yeah your right, good point. I didn't look at the bid/ask, I was just thinking in terms of gained and lost value over a few days to 1-2 weeks. I definitely wouldn't want to take that hit if I could avoid it. I'm constantly looking at different ways to play TSLA.
Folks here have talked about LEAPS as stock replacement, which I think works well if you're planning on holding for a very long time. If you're fairly deep ITM, you can double or triple your leverage for a "reasonable" cost. Another example:
The stock right now is $240-ish. If you sold your stock and bought $140 strike price J2016 LEAPS for $120, you could double your shares and only pay $20 per share for that privilege (your break even point is $280 vs. $240 being today's price, see below). It all depends on where you think the stock is going to go, but it seems pretty darn likely we'll see $280 by Jan 2016
. On the other hand, I'm skeptical we'll see $510 by Jan 2016. That'd give TSLA a market cap beyond GM, but we'd still be well before Gen3 shipping and the Gigafactory being finished, which seems an overly generous valuation without actually having a mass market car.
If you're mathematically inclined, you can create a spreadsheet with all the bid/asks and plug in what you think the stock will be in Jan2016 and have the calculation pop out the best option to buy.
Edit: I didn't really tell the break even story correctly, now amended. To be a good buy, you not only do you have to break even on the premium you paid for the LEAP, but also you need to make up for the gain you don't have on the original underlying stock. Again, as an example:
100 shares, cost $240, sold $280 = $4000 gain
200 $140 LEAPS, cost $120, sold $280 = $4000 gain ($120 to buy the LEAP, $140 to exercise the strike, $20 profit per share)
Now, for every dollar past $280, you're making 2:1 versus just holding the stock. So, at $300 per share you're $2000 ahead of having just held stock.