Papafox's Daily TSLA Trading Charts

[Papafox]

The hedge funds came within 40 minutes of holding TSLA near or below 350 this week, but as the final minutes of market trading approached, it became clear that they lacked the horsepower to push TSLA down further, and so the traders came in and bought TSLA in anticipation of higher prices next week, and on Monday morning specifically. Although the percentage of selling by shorts number is low again, I think this number is deceiving in that those who short to manipulate can take much of their transactions to dark pools and non-FINRA exchanges, which is what I think has been going on this past week. Notice the 12K shares traded at 4:41pm in pre-arranged after-hours trades and then another 45K at 4:44pm and yet another 63K shares at 5:42pm, all at market close price. An upswing in TSLA price into close, which suggests a failure of the manipulators to maintain control of TSLA's price, is normally a suggestion of positive trading during the start of the next week.

The NASDAQ opened high, stayed high, and ran higher in the final 20 minutes, to close up 0.73%. On such up days for the broader markets, the manipulators have to work extra hard to hold TSLA back.

This is the Opricot.com max pain chart for TSLA's expiring options of Nov 15. As you can see from the second chart, much of the call option trading shifted to strike prices above 350 as the week went on. The numbers were:

Strike Number of contracts expiring
350 5.8K
352.5 2.6K
255 7.5K
357.5 3.4K
360 5.7K

From these numbers, you can see that there was considerable exposure to the sellers of options of 350 and above, particularly at the 355 strike price. Thus, even though the hedge funds lost money on their 350-strike calls sold, they saved the rest from closing in the money, and with nearly 20K contracts between 352.5 and 360, that's a lot of exposure.

What incentives do the hedge funds have for influencing TSLA's price next week? Let's look at the option chart below.

As you can see, 360 calls are the most popular strike price for call options expiring next Friday, Nov 22, with more than 3.5K in circulation and more to pop up this week. Thus, I suspect the hedge funds will strive to keep TSLA below 360 next week.

The big question mark of next week, however, is Thursday's CYBRTRK reveal and how it can affect the outcome, positively or negatively. In my mind, the most likely outcome would be a run up to the event and then a dip on Friday. Why a dip? The CYBRTRK will have a non-traditional look, which means some ambiguity in how the market interprets the data. Hedge funds might sell Friday morning to suggest that the market is not happy with the look of the truck, even if the truck is eventually going to be a big success. Of course if the truck is just too cool for school in appearance, that option will not be available. I'll be watching the reveal with great interest.

Shorts were tagged with only 37% of TSLA selling on Friday, even though there were apparent manipulations such as the MMD, the morning whack-a-mole game, and frequent push-downs throughout Friday.

Looking at the tech chart, you can see that volume was quite low on Friday, but even so TSLA managed to start its break from the 350 blockade imposed this week at 350 daily closing prices. The trading reminds me of the trading in the 317 range of early November after the big breakout when TSLA was consolidating after the inevitable profit-taking and then slowly began to transition to an upward momentum again.

For the week, TSLA closed at 352.17, up 15.03 from last Friday's 337.14, mostly owing to Monday's gains. Have a great weekend.

* Dow up 223 (0.80%)
* NASDAQ up 62 (0.73%)
* TSLA 352.17, up 2.82 (0.81%)
* TSLA volume 4.7M shares
* Oil 57.72 on 11/16
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 37%

 

[Papafox]

Today we saw the type of manipulative trading I have been expecting for Friday. In both cases, the catalyst for the manipulation is a news story that is ambiguous enough that short-selling to depress the stock price can be used to fool some investors into believing that the market turned negative on Tesla. Fortunately, buyers returned in the afternoon and ate away much of the morning dip into the red.

The ambiguous catalyst today regarded the unveiling of the Ford Mach-E EV over the weekend. The vehicle is no Tesla killer, but it is a reasonable first effort at a serious EV from Ford, and Elon was right to send congratulations to Ford. What's ambiguous about this development is that we won't know for quite some time whether it will somewhat hamper or bolster the sale of Teslas. On the one hand, Tesla has a new, reasonably decent competitor on the horizon. On the other hand, Ford is now talking up the positives of EVs, and the Mach-E may in fact bring quite a few middle-of-the-U.S. car buyers into seriously considering an EV. If they do reach this decision point, some will go ahead and order the Mach-E and some will comparative shop and buy a Tesla Model Y instead. Further, the hatred of Tesla owners for being "liberals" in redneck eyes may be changing with the introduction of the Ford EV because Teslas are EVs made in America but the Ford EV is made in Mexico. The hatred for a made in USA vehicle is rather silly when the mainstream manufacturer is importing one from Mexico. Remember, there is no single slice of the automotive pie that all EVs are fighting over. Rather, EVs are just one more choice in car ownership right now, and the percentage of EVs vs total vehicles sold will continue to grow.

Nonetheless, despite generally positive trading in pre-market, the usual subjects started probing the market after open by short-selling, looking for any weakness, and they found enough to allow the Mandatory Morning Dip to extend throughout the trading day. Notice the telltale "icicles" that are very clear as large quantities of shares are sold quickly in efforts to trigger stop-loss sales and otherwise probe the lowest stock prices available today. The icicle becomes an icicle when longs buy up the dip and quickly return the stock price to a level close to that before the icicle-inducing short-selling. The low volume of 4.4M shares suggests that today was really all about shorts shaking out a few weak longs and maybe even drawing in a few more shorts. It had little to do with most long investors.

Come Friday, the ambiguity would come from a CYBRTRUK that is so unconventional in appearance that conservative investors wonder if the truck will be successful. We haven't seen the truck yet, so we can't yet judge how much ambiguity will exist on Friday after the real event.

With TSLA recovering from the morning lows and having upward momentum into close, I wouldn't be surprised to see some positive trading days before Thursday's reveal.

For entertainment today, consider watching this youtube clip from CNBC where Tim tries to look intelligent while describing his approach to shorting TSLA.

The NASDAQ traded slightly negative in the morning but closed up 0.11% at end of day. Overall, it was a calm day for macros

TSLA shorts were tagged with 56.5% of selling today, up considerably from the previous two weeks and reflecting the manipulations applied today


Conditions:
* Dow up 31 (0.11%)
* NASDAQ up 9 (0.11%)
* TSLA 349.99, down 2.18 (0.62%)
* TSLA volume 4.4M shares
* Oil 56.90
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 56.5%

 

[Papafox]

Today the market woke up to realize it had been hoodwinked yesterday by the Ford Mach-E headfake orchestrated by certain shorts and/or hedge funds, and the market, once the MMD was dispatched, went to work remedying the situation. Volume was 7.4M shares, which isn't particularly high, but with that volume the buyers were able to overwhelm most of the roadblocks thrown in their way by you-know-who as the stock approached 360.

The price 360 is, of course, the tough nut to crack, both because it is a legitimate point of resistance (some convertible bonds are referenced to 360, etc.) and because that's the line in the sand the hedge funds are likely drawing this week to protect their 360 and higher-strike sold calls. I suspect a fair amount of the manipulations today were focused on keeping TSLA from exceeding 360.

At 4:00pm we saw a robust 289K shares change hands, and at 4:54pm a prearrange trade of 67K shares took place. I suspect much of these transactions were hedge funds covering their daily shorting/manipulating activities.

The Dow was down today but the NASDAQ was slightly positive, closing up 0.24%

TSLA shorts were tagged with 51.5% of the selling today, down slightly from yesterday's Herculean effort.

Looking at the tech chart, I've posted a weekly long view which doesn't show that today the 100 DMA crossed above the 200 DMA, which makes the tech traders happy.

Looking at these weekly ranges going back to 2012, you can see that TSLA traded below 40 for quite some time before breaking out. It then stepped up to a 180 to 280 trading range (with variations above and below) and then after 3 years stepped up to a 280 to 380 trading range for another 3 years. It's about time for it to step up to the next range, which may well be 380 to 480, but I seriously doubt this will be a 3 year range. Instead, we could blast through 480 within a year if things go well.

It's important to keep an eye on the big picture because sometimes there's a huge move in a single day, and you'll likely make more money by staying consistently in TSLA now than trying to play each potential dip. Consider, for example, the traders who got out of TSLA entirely for the Q3 ER, only to find that this move ending up costing $50/share by the time they bought in the next day.

Conditions:
* Dow down 102 (0.36%)
* NASDAQ up 21 (0.24%)
* TSLA 359.52, up 9.53 (2.72%)
* TSLA volume 7.4M shares
* Oil 55.33
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 51.5%

 

[Papafox]

TSLA actually reached 362.50 in pre-market trading, but when TSLA could not stay above 360 for more than 15 minutes of market trading, weak longs started jumping ship as the hedge-fund algobots ran at high speed, trying to maximize the push-down on a day with some weakness. Traders jumping ship were likely those who planned to bail before the CYBRTRUK event and they figured waiting any longer for above 360 this week before the event probably wasn't going to happen.

A massive 60.5% of selling today was tagged to the shorts and you can see the deep icicle formations throughout the morning. By 12:30pm TSLA was doing a pretty respectable job of shrugging off the short-selling pushdowns, then at 1pm came a big macro dip and the shorts started selling like there was no tomorrow in order to maximize the dip. I think the China macro dip handed the advantage to the hedge fund shorters today by both disrupting the recovery momentum and giving a great opportunity for a sticky dip on steroids. In the final minute of market trading, nearly 740K shares traded hands, confirming that there was plenty of covering after the day's manipulative shorting.

I'll be curious to see tomorrow's trading. On Monday we saw substantial short-share churning and the market decided to reject the push-down the next day. Today is fairly similar, so let's see if the market considers today's pushdown to be an overreaction.

The NASDAQ briefly traded in the green mid-morning, but rough sledding with the China trade war caused a big dip at 1pm. The NASDAQ closed down 0.51%

Shorts were tagged with 60.5% of TSLA selling today

Looking at the tech chart, you can see that TSLA gave up most of yesterday's gains but there clearly were buyers standing by to prevent a dip below 350. Meanwhile, the lower bollinger band is rising through 299 to provide a soft landing if there are any surprises in the near future. Also, you can see that the 100 day moving average has ascended through the 200 day moving average, giving the technical traders just that much more confidence with the stock.

Overall, word I'm hearing about European deliveries is that Tesla should easily beat all previous quarters. Here in Hawaii, deliveries have been extremely brisk so far this quarter. I suspect North America deliveries will be good and Tesla should deliver over 105,000 vehicles in Q4, which should make for some nice financial numbers.

We're wrapping up phase 1 of the rally, the 3Q portion. The 4Q portion hasn't really taken off yet, and when financials confirm that S&P500 inclusion is likely, phase 3 will begin. For these reasons I don't sweat the day to day dips and I remain long and strong.

Conditions:
* Dow down 113 (0.40%)
* NASDAQ down 144 (0.51%)
* TSLA 352.22, down 7.30 (2.03%)
* TSLA volume 6.7M shares
* Oil 56.82
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 60.5%

 

[Papafox]

It's deja vu all over again! Yes, the market rejected Wednesday's push-down today in the same manner it rejected Monday's push-down, with similar results. The difference is that with today's trading, some profit-taking prior to the CYBRTRK event plus macro weakness in the final hour of trading allowed the hedge funds to add steroids to the dip into the close.

One clue that percentage of selling by shorts number (and consequently manipulations) would be high today was the 307K shares traded in one minute at 4pm as the hedge funds covered a portion of their daily short manipulations. Another clue was the substantial rise in the SP during after-hours trading. This was the market rejecting the closing price of TSLA today and pricing it closer to 258, where it belonged.

The macros were down slightly today, with the NASDAQ closing down 0.24%

Look at the relationship of Monday to Tuesday's % of selling numbers, then notice the same general relationship occurred with Wednesday and Thursday's numbers. In both pairs, The push-down day included unusually high % of selling, and the subsequent green day (when the market rejected the previous day's push-down) showed a high but somewhat lower % of selling. Today's number was 57.5%.

So, do we see a typical sell the news reaction on Friday following the CYBRTRK event, or will Elon release information that causes Friday to be a big up day? Find out by tuning in at 8pm Pacific, 11pm Eastern time tonight.

Conditions:
* Dow down 55 (0.20%)
* NASDAQ down 21 (0.24%)
* TSLA 354.83, up 2.61 (0.74%)
* TSLA volume 6.0M shares
* Oil 58.38
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 57.5%

 

[FrankSG]

Can I ask you your opinion about the pre-arranged trades at 4PM every day? Do you have any idea who might be selling these shares to the short-sellers/manipulators? And what do the sellers of these pre-arranged trades gain from them?

 

[Curt Renz]

Can I ask you your opinion about the pre-arranged trades at 4PM every day? Do you have any idea who might be selling these shares to the short-sellers/manipulators? And what do the sellers of these pre-arranged trades gain from them?

At-The-Close Order Definition

 

[Papafox]

Thanks Curt for the useful link. In terms of sellers, normally finding 300K sellers for the final minute of market trading would be pretty tough, but a lot of traders like to derisk before a reveal.

 

[Papafox]

Wall Street wanted to see a pickup in traditional form factor and such an aerodynamic monstrosity just wouldn't work for Tesla's mission plan because it would require huge numbers of battery cells and raise the cost too high. Instead, we ended up with the CYBRTRK, which has many things going for it including stainless steel body, and great range and performance for the dollar. Wall Street was hoping Tesla would dominate the truck category in the way it dominated the Luxury and mid/small sedan categories, but, alas, physics wouldn't allow the form factor/range/price vehicle that Wall Street was expecting. Because of the surprise, 16.8 shares traded hands today, which suggests that the selling was led by weak longs.

Some bulls who are counting order numbers suggest that Tesla already has 120,000 orders for the truck, which will give the stock price a boost when Wall Street realizes there's a decent-sized market for CYBRTRK. Looking at percentage of selling tagged to shorts, we were way up again at 60%, suggesting lots of manipulations. You can see the morning pushdowns that sprung back and I suspect that since the afternoon's trading was so uniform, we were witnessing some capping to keep TSLA from exceeding 335 today. If the pattern holds true, Monday should be a recovery day as the market realizes that today was an exaggerated response to the truck reveal Thursday night.

In news, MotorTrend has had an early peek at CYBRTRK and offers the most complete analysis out there right now, in several stories. They made positive comments about the vehicle. In a CNBC video clip today, Dan Ives of Wedbush cast doubts upon Tesla's ability to keep the kind of profits it saw in Q3 going forward. He has apparently been drinking the TSLAQ koolaid and he suggested that Q3 was profitable for reasons that cannot be reproduced. The importance of this comment is that it shows there's a fairly large segment of the financial world out there still doubting that Tesla has turned the corner. For this reason, Q4 deliveries of over 104K vehicles will be a huge wake-up call. Those of us who follow the numbers think Tesla will indeed make their Q4 numbers and show an even bigger profit than in Q3. The Q4 P&D report is less than 5 weeks away. For this reason, I am not sweating the Friday push-down because much more important things are at stake in the short run. A vehicle that will begin production two years from now is of minor importance compared to what's coming our way within weeks. Model 3 and Model Y are critical for Tesla's future, but the pickup truck is not so much. Let's see if Tesla can release the full feature set of FSD before end of year. That feat alone will add considerable profits to the quarter's performance.

The macros were positive today, with the NASDAQ closing up 0.16%.

Looking at the opricot.com max pain chart, you can see that the investors who bought puts in the 340-350 range did well. Max pain was about 345, and so only the hedge funds that didn't delta hedge would be pushing for lower today. The market makers would instead have liked to pay out fewer puts, so any effort they put into manipulations would be to the upside, toward 345 or higher.

Here you can see the pattern of a day with high manipulations pushing the stock down, followed by a day of recovery for the stock with somewhat lower percentage of selling tagged to shorts, and then the cycle repeats. We're halfway through the 3rd oscillation now.

Here's a tech chart that displays the October and November climbs, so that you can get some perspective on the extent of the Friday dip. True, Tesla has to retake 350, but this next assault should be easier than the first.

For the week, TSLA closed at 333.04, down 19.13 from last Friday's 352.17. If expectations were indeed too high for the cybertruck, then let's get this reveal behind us so that the focus can turn to broader, more important, and more positive issues next week. Looking forward to it. As a general rule, dips the day after a reveal resolve significantly in a week to two week's time. I expect this dip to be no exception. Have a great weekend.

Conditions:
* Dow up 109 (0.39%)
* NASDAQ up 14 (0.16%)
* TSLA 333.04, down 21.79 (6.14%)
* TSLA volume 16.8M shares
* Oil 57.77
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 60%

 

[Papafox]

As you would have expected after Elon's 200K Cybertruck reservations tweet this weekend and viral coverage of the vehicle in media, TSLA traded way up in pre-market, topping out at 349.50 at 7:19am. Pre-market trading was light for the most part and you can see almost linear descends going on, broken by momentary rises and corrections. I would not be surprised to see that algobots did most of this work. When the stock entered market trading hours, it was already $5 lower than the peak. An enormous 410,000 shares traded hands at 9:30am and then the stock dropped below 340 after extra-high volume for the first 10 minutes of trading. The stock rebounded to 342 and looked ready to shrug off the push-down but then began a shallow dip that would take it into the close.

Interpretation: The cybertruck reveal has controversial aspects to it. The truck is rapidly catching the fancy of a broad range of buyers and yet analysts are downplaying it, saying it's ugly and will have a limited appeal. Of course CNBC jumped on the bandwagon, producing a segment entitled Don't be fooled by Tesla's Cybertruck hype. Here's the truth behind the numbers. Naturally, the media is also casting doubt whenever possible on Tesla's Q3 results, taking the standard TSLAQ approach. I think the cybertruck event was controversial enough so that when the stock price started declining (as creative short-selling can do), some weak longs jumped ship, which allowed the whole manipulation process to become profitable today for the hedge funds doing the dirty work. Volume was above average, 12M shares, but not especially heavy.

Another possibility we need to consider is that the combination of certain members of the media and certain Wall Street types may be preparing for a Thanksgiving bear attack. If so, some of the short-selling today might have been straight short-selling in preparation for the even, rather than then less potent selling and covering combos. NASDAQ trading is closed on Thursday and closes early at 1pm on Friday. It's the same type of setup for the infamous July 4 week bear attacks, so please trade accordingly. Personally, I wouldn't trade weekly calls on a holiday week (they're just too easy to manipulate). You have shorts who still need to cover and you have companies such as Morgan-Stanley who were surprised by the Q3 profits and didn't have time to get their own TSLA holdings as well as the holdings of their top customers ready for the big TSLA move. Even though Adam Jonas is saying very positive things about TSLA, he hasn't changed his low price target yet, and so I think we'll have a pretty good idea when the Morgan-Stanley clients are ready for a run-up because Jonas will then upgrade his price target and tack on some easy gains for the stock.

Still, the publicity from cybertruck is really good for Tesla and just today Elon Musk accepted a challenge to pit a cybertruck against an AWD Ford F-150. Since these trucks are readily available for testing, I am sure Elon already knows how the match will turn out. I mean, look at the preparations his team took prior to Franz throwing that metal ball at the truck's windows (on second thought, maybe that's not such a good example). Nevertheless, the grudge match is coming and I believe cybertruck will look good.

The NASDAQ gained 1.32% today and couldn't have been more stable. Macros WEREN'T an issue today.

TSLA shorts were tagged with 57.5% of selling today

If today was the recovery day from the 3rd round of push-down and recovery, perhaps tomorrow will be the push-down day of the 4th round. OTOH, it's possible that investors will wake up to realize today's trading was heavily manipulated and will bid the price higher tomorrow. Anything's possible, but if you have some dry powder, consider that later this week a sale might offer even better prices on TSLA than today. None of the mischief we're seeing regarding Thanksgiving week and the cybertruck coverage will affect Q4 results, so please keep your perspective.

Conditions:
* Dow up 191 (0.68%)
* NASDAQ up 113 (1.32%)
* TSLA 336.34, up 3.30 (0.99%)
* TSLA volume 12.0M shares
* Oil 57.99
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 57.5%

 

[Papafox]

Well, it's happened again, TSLA has now completed 3 full push-down/recover cycles and today was indeed a push-down day, so we're halfway through 4 down/up cycles and anticipating that tomorrow will be an up day for the stock to complete cycle 4. If we stay on track, that would make the half-day of trading on Friday a down day, which would play right into the greedy clutches of the hedge funds. We'll see.

Looking at the daily chart above, you can see slightly negative trading in pre-market as investors realize that the stock is not doing well this week (because it's being manipulated!!). The one exception was an odd (prearranged?) trade of 189K shares at 8:05am priced at 338.58 (about $2 more than yesterday's close, hmm). Someone certainly wanted to buy shares before the market opened if this was the price. When the bell went off, a robust 193K shares changed hands in the first minute.

Throughout the day, you can see the icicle-like pushdowns as short-sellers are probing for weakness during the day. At about 1:45pm, with no significant negative macros or news, the bears pushed the volume up to 42K shares sold in a minute and tried hard to explore the possible lower depths of TSLA trading today. They made some progress over the next hour.

What's encouraging is that after 3:31pm, TSLA began a climb that continued into after-hours trading. Normally, such a climb into close suggests upward pressure on the stock the next day. An amazing 595K shares traded in the final minute on a day with relatively low volume (7.6M shares). I suggest that because of the shape of the trading chart, the large buy in pre-market trading plus the large first and last minutes of trading, we were seeing significant manipulations today.

This evening, Elon tweeted that 250K cybertrucks have now been reserved. Although the reservation rate has cooled a bit to a mere 1,000 trucks per hour, every other automaker in the world would kill to achieve such amazing acceptance of a new vehicle. TSLA descending this week when macros are climbing and cybertruck reservations are flying into the stratosphere is another good sign that some mischief is afoot.

The NASDAQ closed up 0.18% today

Ihor Dusaniwsky says we're seeing net short covering of nearly 1 million shares over the past week. Normally, covering would be pressuring the stock price to rise.

TSLA shorts were tagged with 56.5% of the selling today, still a high number

Looking at the tech chart, the bollinger bands had been hugely wide for quite some time but now have squeezed down to 366 at the top and 307 at the bottom. Despite the price pressure being put on TSLA this week the good news is that technical indicators as well as trader expectations have readjusted to the fact that TSLA is now a stock trading between 300 and ATH.

What to expect for the remainder of the week?

The opricot max pain chart suggests that market-makers would be happy with a close around 337.50. Even the hedge funds have little reason to push hard down this week because 330 calls only number about 1.9K. This is one of the few weeks where it looks like the manipulations might be led by traders who bought puts and hold short positions they wish to liquidate at lower costs.

I think instead the downward pressure on the stock this week must be coming from shorts who are trying to engineer an escape from their positions prior to the market waking to the fact that the cybertruck reveal has turned into an undeniable success, not a reason for a substantial dip. By next week I think the market will regain its senses, but in the meantime I would expect some recovery on Wednesday. If it doesn't happen (with macros and FUD under control), then I think we're feeling the effects of a holiday pushdown. Friday remains a wildcard with the down/up pattern favoring a down day, but with all the cybertruck talk likely to erupt around turkey dinners on Thursday, don't be surprised to see some buyers testing the waters on Friday by buying the stock. If I get a good price tomorrow morning on a few call options I hope to pick up, I probably won't hold my dry powder until Friday. This baby is ready to fly again shortly, and once she starts climbing, I think the ascent will be brisk.

Conditions:
* Dow up 55 (0.20%)
* NASDAQ up 15 (0.18%)
* TSLA 328.92, down 7.42 (2.21%)
* TSLA volume 7.6M shares
* Oil 58.25
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 56.5%

 

[Papafox]

Today completed push-down/manipulate-the-recovery cycle 4. Thus the past 8 days of trading have been red/green/red/green ...
What was different today was the jump upwards in short-selling percentage on the manipulate the recovery day. In each of the previous 3 recovery days, percent of selling tagged to shorts decreased somewhat from the push-down day but today that number actually increased. I attribute the increase to low volume on a holiday afternoon that was just too tempting to manipulate.

Since all the big dog traders were already heading home early this afternoon for their celebrations, the shorts were gypsies in the palace and did their best to push TSLA into the red by mid afternoon. Alas, between long investors waiting for a bottom to this holiday dip and shorts trying to cover, there was just too much buying energy at the bottom of the dips for the shorts to make much headway.

As with yesterday, we saw one huge buy in pre-market, this one for 116K shares at 8:58am. Since the transaction didn't significantly change the price of TSLA in pre-market, I suspect it was a pre-arranged deal at current price. The SP bottomed out around 1pm and several times flirted with the red before being bid back up prior to close. The final hour of trading was so level it makes me think that capping was being used to keep TSLA from climbing higher.

In news, the flavor of media coverage of TSLA keeps improving. Yesterday, Cramer admitted that his wife wants a Model X and he's done bashing the stock. Today, a New York Times reporter on CNBC spoke of Musk, Tesla, and Cybertruck in shockingly-reasonable and positive terms. Meanwhile, there's the F-150 tug of war that Ford is trying to back out of and odds makers are giving Tesla 5 to 2 odds for the win. CT has made Tesla the talk of this Thanksgiving.

The NASDAQ couldn't have been more stable, closing up 0.66%

Shorts were tagged with a hefty 59% of TSLA selling today

Looking at the tech chart, you can see that although the lower bollinger band continues to rise and provide downside protection, the upper bb is running level at about 365. You can see that the gains in the 4 cycles haven't been nearly enough to compensate for the push-down days.

My guess is that the cycles comes to an end early next week. Since Friday is both a half-day of trading in a holiday week and also the push-down day in the cycle, expect red ink. Please don't mortgage the house to buy puts, however, because people will be talking about cybertruck over Thanksgiving and I suspect Elon will tweet "300K" sometime late Thursday. I ended up buying a few more leaps today and will buy some more on Friday if the sale price is good enough. Shortie could be surprised by the post-turkey-day buying, and of course we could be surprised by shortie's determination on a half-day holiday Friday. As for next week, I can't wait.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving.

Conditions:
* Dow up 42 (0.15%)
* NASDAQ up 57 (0.66%)
* TSLA 331.29, up 2.37 (0.72%)
* TSLA volume 5.5M shares
* Oil 57.95
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 59%

 

[Papafox]

The Friday of Thanksgiving week showed a mere 2.5 million shares traded, a number so low it's seldom seen. Friday did indeed turn out to be the push-down day that began the 5th pairing of alternating red/green days and suggests that Monday will be the green day that completes pushdown/climb-with-restraint combo 5. Part of the reason for the super-low volume was of course the half-day of trading, part simply because many traders are on holiday, but I think a major part of the low trading volume was a lack of sellers. This overreaction to the Cybertruck reveal plus holiday manipulation dip has run its course and investors are now more interested in positioning for the rebound than fearing further dip.

Looking at specifics in the chart, notice yet again a sizable pre-arranged trade in pre-market trading (54K shares at 8:54am). These types of trades so often happen on days with high short percentage of selling (and therefore high manipulation) that I suspect the trade is ammo for a manipulation during market hours. Although the pre-market trading was mostly neutral, the shorts managed to get a mandatory morning dip going right out of the gate, despite macros rising slightly at the time and no bad news. By 11am the MMD was over and TSLA was threatening to climb above 330 and towards the red/green line, and so we pretty much saw capping for the remainder of the day with the expected result (TSLA closing a few pennies under 330).

Notice the NASDAQ's downward trajectory after 11am, however. Normally, the macros would put downward pressure on the stock price, but since the market was overall pushing upwards on the stock price (which is the reason the cap had to go into effect), the deteriorating macros just made the capping job a bit easier for the manipulators.

Seriously, TSLA's quick dip right after market open, followed by tracing a straight line toward 330 for the remainder of the day is not something that normal market forces is producing. The morning icicles in particular were classic artifacts of manipulations.

The NASDAQ closed down 0.46% today

TSLA shorts were tagged with 59% of selling today. Notice that the 9 trading days that began with the run above 55% of selling are the nine days of the patterns we've been observing. This is not coincidence. The high percentage of selling by shorts is required to successfully work the patterns.

Looking at the tech chart, you can see that the post-Cybertruck reveal/Thanksgiving week dip has pretty much run its course.

So, where does TSLA go from here? One possibility can be seen from the chart above of the Monday following Thanksgiving week 2018. The stock price ran up $20 (over 6%) on a day with macros up 2%, and the stock reclaimed two-thirds of what it had lost during a particularly brutal Thanksgiving week. This is why I made a point of cleaning out the sofa and investing all the loose change today and yesterday, because I think it's now time for a recovery. The Cybertruck event was sold off hard, and yet we're realizing quicker than most other investors that cybertruck will be a roaring success. Expect Elon to tweet "300K" some time this weekend.

For the week, TSLA closed at 329.84, down 3.20 from last Friday's 333.04.Seems like lots of drama for someone to pick your pocket for three bucks and a couple coins. Please enjoy your weekend. Next week could be fun.

Conditions:
* Dow down 113 (0.40%)
* NASDAQ down 40 (0.46%)
* TSLA 329.94, down 1.35 (0.41%)
* TSLA volume 2.5M shares
* Oil 55.17
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 59%

 

[Papafox]

Today TSLA put in a solid performance, closing up 1.49% on a day when the NASDAQ was down 1.12%. That's better than a 2.6% improved performance over the NAS. With this green day, TSLA has remained in the red then green, rinse and repeat pattern for the past 10 trading sessions now.

Although today's strength of TSLA on the Monday following a manipulated Thanksgiving week should be no surprise to anyone, all eyes are on Tuesday, and here's why. If TSLA shows strength tomorrow and we break the pattern by closing green, that would be a signal that this particular chapter of manipulation is completed now and TSLA should be able to run higher again. I leave open the possibility that TSLA could have a very strong day tomorrow, should it break the pattern. TSLA's big Monday after Thanksgiving last year had a tailwind of a 2% rise in the NASDAQ that day. I tend to believe that with better macros TSLA would have run noticeably higher today.

The media and many analysts have changed their tune lately regarding Tesla. At some point TSLA will shrug off the manipulations we've seen since the cybertruck event and resume a climbed based upon Q4 performance and a 2020 that looks strong.

The NASDAQ opened near neutral but fell rapidly until about 11am. It recovered slightly and closed down 1.12%

TSLA shorts were tagged with 56.5% of the selling today. The dip could be a head fake, as it was on Nov 19, or it could be a first step in TSLA settling to a more typical % of selling by shorts numbers (40% or so).

Our safety net, the lower bollinger band, has now risen to 315 while the dampening effects of the upper bb won't be felt until the stock hits 363, giving room for substantial rise in the near future.

More importantly, look at the bowl that formed after the late October Falcon 9 rise on Q3 ER news. Once the stock started climbing out of the bowl, it rose to the 350s within a reasonable time. Now look at the second bowl that formed after the Cybertruck reveal. As perceptions of the event started to change we didn't see a proportional change in the stock's performance, and so I think many of the positive implications of the event have yet to be priced in.

Conditions:
* Dow down 268 (0.96%)
* NASDAQ down 97 (1.12%)
* TSLA 334.87, up 4.93 (1.49%)
* TSLA volume 6.1M shares
* Oil 56.11
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 51.5%

 

[Papafox]

After 10 trading days of alternating red-green closes, today was supposed to be a red day but even with the miserable macros, TSLA showed such strength to break the pattern and close green for a second day in a row. Do I think this is significant? Yep.

On the one hand, whoever has been leading the manipulations has done a good job in the past two weeks of taming any tendency of TSLA to run higher. During that time, a great many shorts have been covering. I think we understand the incentive for last week's manipulations when protecting call strikes sold was not particularly important. I see the manipulations as twofold: a "cover me while I make a break for it!" move to protect shorts who are exiting and a potentially profitable enterprise for the manipulator if the overall trend on high manipulations is downward during the manipulation period of the day, with covering at a lower price than the initial short-selling.

Looking at the chart, you can see the all-too-common pushdown before market open, a type of manipulation that is inexpensive and skews expectations of those investors waiting for open. Once the pre-market pushdown faded into green territory not long after opening, shorts initiated the whack-a-mole strategy to avoid any excitement in longs about TSLA rallying into the green. Nonetheless, about 2pm the shorts lost control of 335 and raised their cap a few times. You can see the various levels of plateaus where capping was applied.

In news:
* The Unsworth defamation trial is underway and so far Elon and his legal team have been calm and careful with their responses to give themselves the most advantageous outcome. If all goes well, the lawsuit turns into a nothingburger for Tesla investors
* Piper Jaffray analyst Alexander Potter raised his TSLA price target from 372 to 423 and called Tesla a "must own stock"
* Deutche Bank says Tesla will begin delivering Model Y in Q1 of 2020 because various parts suppliers have been asked to move forward their parts deliveries

These pieces of news reinforce the belief that it's time to get into this stock.

Macros were in the dumpster today, with the NASDAQ opening more than 1% down and ending down 0.55%

In recent days, we've noticed buying on the dips. Are the buyers longs or shorts? Well, from Dusaniwsky's chart above, we can surmise that a fair amount of that buying is by shorts who continue to cover as they realize that Tesla could really run higher in the not so distant future.

Normally the red day (today) has a higher percentage of selling by shorts than the following green day, but with this red day shifting uncontrollably to green, the shorts had to up their game even more, with 56% of selling tagged to them today.

Looking at the tech chart, you can see the post-cybertruck-reveal dip has now formed a very complete bowl and if history repeats itself we'll see a climb leading away from the corner of the bowl.

What happens on Wednesday? One theory is that if the macros turn green, shorts will engineer a deep enough MMD, which will chase away traders and TSLA will end the day in the red. The other theory is that Tesla has been greatly exceeding the macros this week and a green macro day could allow TSLA to rally nicely. I think the answer depends upon volume and how capable shorts are at retaining control of the narrative tomorrow. If TSLA obviously gets away from them, the market could wake up and feed the rally. Stay tuned.

Conditions:
* Dow down 280 (1.01%)
* NASDAQ down 47 (0.55%)
* TSLA 336.20, up 1.33 (0.40%)
* TSLA volume 6.5M shares
* Oil 56.30
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 56%

 

[Papafox]

I often look at pre-market as the sentiment of small, retail investors, and it can be disrupted by manipulations since the volume is typically light. Today the small retail investors were thinking TSLA should begin the day around 338, especially in light of the positive macros. Alas, the positive macros presented a danger to those forces aligned with keeping TSLA from running back up toward 360, and so we saw an enthusiastic mandatory morning dip, with any rises controlled by capping and with enough icicles descending from the 335 cap that if this was tornado country and those were funnels, I'd be running, not walking, to the nearest storm cellar. The icicles are selling volleys intended to test whether enough weakness can be generated by the dip so that a further dip can transpire. When the SP immediately rises back to its previous value, the answer is "no," at least at that moment in the day.

Volume today was light at 5.4 million shares traded, suggesting there's no big desire to exit this stock. The courtroom drama, like the FUD following the cybertruck reveal, is just noise that will not affect TSLA in the long term but can affect the trading that day. Personally, I think the main purpose of pushing down so hard on this positive macro day was to use the courtroom drama/stockprice dip as a false narrative to suggest that real investors are worried about the trial's outcome. They are not.

Take a look at the near-horizontal trading of TSLA for most of the day. You see the icicles descending here are there, but for the most part you see capping, which placing an artificial cap on how high the stock would go and is responsible for that near-horizontal trading for hours on end. Then the cap is broken or is ratcheted down on a successful icicle dip and then we see another couple hours of capping at a different price point. TSLA's excursion into the green at noon could have led to a bigger climb if traders started returning to TSLA, but the usual suspects managed to whack-the-mole and get TSLA back into the red quickly enough to avert a rally. The day was topped off with a dip into close that had little to do with macros or news.

The macros were up today, with the NASDAQ trading with stability and closing up 0.54%

TSLA shorts were tagged with 50.5% of selling today. Personally, I think the manipulations shown on the daily chart suggest a higher level of effort today by Shortie than the number suggests, so perhaps non-FINRA exchanges and dark pools were used to raise the effort on TSLA today without flagging a clear manipulation.

For the remainder of the week, I rather think TSLA should reclaim 335 because anything less looks like too much of a bargain and 335 is Friday's max pain. If TSLA does run higher then there's always a chance of a significant rally. On the other hand, the shorts have played their cards well this week so far and might succeed in preventing a rally. Early next week could be another story, however, particularly if macros are behaving themselves. Sooner or later, this baby is going to take off. The Q4 prospects look just too attractive for this stock to remain where it is through the end of December and into the Production and Delivery Report. Shorts continue to cover, which places continued upward pressure on the stock price.

Conditions:
* Dow up 147 (0.53%)
* NASDAQ up 46 (0.54%)
* TSLA 333.03, down 3.17 (0.94%)
* TSLA volume 5.4M shares
* Oil 58.44
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 50.5%

 

[Off Shore]

As always, @Papafox, an informative post. I have a question. NASDAQ's page from which you take the graph quotes "NLS Volume" as 2,030,265. I see day-to-day that this number is always smaller by half (but not exactly half) of the volume you generally quote. Where do I find the real number?
Thanks again!

 

[Papafox]

As always, @Papafox, an informative post. I have a question. NASDAQ's page from which you take the graph quotes "NLS Volume" as 2,030,265. I see day-to-day that this number is always smaller by half (but not exactly half) of the volume you generally quote. Where do I find the real number?
Thanks again!

The NASDAQ's daily volume number for Tesla is always low, as you state. Instead, I suggest Yahoo's TSLA site or many of the other financial sites that cover TSLA. Personally, I use Apple's stock app on my iphone to get the TSLA volume and the NASDAQ daily chart that you see posted here.

OTOH, NASDAQ is the reliable source for TSLA short interest that other firms reference twice a month. Ihor Dusaniwsky's charts can get quite a bit off until NASDAQ releases an update, at which time Dusaniwsky does an update of his charts to correct to the NASDAQ data.

 

[Tslynk67]

The NASDAQ's daily volume number for Tesla is always low, as you state. Instead, I suggest Yahoo's TSLA site or many of the other financial sites that cover TSLA. Personally, I use Apple's stock app on my iphone to get the TSLA volume and the NASDAQ daily chart that you see posted here.

OTOH, NASDAQ is the reliable source for TSLA short interest that other firms reference twice a month. Ihor Dusaniwsky's charts can get quite a bit off until NASDAQ releases an update, at which time Dusaniwsky does an update of his charts to correct to the NASDAQ data.

CNBC ticker shows the volume both of pre-market and main trading, which is why Keep using it:

TSLA: Tesla Inc - Stock Price, Quote and News - CNBC

 

[Papafox]

In many ways, today's trading shared much with yesterday's trading. Pre-market trading was mostly up today, and we saw the same type of heavy-handed mandatory morning dip as we did yesterday. With low performance in the macros (NASDAQ up only 0.05% for day) and exceptionally low TSLA volume (3.6M shares traded), the manipulations were easier for shortie and of course we saw a push-down into close. It was all classic manipulations with plenty of icicles. Pre-market trading included a non-prearranged buy (evidenced by rise in SP) of 54K shares at 8:57am. A suspicious mind could conclude that the purchase was needed for the after-opening selling extravaganza to enable the MMD. Shortie continues to use the noise from the Unsworth trial to suggest longs are worried. The problem is that with only 3.6M shares volume, hardly anybody was selling today. It's just awful when the facts get in the way of a good tall tale.

Most relevant for investors today was the big jump up in the stock price during after-hours trading. It was caused by Adam Jonas of Morgan Stanley raising his "bull-case" price target for TSLA from 440 to 500. Morgan Stanley carries a lot of weight on Wall Street, so we may see this note be the catalyst that sends TSLA on an upward trajectory tomorrow. The importance of Jonas's change is that it plants this number, $500/share, in the minds of long investors and shorts alike. Just as when Jonas reduced TSLA's "bear case" price target to a mere $10, investors react emotionally to the number (fear in the case of $10 and both greed an excitement from the $500 number). The Morgan-Stanley analyst said he offered this raise because of both better China prospects and because of the Cybertruck possibilities.

What we see now is Morgan Stanley with a $10 to $500 price target and a middle of the road price target of $250. It's really nuts to raise your bull-case target by $60 and not touch your middle of the road PT, but this is Wall Street we're talking about here, where logic takes a back seat to "whatever makes us the most money." Jonas is trying to emphasize the $250 target because he's not trying to raise expectations about the stock, even though that's exactly what a $500 price target is going to do when it comes from Morgan-Stanley.

My guess is that Morgan-Stanley's preferred clients are mostly out of their TSLA short positions and others already set up with their long positions if Jonas offered this upgrade today. Can a single large firm on Wall Street really affect the stock trading that much? You bet. I remember the most recent equity offering by Tesla in which Goldman-Sachs was the lead. Watching the stock price, I was impressed with how stable it was during the days of the offering. My guess is that Goldman was buying up any big selling volleys from the shorts and quickly getting the message across that you won't be able to manipulate when Goldman's client is in a delicate time. With a big Wall Street firm now signalling that its clients are ready for TSLA to run higher, that may well be exactly what we see ahead.

The NASDAQ was a bit bumpy today but closed up a smidgen, 0.05%

TSLA shorts were tagged with 57% of TSLA selling today

Looking at the tech chart, you can see that the past two days of losses for TSLA mess up the nice climb from the right side of the bowl that formed after the cybertruck reveal (previous bowl with climb is visible on left side of image). Any time a positive narrative is developing with TSLA trading, you can expect shortie to step in and try to rewrite the script. Now the story may have chaned in after-hours trading today.

Looking forward to tomorrow.

Conditions:
* Dow up 28 (0.10%)
* NASDAQ up 4 (0.05%)
* TSLA 330.37, down 2.66 (0.80%)
* TSLA volume 3.6M shares
* Oil 58.40
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 57%