell high buy low routine but I can't do so for two reasons:
1) restrictions in my account against day trading
2) inability for me to sell enough shares to move the market. This is key. If you can't influence the market with your selling, then you really can't play this game. Today, the big dips involved about 100,000 shares trading hands in 2-4 minutes. The kind of trades that a mischievous black hat would do would require much less, maybe 25,000 shares. Still, I think there are individuals and organizations with enough horsepower to throw 25,000 shares at the market and see what happens. If you ever get that many shares and give it a try, let me know, I want to watch ; )

 

[3Victoria]

Is such manipulation legal?

 

[Papafox]

Is such manipulation legal?

Even if stock price manipulation is not legal, the culprits could claim they had no intent to affect the stock price, their trades just happened to take place at turning points for the stock. It'd be really tough to prove intent and so they carry on.

 

[Papafox]

Ho hum, just another day of shorts willing to spend money to contain TSLA on an up day for the broader markets. Evidence of buyers willing to bid TSLA up can be seen in pre-market trading. Look at the downward spike about 10:30am and how little traction it got, though. Look at the break upwards about noon and how quickly selling neutralized the gain. The good news is that the game cannot go on forever. Sooner or later there will be a smidgen of good-enough news so that TSLA will lurch upward and once shorts get worried and join in the buying (to cover), there's no containing it until TSLA reaches a resistance point.
Today joins July 6, 8, and 12 as near-neutral trading days for TSLA when the broader markets are heading upward.

Conditions:
* DOW up 134 (0.73%)
* NASDAQ up 28 (0.57%)
* TSLA 221.53, down 1.00 (0.45%)
* TSLA volume 2.6M shares
* SCTY 24.65 up 0.43 (1.78%)

 

[Johan]

View attachment 185348
Ho hum, just another day of shorts willing to spend money to contain TSLA on an up day for the broader markets. Evidence of buyers willing to bid TSLA up can be seen in pre-market trading. Look at the downward spike about 10:30am and how little traction it got, though. Look at the break upwards about noon and how quickly selling neutralized the gain. The good news is that the game cannot go on forever. Sooner or later there will be a smidgen of good-enough news so that TSLA will lurch upward and once shorts get worried and join in the buying (to cover), there's no containing it until TSLA reaches a resistance point.
Today joins July 6, 8, and 12 as near-neutral trading days for TSLA when the broader markets are heading upward.

Conditions:
* DOW up 134 (0.73%)
* NASDAQ up 28 (0.57%)
* TSLA 221.53, down 1.00 (0.45%)
* TSLA volume 2.6M shares
* SCTY 24.65 up 0.43 (1.78%)

What is the next "natural" resistance point in your opinion? $265? ATH @ slightly above $290???

 

[Papafox]

What is the next "natural" resistance point in your opinion? $265? ATH @ slightly above $290???

I don't have a firm resistance number in mind. Let's see when we get to $265

 

[Papafox]

Today followed the trading pattern of the past three days, which is to say a small loss in value of slightly more than $1.00. Volume was particularly light today, which made TSLA more vulnerable to any attempts at manipulation. For the week, TSLA closed up about $3.60. The after hours dip late in the day involved only about 1,000 shares and can be regarded as non-consequential, just as I mentioned about a similar dip at the end of after-hours trading last Friday.

Conditions:
* DOW up 10 (0.05%)
* NASDAQ down 4 (0.09%)
* TSLA 220.40 down 1.13 (0.51%)
* TSLA volume 2.2M shares
* SCTY 25.04 up 0.39 (1.58%)

 

[GoTslaGo]

I was thinking about @jhm's post about how SCTY and TSLA prices are bound together (recall 225 (TSLA) x 0.122 = 27.45 (SCTY), in short term thread). Looking at the week's SPs, it looks like he has a point. I couldn't help but to notice how TSLA is trending down for the week while SCTY is moving up (hopefully my chart will make sense):

Day
actual TSLA (calc SCTY)/// actual SCTY (calc TSLA)
Mon::: 224.78 (27.42)/// 24.52 (200.98)
Tues::: 224.65 (27.41)/// 24.61 (201.72)
Wed::: 222.53 (27.15)/// 24.22 (198.52)
Thur::: 221.53 (27.03)/// 24.65 (202.05)
Fri::: 220.40 (26.89)/// 25.04 (205.25)

Not sure if it's predictive, but could there be a trend going on here bringing their prices together as jhm pointed out? What I found fascinating was that when I looked back at the 30 day numbers, SCTY has been gradually rising to TSLA 220, where TSLA was before the announcement. Interesting. Probably old news for seasoned investors, but since I'm a noob, I'm glad @jhm pointed that out!

If I made any errors in calculations, please feel free to point out. Thanks @Papafox for keeping this thread and adding SCTY!

Sorry, after I posted I realized the chart looked funny so I added the ::: and /// to hopefully make it more readable.