Papafox's Daily TSLA Trading Charts

[Papafox]

We live in interesting times. When TSLA bottomed out below 180, the pundits clearly indicated to the Wall Street sharks that it was time to stop making money on the descent and start making money on the climb. CNBC's chartist fired the first salvo, and then very quickly thereafter Adam Jonas put out a bullish note to suggest that he was the one who really called the bottom.

This time around, after TSLA fell first because of the 2Q ER results and then because of the China Trade War events, the direction for TSLA became more confusing. We've seen a climbing trend since the trade war news settled a bit, and that trend should continue. Nonetheless, we've seen hedge funds that have apparently been manipulating to keep TSLA below certain price points on Friday closings (rather than delta-hedge) and a couple of days ago I learned that a big dog entity sold tens of millions of dollars worth of short-term puts with most of the strike prices above 300. As long as the stock price doesn't fall, that big put seller will make money, and if the stock price rises, that put seller will make lots of money. Thus we have some big-dog entities that sold calls trying to temper the rise of TSLA and at least one big dog entity trying to encourage TSLA to rise or at least to not fall. It's hedge fund against hedge fund or big dog against big dog, at least that's the view I'm considering for now. Looking at the open interest chart below, you can see the traditional hedge funds would like to see TSLA stay below 240 tomorrow while the seller of the puts has other ideas.

With volume low and no strong positive or negative catalysts today, TSLA can be manipulated somewhat with relatively little money. The primary force on TSLA today was the 2+% rise of the NASDAQ. On the other hand, there's much money to be made or lost on the sale of options, and so it's an attractive setup for manipulations of the stock price by sellers of the options.

Looking at TSLA's trading chart, notice that the TSLA mandatory morning dip took place a half hour after the NASDAQ's dip. Hmm. I suspect either manipulation or news and I don't have time to research. Notice the very up and down trading in the afternoon. With volume in the final minute of market trading being over 220K, I see this big number as perhaps a covering opportunity for manipulations performed during the afternoon. Again, I see this as a tug of war between the seller of the calls and either buyers of shares or the sellers of the puts.

My guess is that once TSLA has established a clear uptrend and reaches above 250 or so again, the tug of war lessens as the call sellers accept the climb and start doing more delta-hedging and less manipulating.

The NASDAQ had a strong climb after 10am and closed up 2.24%

The sellers of call options would like TSLA to close below 235, 240, or 242.50 tomorrow, depending on what is possible

Meanwhile, short percentage of TSLA selling has crept higher the past two day and reached 38%

Looking at the tech chart, you can see a double-bottom of both the post ER dip and the trade war dip. The double-bottom suggests TSLA will not need to visit that price point again.


Conditions:
* Dow up 371 (1.43%)
* NASDAQ up 176 (2.24%)
* TSLA 238.30, up 4.88 (2.09%)
* TSLA volume 5.3M shares
* Oil 52.46
* Percent of selling tagged to TSLA shorts: 38%

 

[Papafox]

Friday was a down day for the macros as investors got the trade war jitters again. Volume was a ridiculously low 3.9 million shares.

Here's thanks to @Lycanthrope for posting the NASDAQ vs. TSLA chart shown above in the main investment thread.

Friday's story is two-fold. With no strong negative or positive catalysts, TSLA pretty much followed the NASDAQ. Exceptions included a big run upwards shortly after open either from exuberant longs or from the sellers of the out of the money short-term puts. The next big departure from the NASDAQ happened at 10:30am, which is a very popular time for a mandatory morning dip, and in this case the selling exceeded 32K shares in that minute. The dip was likely manipulation that triggered some algos, almost certainly engineered by the hedge funds who sold calls expiring on Friday. At 45 minutes before market close the hedge funds started pushing TSLA down for the close, and this pushdown began well before the NASDAQ began its dip. When the NASDAQ dip accelerated in the final minutes, the hedge funds sold like crazy to get TSLA down to 235.01. Classic manipulative ending to the day. The hedge funds wouldn't have been able to pull off the 235 close unless macros made it possible, and they probably would have settled for 240 or 242.50 on a somewhat stronger day.

The NASDAQ closed down 1% on Friday.

Looking at the tech chart, the two most salient points are the 50 day moving average line (shown in blue) and the volume trend. Here's a tip of the hat to @Curt Renz for pointing out that the 50 DMA has been working nicely as support since the 2Q ER dip. Secondly, the volume of TSLA has been decreasing steadily. Shareholders don't want to sell and buyers have been increasingly sitting on the fence while the trade war skirmishes continue. Let's hope for some calm on the trade war next week so the market can start breathing easier and allow the buyers to return in greater numbers.

For the week, TSLA closed at 235.01 up 57 cents from last Friday's 234.44. I know that's a lot of drama to make 50 cents, but the reality is that the broader markets closed down for the week on multiple instances of trade war worries, and we can regard TSLA's performance as showing relative strength. Enjoy your weekend.

Conditions:
* Dow down 91 (0.34%)
* NASDAQ down 80 (1.00%)
* TSLA 235.01, down 3.29 (1.38%)
* TSLA volume 3.9M shares
* Oil 54.50
* Percent of selling tagged to TSLA shorts: 38%

 

[Papafox]

Today's trading has much in common with Friday's. Both showed opening buying bringing the stock price momentarily into the green, both were days with poor macros, both had a mandatory morning dip or two (11:30am today vs. Friday's 10:30am dip), both showed recovery into the afternoon, and both had a manipulative pushdown into close. The differences between the two was that today's trading was fighting some hardcore FUD and therefore TSLA lost twice as much as the NASDAQ, as opposed to a more benign Friday session.

There really was no negative news of substance to justify the decline, only FUD about a Model 3 crash in Moscow. ABC News wins today's Flying FUDster award for the most obscenely harm-intended headline to a story: Tesla in autopilot mode bursts into flames. Reading that headline, you would think the driver switched on the autopilot and the vehicle instantly was engulfed in flames, but the reality is that after careening into a tow truck at 100 kph, the driver broke a leg, the kids got some abrasions, but they all got out safely before the fire. The video shows the airbags popping which is referred to as "explosions". Mercy.

All in all, today was a day when carefully placed downward pressure on a day with FUD and bad macros allowed the manipulators to get some traction. This Friday will see considerably more options expiring than last Friday, and so the manipulations may be more intense.

Notice the scale of this week's option expirations. Because there are so many 50 and 100 puts expiring, the scale is really shrunken, but the number of calls expiring is really quite high.

The NASDAQ lost 1.2% today, a little more than on Friday. Notice that the NASDAQ climbed from 2:45pm to close, suggesting TSLA's end of day dip was a manipulation.

Percent of selling tagged to shorts rose to 39.5% today

Looking at the tech chart, you can see the dip ended right at the 50 day moving average. If I were a betting man, I would assume the hedge funds will make a point of seeing TSLA dip below the 50 DMA at some point tomorrow, just to try to stir up a little worry. Please, don't feel bad for these people when TSLA takes off and heads for the stars someday in the future.

To balance out the idiocy of Tesla's trading and FUD today, please check out this short video of Cathy Wood on CNBC. I love how she uses the phrase "whack a mole" to describe how the bears are attacking Tesla. That phrase sounds eerily familiar for some reason.

Conditions:
* Dow down 390 (1.48%)
* NASDAQ down 96 (1.20%)
* TSLA 229.01, down 6.00 (2.55%)
* TSLA volume 4.7M shares
* Oil 54.88
* Percent of selling tagged to TSLA shorts: 39.5%

 

[N5329K]

Tesla in autopilot mode bursts into flames. Reading that headline, you would think the driver switched on the autopilot and the vehicle instantly was engulfed in flames

Notice the emergency flashers on the car were still working even with the cabin totally engulfed in fire. Impressive.
Robin

 

[Papafox]

Shortly after market opening, macros shot up on word that the U.S. is delaying tariffs on some Chinese items such as smartphones and is removing others from the tariff list. I'm encouraged by the decision to pare back tariffs somewhat because clearly Trump's people are keeping an eye on the market and the economy. The big fear would be for Wall Street to overreact to the tariff wars and for the economy to scale back. News in Argentina, Hong Kong, and elsewhere made the tariff decision today a good move.

The NASDAQ gained 1.95% today and was up over 2% shortly after the tariff news came forward

Comparing the two charts above, you can see that the usual subjects played games initially with TSLA, trying to cap it and then push down despite the macro exuberance. It didn't work. TSLA closed up 2.62% at 235.00, just one penny short of Friday's close. As with recent trading, volume of TSLA was below 5 million shares traded.

If you look at the peaks on TSLA trading you can see a bit of a whack a mole game when TSLA dared to stick its head above 235. As 3pm approached, TSLA soared above 235 and so the hedge funds started capping at 236 until they saw the opportunity for a pushdown back to 235. Basically, the macros called the shots today but the hedge funds were able to tweak slightly to suit their needs.

For a reality check, here's a comparison between TSLA and the NASDAQ in August, provided by @Waiting4M3 . The manipulators have been unable to push TSLA's performance much below the NASDAQ's performance this month. OTOH, TSLA was recovering from the Q2 ER when the tariff war news pushed both TSLA and the NASDAQ down, and without interventions TSLA would likely have been performing better than the NASDAQ. For now, lacking strong positive or negative catalysts and with short-selling manipulations neutralizing TSLA's recovery at the moment, TSLA is pretty much drifting with the NASDAQ.

TSLA's foes managed to push it slightly below the 50 day moving average early this morning, but when the macros ran skyward today, all was forgotten and TSLA ran up with the macros, too. For now, the 50 DMA remains support. As @Artful Dodger pointed out today, the next 11 trading days will see the 50 DMA rising as some low days for the average get chopped off. Looking forward to a 50 DMA line curving upward and enticing TSLA to ride along.

Conditions:
* Dow up 373 (1.44%)
* NASDAQ up 153 (1.95%)
* TSLA 235.00, up 5.99 (2.62%)
* TSLA volume 4.8M shares
* Oil 56.79
* Percent of selling tagged to TSLA shorts: 40%

 

[Papafox]

Today the broader markets had another conniption, this one about recession worries. News that long-term bonds are trading at lower yields than short-term bonds (yield curve inversion) set off the alarms. Although bond yield curve inversion has preceded recent recessions, the inversion is not by itself a reliable indication that a recession is coming. In a recent video, Cathie Wood of ARK explained that during the 50 year period from 1880 until 1929, bond yield curves inverted because goods could be produced far less expensively than before and consequently the result was de-inflationary pressures which held down long-term bond yields. She believes we are right now in a similar period. Thus, there are multiple explanations for an inverted bond yield curve, and a coming recession is just one of them.

Does this mean we can ignore today's market action? Of course not. Markets are capable of worrying themselves into real problems if sentiment gets out of hand, so keep the seatbelts snugged and let's see where this thing bottoms out. A lack of clear recovery of the NASDAQ going into market close suggests there could be more pain ahead. We could also see the turnaround tomorrow. Be prepared for either.

The NASDAQ started the day down nearly 2% and closed the day down 3.02%

Considering the size of the stock price move at TSLA, volume was relatively light at 9 million shares traded. How did TSLA's 6.5% drop compare to other tech and auto stocks? It was noticeably higher. Tech stocks were typically down 3-4% today, Ford was down 2.8% and GM was down 4.7%. Notice there was no Tesla-specific news of consequence today. Thus, we can likely attribute TSLA's deep dip as being a case of of dip on steroids that was aggravated by short-selling.

TSLA shorts were tagged with 46% of selling today (Exhibit A to back up previous paragraph)

Looking at the tech chart, the 50 day moving average was no match for the severity of the macro dip plus additional short selling. I'm not going to speculate on the bottom because this dip is macro driven and not Tesla specific.

Conditions:
* Dow down 800 (3.05%)
* NASDAQ down 242 (3.02%)
* TSLA 219.62, down 15.38 (6.54%)
* TSLA volume 9.0M shares
* Oil 55.23
* Percent of selling tagged to TSLA shorts: 46%

 

[Papafox]

Today's premarket trading reflected optimism in the small investors, but TSLA dipped immediately into a mandatory morning dip on opening, despite the broader markets trading in the green. No other stocks I watch performed like TSLA today. The percent of selling by shorts number dropped hugely. Do I think this means something other than manipulations sunk the SP today? Nope. Here's why.

If you take a look at the volume of selling at times when the stock price was being pushed lower, you will see substantially elevated volume. The MMD began before the NASDAQ dipped and we saw 20K-30K of selling per minute. This is not how a big investor sheds shares. The 9:40ish dip of the NASDAQ barely entered the red, and yet TSLA was trading down 2.5% by then. The 11am-ish dip of TSLA was in response to the NASDAQ dip, but it was on steroids, which in English means that the dip was aided by short selling. Take a look at how quickly the NASDAQ recovered from its 2pm dip. TSLA, on the other hand, experienced a sticky dip in which the shorts worked to hold TSLA at the bottom even when the NASDAQ was recovering substantially. Fortunately, TSLA broke free of the manipulation about 3pm and erased a major portion of the sticky dip loss. Most of the favorite short-seller manipulations were present today. Icicles? You bet.

If only 36% of selling was tagged to shorts, where did all the ammo for today's manipulations come from? I don't think it was the buy shares and sell them at critical times technique, however. That technique works when the stock price is likely to rise and the manipulator buys in early, rides the SP rise for a while, and then at an appropriate whole number starts selling to cap the raise while simultaneously realizing a profit. Such a manipulation was not available today. Rather, I believe that the manipulators had a non-FINRA source for the borrowing today. The manipulations were just too flagrant to believe that the market by itself was trading in this fashion.

The NASDAQ spent lots of time both green and red today and closed down 0.09%. The Dow closed up.

Shorts were tagged with 36% of TSLA selling today even though trading suggests lots of manipulations.

Looking at an expanded tech chart for this summer, you can see that the general direction of TSLA is upward until some event gives it a big push down. Let's hope that the markets can get over their inverted yield curve jitters this week and TSLA can resume a climb, hopefully to catch that nicely upward-arcing blue 50 day moving average (for a start).

Today, economic personalities from Janet Yellen to Cramer to Mohamed El-Erian joined me in suggesting that the inverted yield curve does not at all mean that a recession is inevitable. The broader markets opening higher today was due to positive economic news. My hope is that the bargain hunters for stocks go to work this week and rekindle a healthier market. I suspect on the first big green day for the market, the manipulators may hold TSLA back, but after that I think TSLA should be in a position to shake off the manipulations are start recovering some lost territory. Fingers crossed.

Conditions:
* Dow up 100 (0.39%)
* NASDAQ down 7 (0.09%)
* TSLA 215.64, down 3.98 (1.81%)
* TSLA volume 8.2M shares
* Oil 55.07
* Percent of selling tagged to TSLA shorts: 36.0%

 

[Speedr117]

First, thank you @Papafox for taking the time to post this EVERYDAY!

I think you're underestimating how freaked out retail investors can get and panic sell. I think that's where the extra few % came from (although I have little doubt the manipulators magnified it).

 

[Papafox]

Friday morning's trading opened with a "here we go again" TSLA moment as shorts started pushing the SP down as we approached market opening despite strong macro futures. Fortunately, the stock rallied on macro strengths and TSLA's sale price, and with such a quick dispatch of the mandatory morning dip, buyers who had waited on the sidelines during the inverted yield curve overreaction jumped in. Since this was the first day of real recovery for TSLA since the recent push-down, we could expect and were indeed treated to push-downs by the usual suspects (non-deltahedging hedge funds) after TSLA topped 222. Most apparent was the near-linear pushdown from 12:45 until 2:45pm. Alas, by 2:45 we were getting close to end of day and the typical market makers (who delta-hedge and make their money on time-value degradation) said "phooey with this" and pushed the stock back up to 220ish by 3:15pm, where it stayed (plus or minus a few cents) until close. Thus the downward manipulation going into close was overpowered by the upward manipulation to pin TSLA at 220 for the close. It was manipulator vs. manipulator, and the biggest dog won.

Here's a word about after-hours trading, when TSLA sank a bit. More than 6K of 300-strike puts expired, which would be exercised by the buyers of those puts selling shares to the seller for $300 apiece. Thus, we have parties who have just lost money and have 6K more shares than they bargained for on their hands. Some may have sold in after-hours trading and put some downward pressure on the price.

Kudos to @Cherry Wine for predicting early in the day that TSLA would close at 220, and to @Curt Renz for backing up the prediction by noting today is an especially heavy day of options expirations (monthly vs. weekly), that manipulations would be heavier than normal and that even though the max pain was set higher, the logical best price for minimizing payouts for options sold was right at 220. There were 8.6K 220-strike puts as well as 7.3K 220-strike calls expiring on Friday. Market makers are not known for big manipulations during the week (they are typically delta-hedged) but they are known to exert some muscle on Friday afternoons prior to options expirations, and that's exactly what happened.

I was pleasantly surprised on Friday because although I was expecting the hedge funds to do an aggressive push-down of the SP, the morning climb of TSLA was more enthusiastic than expected and such buying cannot be easily overcome by a manipulator. Instead, manipulators will wait until the SP is ready to top out and then they add steroids to the dip they initiate. It is easier and more profitable to short a descending stock than to try to stop an enthusiastically climbing stock.

The NASDAQ closed up 1.69%, rising or level throughout the day, which is about as good as it gets for macro backing

We saw a small uptick to 37% in percentage of selling tagged to TSLA shorts, but with big dog manipulator fighting big dog manipulator I suspect one of the parties had to dip into non-FINRA sources to enable their mischief. Thus the 37% of selling by shorts number is likely an underestimation.

Looking at the tech chart, you can see the pattern TSLA has been in for the past month. It falls farther than is justified on negative news (aided by short-selling on downhill run), followed by climbing trend, and then the scenario repeats itself. How far we climb in the near term depends upon how long TSLA can go before negative macro news intervenes. At some point, Tesla-specific news is likely to leak out, and we'll see TSLA trading more on that news than simply being moved by macros.

One recently-placed question on this forum was shouldn't I give more credit in dips to fears by small investors? My answer is I believe I already give sufficient consideration to that source. When the NASDAQ dips 1%, it's common for high-flyers and tech stocks such as TSLA to dip about 1.5%. The same ratio goes for climbs. When TSLA dips twice as much as the NASDAQ, though, and there's no Tesla-specific news, how does one interpret this? I think fears of small investors are already covered in that 1.5% of NASDAQ drop. Anything else has to have another source. If Tesla was close to 370 in price, there'd be good reason to do some protective selling in a questionable economic climate, but with TSLA already beaten down to the low end of its historical trading range, investors are far less likely to panic sell. Instead, I think we can instead look at the high quantity of options in play versus the low volume of the stock, and the conclusion I reach at the moment is that the tail is very often wagging the dog. In other words, what's good for the sellers of the options may be driving the price of TSLA to a much greater degree right now than in typical times because those option sellers are the manipulators. It is of value to try to understand who is doing the manipulating so that we can predict the outcome, which is exactly what @Cherry Wine and @Curt Renz did Friday morning. If the retail shorts were the manipulators, I would expect to see a dip considerably below 220 (a point with lots of puts set to expire) but it didn't happen today and it seldom happens.

For the week, TSLA closed at 219.94, down 15.07 from last Friday's 235.01. Should the market continue to realize that this week's dip was an overreaction, then we may see additional unwinding of the dip in the coming week. Enjoy your weekend.

Conditions:
* Dow up 307 (1.20%)
* NASDAQ up 129 (1.67%)
* TSLA 219.94, up 4.30 (1.99%)
* TSLA volume 5.2M shares
* Oil 54.87 on 8/17
* Percent of selling tagged to TSLA shorts: 37%

 

[Papafox]

As with Friday, macros were riding high and TSLA recovered ground lost during the recent inverted yield curve overreaction. Unlike Friday, however, the manipulators weren't able to significantly chip away at gains during afternoon hours. Looking at the chart above, you can see what appears to be two capping events, one at 226 from 12:10-12:45, and the other at 227 from about 1:30-1:45.

The NASDAQ gained 1.35% with a dip shortly after 10am, which was reflected in TSLA trading

TSLA's gain of 3.13% is considerably more than double the NASDAQ's gain today. The stock may possibly have received some boost from a Business Insider story about Tesla running circles around Jaguar and Audi in the EV space. You and I have known about Tesla's strength relative to competitors for some time now, but many investors may not be so tuned into to the fact that all Tesla killers so far have been defanged.

Selling tagged to TSLA shorts fell to 32.5% today, about as low a number as you will typically see

The tech chart shows us the prevailing pattern still intact with overzealous pushdowns during bad macro days and recoveries of lost ground on positive macro days. This most recent recovery is looking particularly spirited and let's hope the stock reclaims the blue 50 day moving average shortly.

Conditions:
* Dow up 250 (0.96%)
* NASDAQ up 107 (1.35%)
* TSLA 226.83, up 6.89 (3.13%)
* TSLA volume 5.3M shares
* Oil 56.14
* Percent of selling tagged to TSLA shorts: 32.5%

 

[ColonelRHS]

It was an opportunity for buying. This time I said I was going to buy some Tesla stock. I called my broker and put in a couple of orders and told him "Tesla is around 215 and I think in the last couple of hours it will go to 212, so put in a buy order for today for Tesla." Of course it did not go that low and began climbing back up, and today it closed at 226.83. I wont make this mistake again...next time, if the market ever dips again, I will buy at market price when it goes down some.

 

[Papafox]

Today we saw two sides of investing in TSLA. On the one hand, TSLA noticeably outperformed the broader markets this morning. While the NASDAQ traded down for almost the entire day, TSLA pushed near 230 in pre-market trading and would have climbed after opening except for a mandatory morning dip on significant selling followed by a game of whack the mole that lasted most of the morning until the stock broke free and climbed to a high of nearly 229. Thus, TSLA confounded the manipulators and climbed as long as the macro market was healthy. Low volume of 4.2M suggests shareholders were staying put at these low prices.

The NASDAQ lost 0.68% but TSLA closed down only 0.43% for the day

Alas, as afternoon progressed, the broader markets started fading over economic jitters again, and TSLA followed the broader markets down. TSLA could ignore a certain amount of NASDAQ negativity, but beyond a certain point it responds. Unfortunately, not long after TSLA closed, a news story came out that Walmart wants all SolarCity PV panels removed from stores because of 7 fires and is suing Tesla. This story has bad optics and likely we'll see the shorts run with it for a few days. Coupled with some jitters about the economy and what the Fed will say in Jackson Hole this weekend, we could see a few rocky days ahead.

Other news today included:
* Ron Baron spoke positively on CNBC about economic growth in the years ahead and about Tesla's excellent opportunities
* Elon tweeted that V10 of autopilot is 4 to 8 weeks away, which is a longer wait than many expected and suggests that revenues realized from delivering some additional FSD features would not likely happen in Q3

Shorts were tagged with 40% of TSLA selling today, a substantial increase from yesterday and a suggestion that if the macros run lower and the media runs with the Walmart story for a few days, the shorts are likely to apply downward pressure on the stock during this time.

Conditions:
* Dow down 173 (0.66%)
* NASDAQ down 54 (0.68%)
* TSLA 225.86, down 0.97 (0.43%)
* TSLA volume 4.2M shares
* Oil 56.24
* Percent of selling tagged to TSLA shorts: 40%

 

[Papafox]

Is anyone surprised that the shorts tried a hard pushdown of TSLA this afternoon? I was surprised by the strength of the macros, which made shorty's job all that much tougher. Right after market open, the selling came hard but the mandatory morning dip was quickly neutralized, and after 12 noon the stock price began a nice recovery. Notice the hour of capping needed to keep the SP around 222? I bring this capping to your attention because I believe there was a coordinated effort to push TSLA down in early afternoon. Notice the relentless selling in the afternoon when no breaking news had arrived? The dip bottomed out at 1:45pm, but right around 1:30pm CNBC posted a video of an analyst lambasting Tesla for the Walmart fires. I don't believe the timing of that appearance was coincidence. The market nonetheless smelled a skunk, and TSLA recovered a couple dollars prior to close.

Need more proof that the shorts were manipulating like crazy today and the afternoon dip was a manipulation? Take a look at the percent of selling chart (2 charts below). Shorts were tagged with selling 46% of TSLA today. In the final minute of market trading, 212K shares traded hands and allowed some hedge funds who had been day-selling to cover.

The NASDAQ closed up 0.90% and helped TSLA weather the bear attack today

Regarding the Walmart lawsuit, TMC member @vgrinshpun posted the following image on Twitter:

Yep, it looks like Walmart is playing games here. Let's see if even one member of the mainstream media tells the other side of the story.

Today analyst Colin Rusch appeared on TV and suggested that the worst possible outcome for Tesla on the Walmart lawsuit would cost the company something like $100 million. I did some math and realize that every dollar decline of TSLA equates to about $181 million in market cap. Thus, if TSLA was worth $100 million less today than yesterday, there should have been about a 60 cent adjustment to the stock price. Instead, we saw 10X that amount, which is absolutely the result of the strong bear attack today.

TSLA shorts were tagged with 46% of the selling today, a big jump and no surprise.

Looking at Friday's expiring options (by opricot.com), it looks like somewhere between 222.50 and 225.00 would be a sweet spot where the market makers would be happiest.

Looking at the tech chart, this Walmart lawsuit plus yesterday's negative macros have resulted in TSLA losing a couple days of its recent climbs. If tomorrow is again a positive macro day, then TSLA may be able to begin recovering some of these losses.

Conditions:
* Dow up 240 (0.93%)
* NASDAQ up 72 (0.90%)
* TSLA 220.83, down 5.03 (2.23%)
* TSLA volume 7.8M shares
* Oil 55.72
* Percent of selling tagged to TSLA shorts: 46%

 

[Papafox]

Today TSLA was pushing 228 in pre-market trading as rumors circulated that VW's chief was interested in some arrangement in which VW could gain access to Tesla's battery and other technologies. VW's chief denied any interest and so the remaining of the day's trading was likely based on other forces.

Macros were split today with the Dow closing up and the NASDAQ down 0.36%

Looking at the NASDAQ chart above, you can see distinct similarities as TSLA roughly mirrored the twists and turns of the NASDAQ, but in an overall more positive fashion. Most tech stocks I follow closed down today, and so TSLA's strength today was something TSLA-specific. One ingredient was the unwinding of some of yesterday's losses on the Walmart lawsuit story as more details come forward and Walmart's position looks far shakier than most media outlets described yesterday.

The good news is that with positive to neutral macros today, TSLA was able to shake off the Walmart hex today and should be trading without this influence in the future.

Papafox's Theory of TSLA Movement as of August, 2019
The forces at work on TSLA charge significantly from time to time, and we've been in an unusual trading environment this 3rd quarter with little positive or negative expectations for the end of quarter results. Consequently, TSLA volumes have been low as investors hang onto their shares during this time of unusually low prices for TSLA trading. Another symptom of the times is that with low expectations of positive or negative catalysts to come in the near future, combined with this low trading volume, TSLA is especially vulnerable to direct manipulations on trading (as opposed to inducing fear into the longs). Here's how TSLA appears to move each week and the forces at work.
* Substantial Tesla news, positive or negative, overrides other forces
* At current prices, the market is exerting a weak upward force on TSLA SP
* The upward force exerted on TSLA is enough to counteract NASDAQ dips of up to 0.50% or so, but dips much greater than that amount will overpower TSLA's upward force and a downward force results
* Hedge funds which sold TSLA call options exert a downward force whenever economically possible to keep TSLA below level for substantial call options expiring that week
* On Friday afternoons, normal market makers exert an upward or downward force to propel TSLA toward true max pain location if it is achievable and the regular market makers are more powerful than the hedge funds

Let's now see how these forces affected today's trading.
- TSLA's upward force was able to overpower a weak NASDAQ dip of 0.36%
- TSLA traded up pre-market both on word of a possible VW interest in TSLA and because TSLA was ready to continue the rebound from the Walmart story that began in the final couple hours of yesterday's trading. Although the VW story was mostly neutralized by a VW announcement of no interest, the upward force was still there.
- Looking at the opricot data from yesterday, the TRUE max pain is somewhere around the 222.50 to 225 price. This is the range where option sellers (put and call) retain the largest profits.
- Yesterday's dip brought TSLA slightly below the true max pain point for Friday. A slight drift upward was likely today through tomorrow.
- Although today's trading looked very calm and lacking in manipulations, two data points suggest otherwise: percentage of selling by shorts was still high at 41.5% plus end of day final minute trading was a high 160K and at 4:51pm a prearranged trade for 72K shares took place. It is probable that much of these two transactions consisted of hedge funds covering their day's manipulative shorting
Thus, TSLA would likely have climbed noticeably more than 1.37% today without the stealthy selling during market hours by hedge funds.

What does this theory predict for Friday? Without any strong TSLA or macro forces, TSLA should close in the 222.50 to 225 price area. Hedge funds will work to push lower and regular market makers will push on Friday afternoon to see TSLA close in the range above. You could indeed see one group battling the other on Friday afternoon as we did last Friday. The regular market makers have more ammo and typically win.
That said, remember that big TSLA and macro news overpowers the manipulations, and we're likely to see big news on Friday as the feds make a speech in Jackson Hole. That speech could run the macros noticeably higher or lower, and TSLA will be dragged in either direction. In the afternoon the two manipulating forces will attempt to minimize the damage and adjust the price somewhat, but there are limits to their abilities on strong macro movements.

TSLA shorts were tagged with a substantial 41.5% of TSLA trading today, indicating manipulations

Conditions:
* Dow up 50 (0.19%)
* NASDAQ down 29 (0.36%)
* TSLA 222.15, up 1.32 (0.60%)
* TSLA volume 6.4M shares
* Oil 55.39
* Percent of selling tagged to TSLA shorts: 41.5%

 

[Papafox]

Up until about 11am today, TSLA was looking good, with news of Walmart and Tesla getting together to work out their differences. Word before market open of China imposing tariffs on an additional $75 billion of U.S. imports on Sept 1 was a negative but the market took it pretty well. Comments from the Fed were ambiguous but supportive of a rate cut in September. Then about 11am Trump ordered U.S. companies to consider alternatives to manufacturing in China and vowed to respond to China's tariffs later in the afternoon. Those comments sent the broader markets into downward motion and the NASDAQ continued losing value throughout the afternoon. Interestingly, TSLA was resilient at a price of about 213, and I suspect this was an upward force by market-makers trying to keep TSLA close enough to 215 so that they could help the stock price melt upwards into the close. Unfortunately, with the relentless dropping of the NASDAQ, TSLA resumed its dip in the final hour of market trading. Less than an hour before the close of after-market trading, Trump announced an additional 5% tariffs on $550 billion of imports from China, and you can see that dip on the chart above.

Looking at the chart above, you can see obvious icicles of short-selling at 11:40am and noon, times when volume spiked on likely short-selling in large amounts. Looking at these icicles, plus looking at 285K volume in the final minute of market trading and shorts tagged with selling over 44% of TSLA today, one can deduce that the manipulations were significant.

Regarding my Theory of TSLA movement posted yesterday, trading today was consistent with the theory, I believe, because the deep NASDAQ dip had the usual multiplier effect upon TSLA (with a bit extra tossed in by short-selling) and the original target closing prices of TSLA became out of reach. In the main investor's thread, I suggested if the NASDAQ dip bottomed out at 2.25%, then market makers might be able to push up for a close of 215, but unfortunately the relentless drop of the NASDAQ to 3% was too much for the market-makers to counteract and the broader market dip took priority.

The NASDAQ lost 3% today but continued downward into close and thereby made the effect upon stocks all the worse

TSLA shorts were tagged with a significant 44.5% of selling today, suggesting plenty of manipulations

Looking at the tech chart, you can see 5 different macro or TSLA-specific push-down events in August. Each was magnified to some extent by short-seller manipulations on the down days. We saw buoyancy of the stock when not engaged in a bad-news push down, but once again the shorts were doing some manipulations on the up days to gently reduce the climbs. The way for TSLA to get out of this cycle is to either enjoy some time without a big Tesla or macro dip or for noticeably positive Tesla news to come forth.

For the week, TSLA closed at 211.40, down 8.54 from last Friday's 219.94. The market generally needs at least a couple days to digest bad macro news, and so don't be surprised to see a red Monday. The good news is that Tesla looks to be producing and delivering well, with European deliveries catching or passing Q2 deliveries, even though there were far fewer vehicles in Europe to sell at the beginning of Q3. Tesla did the right thing by remaining mum during the Walmart story and now the two companies are working out the problems. It is not good for a company to be too quick to publicly lambast their customers, even stinkers like Walmart, because such behavior can be worrisome to Tesla's other customers. Elon has been behaving himself on Twitter and interacting with customers at a meaningful level. Have a good weekend.

Conditions:
* Dow down 623 (2.37%)
* NASDAQ down 240 (3.00%)
* TSLA 211.40, down 10.75 (4.84%)
* TSLA volume 8.3M shares
* Oil 54.17
* Percent of selling tagged to TSLA shorts: 44.5%

 

[Antares Nebula]

Tesla did the right thing by remaining mum during the Walmart story and now the two companies are working out the problems. It is not good for a company to be too quick to publicly lambast their customers, even stinkers like Walmart, because such behavior can be worrisome to Tesla's other customers. Elon has been behaving himself on Twitter and interacting with customers at a meaningful level. Have a good weekend.

I agree with this sentiment. Even if it is cheapy ol WalMart, they are a customer, both for solar/batteries and probably the Semi. The customer is always right is a good motto to follow. And as you say, it sets a good example for other customers.

Thanks for your daily charts. And enjoy your weekend Papafox!

 

[anthonyj]

View attachment 445638

Any input on that death cross?

 

[Papafox]

Any input on that death cross?

Actually, the blue 50 day moving average crossing to a higher position above the 200 day moving average is a golden cross because the shorter time period average just moved above the longer period average. This is normally a bullish indication, and is happening because some low prices between 40 and 50 trading days out are being excluded from the calculations with every passing day. I didn't make a big deal about it because it's hard to get too excited about a positive technical event when the stock loses $10 that day.

 

[anthonyj]

Actually, the blue 50 day moving average crossing to a higher position above the 200 day moving average is a golden cross because the shorter time period average just moved above the longer period average. This is normally a bullish indication, and is happening because some low prices between 40 and 50 trading days out are being excluded from the calculations with every passing day. I didn't make a big deal about it because it's hard to get too excited about a positive technical event when the stock loses $10 that day.

Ah, my bad, was confusing the golden cross on your daily chart with the death cross on my weekly chart. Hoping it doesn’t happen, and if it does, oh well. Not selling my core holding for a while

 

[Antares Nebula]

@anthonyj I have also been wondering about the potential *weekly* death cross. I think you can see it better on this chart. I think this would be the first time in TSLA history that a weekly death cross would occur. It almost crossed a few years ago, but was averted. Don't mean to crowd your thread @Papafox, but would be curious to hear your thoughts. I will also post this in the TA and trading threads. Thanks!