Papafox's Daily TSLA Trading Charts

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above
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Ho hum, Friday was your classic manipulate into the close to keep TSLA slightly below 800 kind of day. Looking at the charts above, you can see that TSLA was trading more positively than QQQ up until about 2pm. TSLA even broke into the green between 10am and 11am, something QQQ couldn't pull off. Alas, right around 2pm, when volume typically lightens, TSLA didn't follow QQQ into the green but rather stayed in the 800-zone until the close of another options-expiration Friday. Volume was low, enabling the manipulations.

A more interesting perspective is to take a look at TSLA vs. the NASDAQ for the week. The week was all about Tesla proving that it could keep the Fremont factory open, despite protests from the County of Alameda. The local high point of the stock was the previous Friday, when the factory had been opened without Alameda's blessings. On Friday, May 8, TSLA closed at 819.42. One week later it closed at 799.17, a loss of 2.47%. Compare this performance to the NASDAQ's loss of 1.17% for the week and the picture emerges of TSLA underperforming the NASDAQ, even though Tesla kept Fremont open and progressively ensured that it would stay open.

What matters is not the slight loss this week for TSLA but rather the bigger picture of Fremont reopening, Shanghai cranking out the Model 3s, and Deutsches Bank officials commenting that they've learned from Tesla that its order book has been growing through the pandemic shutdown. It's only a matter of time (macros permitting) that TSLA resumes its climb based on expectations of a strong half of 2020.

On Sunday we just learned from this Bloomberg article that Tesla has received the county's blessings for full opening next week. Tesla was going to do so anyway, but they were wise to play the game with Alameda. Alameda's concern was that if Tesla was allowed to defy its orders, other companies would follow. For this reason Alameda and Tesla both played the game of Tesla adjusting some of its procedures to satisfy Alameda and receive a thumbs up, never mind that Tesla's safety procedures were not the stated reason for Alameda's denial of service (the county's position originally was that the stated criteria for reopening hadn't been met yet, including PPEs, plus testing and tracing capabilities). The county's story evolved as Tesla ramped up.

Anyway, having the question mark of Alameda removed should be a positive for Tesla's stock price in the coming week. Wall Street doesn't like uncertainty.

Recent news was mostly positive. The one negative bit of news was word that battery day would be postponed until next month.
* Capital Group has been adding to their TSLA holdings and now control 5.8% of outstanding shares
* Tesla has picked Austin, TX, and Tulsa, OK, as finalists for next gigafactory
Considering that Tesla's Fremont factory was able to stay open all week long and will have the county's blessings going forward, news this past week was actually very positive and has not yet been reflected in the stock price

Regarding COVID19 control, apparent progress is being made:
* The White House has added vaccine expert Moncef Slaoui to their team. Slaoui echoed the POTUS's message that widespread distribution of a COVID19 vaccine is possible before the end of the year. The U.S. is looking at 14 top contenders at the moment and funding will be provided for multiple companies to get up production of their vaccines so that when one proves safe and effective, there will not be time lost in ramping up production.
* In the UK, the government is working to see 10 million vaccine doses available by September (if possible). Oxford and Imperial College are both working on vaccines
* In the U.S., drug maker Sorrento claims its STI-1499 antibody has shown 100% ability to stop the COVID19 virus in lab experiments. If the FDA gives approval, Sorrento will move forward toward human trials. If the antibody proves to be this effective in humans, it will be a breakthrough of a drug because normally antibody treatments are packaged as "cocktails" with a couple other antibodies, but STI-1499 looks so promising by itself that the complexity and cost of creating a cocktail of 3 antibodies might not be necessary. Sorrento says they can produce 200,000 doses per month and plans to make 1 million doses while waiting for FDA approval. About 50 other antibody treatments are being developed for COVID19. The advantages of antibody treatments are that testing can be sped up because 1) you don't have to wait for the test subject to develop their own antibodies, as in a vaccine, which can take weeks, and 2) antibodies can be used to treat patients who already have COVID19 because they work immediately and don't require the slow process of creating human antibodies. The disadvantages of antibody treatments is that they don't last nearly as long as a vaccine, maybe three months. They're also more expensive to create than vaccines. Thus, antibodies to get the disease somewhat under control by summer's end and a good vaccine to eradicate the virus is the hoped for outcome.
* With an election coming in November, you can count on the POTUS to lean on the FDA for quick approvals. Considering the gravity of the situation, both in terms of lost lives and economic devastation, that would probably be a good thing.

TSLA shorts were tagged with 36.3% of selling on Friday. Looking over a two month period, it looks like one source may have been responsible for most of the short-sell manipulations, otherwise, why would we see such lasting and consistent results? I'm thinking the manipulations didn't go away during these times of low selling percentage. More likely, we saw a move to non-FINRA sources as the reason for the profound dip in selling percentage by shorts.

Looking at the tech chart, you can see that the crowding near 800 continues. I appreciated @JeffreyY 's link, but at that point the county was still playing its games. Today's Bloomberg article now puts the games to rest and might be the catalyst for TSLA breaking out. On one hand, manipulators have profited by keeping TSLA trading within a relatively narrow band for a long period. On the other hand, if macros allow, TSLA may be ready to climb higher now that all factories are producing, demand looks good, and both Berlin and Texas/OK factories will become reality in 2021.

Some TMC members have been making money these past few weeks by selling call options above the upper bb and selling put options below the mid bb. I would suggest being careful on the high side now that official thumbs up has been received on Fremont's opening. Monday has the potential to be a good day.

For the week, TSLA closed at 799.17, down 20.25 from last Friday's 819.42. Despite the stock price manipulations, it has been a very good week for Tesla, which is moving forward to see 4 factories producing vehicles in 2021. Elon Musk, rather than being painted as the irresponsible bad boy, came out of this ordeal looking like a gutsy CEO adept at brinksmanship. Conservative truck owners have a new appreciation for Musk, which will pay dividends with Cybertruck starts rolling off the assembly line. Enjoy your weekend!

Conditions:
* Dow up 60 (0.25%)
* NASDAQ up 71 (0.79%)
* TSLA 799.17,down 4.16 (0.52%)
* TSLA volume 10.5M shares
* Oil 29.43
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts:36.3%

 

[Papafox]

TSLA Chart above

QQQ Chart above

The day began with significant macro enthusiasm. Vaccine maker Moderna announced positive interium Phase One results on their vaccine in human testing. Consider the pre-market to be the retail investors expectations of the coming trading day and you can see TSLA touched 830 before the market opened. Shortly after opening, TSLA shot up to 834 before falling quickly, in an exaggerated reaction to a NASDAQ spike at the same time.

The big question is why did TSLA trade so poorly after this great start? I think TMC member @Singuy made an excellent point when he suggested that other stocks that have recovered well since the coronadip were lackluster today but stocks (such as other auto manufacturers) that were not expected to do well with a prolonged economic hit from the virus saw big rises today. In other words, we were seeing the good news from Moderna leading to reallocation of resources as the low-flying stocks suddenly looked more valuable. Fortunately, not much of the money going into the low-flyer stocks today came from TSLA because even with the big swings in price today, volume of TSLA was a mere 11.7M shares.

One lesson to be learned from today is the next time the macros rally due to positive COVID19 news, portfolio rebalancing can once again happen (though it will likely not be as striking as today's moves because the low-flyers have gained some altitude after today).

Was there manipulation with TSLA, though? Evidence suggests yes, and so does motive. Take a look at that huge 113K volume at 9:45am. That moment was just 2 minutes after the day's high and suggests someone was ready to absolutely hammer the stock with severe selling in a manner that makes little sense from a maximization of sale price standpoint (selling slower would normally bring in more revenue because you're not depressing the stock so quickly). I'm showing 9:48am as the time that QQQ prepared to start its dip. A big hedge fund that was aware of the sector rebalancings today could have profited immensely by an enormous short sale. No doubt part of the 113K dip that minute was caused by algobots picking up the selling and joining in. At this point, traders realize TSLA is not the stock to be in that day and sell to move to better-performing stocks, as well. Then weak longs get nervous (someone knows something!) and continue the dip. All in all, selling early on a day with TSLA experiencing a big early rise and covering later in the day is a particularly profitable move for a hedge fund. Keeping TSLA constrained within its previous trading range is also a profitable enterprise because the type of put and call selling plus swing trading that can happen in this environment is potentially very lucrative.

Other news today was positive
* Panasonic was once again profitable in their GF1 venture with Tesla and is looking to expand
* The Tweet referenced in this TMC post says that Tesla China VP talking about 4K/wk production from GF3 before June
* See below, West Texas oil prices rose above $30/barrel today, breathing new life into a shaky U.S. oil industry

Looking at the tech chart, today's price move has set TSLA comfortably between the upper bollinger band at 851 and the mid bb at 772. Expect further manipulations to keep the narrow trading range going a bit longer. It's been profitable for the option sellers and the swing trader/manipulators so far. The good news is that as long as macros behave themselves, TSLA trading above the mid-bb will slowly raise both the upper and mid BBs and allow the slow ascent of the stock price to continue while we await battery day or the next positive catalyst.

Conditions:
* Dow up 912 (3.85%)
* NASDAQ up 220 (2.44%)
* TSLA 813.63, up 14.46 (1.81%)
* TSLA volume 11.7M shares
* Oil 32.55
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 36.1%

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above (note: the usual TSLA chart was gorked with an after-hours glitch)

NASDAQ chart above

Today was a correction day for yesterday's trading, where the Dow climbed nearly 4% and the NASDAQ was up nearly 2.5%. Today, the NASDAQ outperformed the Dow, suggesting that some of the money that migrated to low-flyers after the positive vaccine news came out migrated back to tech and other NASDAQ stocks today. Consequently the Dow was mostly down today while the NASDAQ was up until the very final minutes of trading.

Comparing TSLA's chart to the NASDAQ's, you can see that TSLA was much more volatile today. In particular it was just as volatile to the up side as the down side. Volume of TSLA was again very low today at only 9.5 million shares changing hands. What I did notice was that for most of the day TSLA was up less than the NASDAQ was up on a percentage basis and yet when the NASDAQ dips, TSLA manages to get ahead of it on a percentage basis. So I think we have some manipulative bias still underway with TSLA, holding it back on the climbs and accelerating TSLA dip when the macros dip. These small manipulations add up and then we need some positive news from Tesla to reset the stock price. Then the negative bias begins again.

Also, notice that there's a battle for each $10 climb. The battle for 800 was somewhat reasonable since it's a very round number that initially set off some selling as it was reached. Looking at the tech chart below, you can see that it took a good two weeks from mid-April to late-April for TSLA to start bumping up against 800 and it took another week in May for TSLA to solidly hold 800. The battle for 810 has been ongoing for most of May. Today, TSLA looked like it was finally prepared to close above 820 when the Moderna article by Stat came out and sunk the market. TSLA is going to have to reclaim 820 now as this slow climb continues. I explained the sketchy nature of the Stat article in this post today I made in the main investing forum.

So, TSLA is still locked in this narrow trading range which is proving very lucrative for the option sellers and for the swing traders (quite likely an overlap there). Substantial positive news about TSLA could lead to an upward breakout at some point, and macro pressure or a cluster of COVID19 cases at the Fremont factory could lead to a downward break in the short term. In the longer term, Tesla is still on track for a strong 2nd half of 2020.

News today:
* Electrek reports that bidirectional charging is being introduced to new Model 3s (and presumably Model Ys). This feature will undoubtedly be mentioned on battery day and will lead to a potential income source for buyers of the new vehicles. Such a feature is important in the battle to show that Tesla EVs are a better choice than ICE vehicles.
* Reports out of Europe indicate that the EU may be looking to give non-business buyers of EV an exemption from paying the approx 20% VAT fee on vehicles. This could be a huge incentive for going EV because it greatly reduces the price disparity between ICE and EV vehicles.

Looking at the tech chart you can see TSLA trading right in the middle between the upper and mid bollinger bands. One positive takeaway from this prolonged consolidation is that investors are become comfortable with TSLA as a $800+ stock now.

Conditions:
* Dow down 391 (1.59%)
* NASDAQ down 50 (0.54%)
* TSLA 808.01, down 5.62 (0.69%)
* TSLA volume 9.5M shares
* Oil 32.50 (note improvement from a week ago)
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 37.7%

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

Hasn't this been a special week?
* On Monday, we watched TSLA run above 830 in AM trading and then get pushed down 20 before the close
* On Tuesday, we saw TSLA lose about 10 from AM high to closing as the stock underperformed the macros
* Today, macros were hot and getting hotter as the day went on, but we saw a pushdown from 825ish to below 815 by 1pm and then capping to keep TSLA low while the rest of the market rallied.

My point is that we're seeing manipulative patterns that are profitable for the manipulators because:
* Sold puts and calls are remaining out of the money, for the most part, due to narrow trading range
* Pushdowns from morning highs are profitable if the push is begun with a hefty short-selling flurry
* By constraining TSLA's recovery by close, the next day is set up for another enthusiastic morning run upwards, which can then be pushed down in yet another lucrative manipulation. Thus the cycle repeats.

Today was a great day for the macros, with the NASDAQ closing up over 2%. TSLA's climb was less than half that amount. As QQQ descended from noon to 1pm we saw other tech-like stocks do the same. After 1pm, all but TSLA recovered. Don't believe me? Check out these samples that I regularly watch:

NVDA chart above (up 2.57%)

SQ (Square) chart above (up 3.62%)

;
ARKK chart above (up 3.41%)

So, the sample tech-like stocks climbed about 3X TSLA's climb today and just as with other weak TSLA days this week, afternoons were the time when the manipulations were the most noticeable. In past months, we mostly saw manipulations disguised by weaker climbs of TSLA and stronger dips compared to NASDAQ (which both made TSLA look like it was simply responding to the macros). Now, we're seeing quite a bit more flagrant afternoon manipulations to hold TSLA down through close so that it will pop up in the morning and set itself up for another lucrative pushdown.

I haven't been trading these climbs and dips because the past year has been financially rewarding to me and I no longer feel the need to wake at 3:30am here in Hawaii to execute short-term trades. Further, the money trades are best conducted with short-selling, rather than with long-buying because short-selling near the morning peak and then covering before market close does not expose the day-trader to the uncertainties of news that can pop up outside of market hours. I suppose one could sell puts near the high of the morning and then buy them back in late afternoon, but that kind of trading is not my thing.

Notice from the above three charts that afternoon weakness is not a universal tech-like stock thing right now. It's very specific to TSLA and it's a direct result of the manipulations. The good news is that at some point there will be good Tesla news shared and the stock price will move quickly upwards to readjust to the new realities and volume will not allow manipulations like we see today. The spring is tightening.

Looking at the tech chart, notice the low volume of barely 7M shares traded today. TSLA longs mostly held while they watched the mischief and buyers want to see more spunk in the stock before jumping in. With upper bb at 851 and mid bb at 782, TSLA is almost right in the center of the two bands.

Conditions:
* Dow up 369 (1.52%)
* NASDAQ up 191 (2.08%)
* TSLA 815.56, up 7.55 (0.93%)
* TSLA volume 7.2M shares
* Oil 33.63
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 37.5%

 

[abasile]

I suppose one could sell puts near the high of the morning and then buy them back in late afternoon, but that kind of trading is not my thing.

That wouldn't be my thing, either, but did you mean "buy puts near the high of the morning and sell them back in late afternoon"? I could see a day trader doing that to bet on TSLA being stronger earlier in the day with an afternoon pushdown.

 

[Papafox]

That wouldn't be my thing, either, but did you mean "buy puts near the high of the morning and sell them back in late afternoon"? I could see a day trader doing that to bet on TSLA being stronger earlier in the day with an afternoon pushdown.

Yes, I meant buy a put when the stock price is high and sell to close it when the stock price is low for the day. Similarly, you could sell a call when the price is high and buy to close when the price is low, but selling a call has a much greater potential negative outcome, and buying a put would be safer. Thanks for the catch.

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

This morning looked pretty typical for TSLA trading. The stock more or less mirrored the movements of QQQ. When the NASDAQ and QQQ bottomed out about 11:25am, QQQ was down about 1.3% and TSLA bottomed there too at 2.3%. That's pretty typical. What happened afterwards was not. I heard reports of lots of weekly call options being sold around noontime. Then, after 2pm, the macros dipped and TSLA soared into the green, closing up nearly 1.5% when the NASDAQ was down nearly 1%.
Ideas:
* One investor I know suggests that some big dog was acquiring TSLA this week, buying in the mornings and then holding off in the afternoons as the usual suspects pushed the SP down in lower volume trading. Then rinse and repeat. The big purchase of call options could have been done right before picking up the last of the shares needed to complete the big dog's buying and picking up shares in the afternoon today gave the stock a boost going into Friday.
* Then there's the "someone knows something good is about to be announced" angle. Lots of calls bought this afternoon followed by a stock price increase fits that theory.
* @Artful Dodger thinks some large option buyer walked the price up so that he could close his weekly options at a profit
Not exactly a consensus, is it?

The bottom line is that something is afoot. Stay tuned tomorrow for the possible conclusion to this mystery. Today's stock action also is a reminded that in the short run this stock often goes where the big dogs want it to go (in these flat, low volume times). Buyers and sellers of short-term options beware. The future of TSLA with 4 factories likely producing vehicles in 2021 looks great, though, so long-term hodl strategies are still a great way to go, IMHO.

In news, TSLA's market cap of 153B is approaching #1 automaker Toyota's market cap of either 191B according to Google or 162 B according to Yahoo!

Looking at the tech chart, today's rise in TSLA places it slightly above the halfway mark between upper bollinger band and mid bb. Notice how low the volume has been this week as investors hunker down and wait out the current stagnation/mischief.

Conditions:
* Dow down 102 (0.41%)
* NASDAQ down 90 (0.97%)
* TSLA 827.60, up 12.04 (1.48%)
* TSLA volume 12.0M shares
* Oil 33.84
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 38.9%

 

[ggr]

Discussion in the main thread seems to have concluded that Yahoo/ETrade and a few others are right, Toyota market cap is just over $162B. Google seems to be counting shares that have been repurchased by Toyota.

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

The QQQ chart above is your brain. Friday's TSLA chart above it is your brain on drugs. Any questions?
All kidding aside, Friday was one of the most flagrant end of Friday push downs purely for options-expiration that I've ever seen. A dip of more than $20 in the final hour of trading on no significant macro weakness and no Tesla news before a final minutes partial recovery was enough to get your heart racing. Once again, I say short-term traders beware. This is not an honest casino. I also say don't despair, every time Tesla demonstrates that it is the future of vehicular transportation, the stock price resets to reasonable, plus some.

Looking specifically at the charts above, you can see the "at a multiple" TSLA following of QQQ up until QQQ punched into the green in early afternoon. At that point, the manipulators turned on the "whack-a-mole" machine and kept TSLA out of the green until nearly the final hour. You can see a little dip by QQQ in the final hour, followed by a recovery, but that QQQ dip didn't begin until 3:11pm, whereas the bottom fell out from TSLA at 3:00pm. I've seen these type of deep push downs more than once begin right on the hour. Such timing suggests to me that there are multiple parties involved in the push down and that a nonsense dip beginning right on the hour is a signal to join in. Notice, too, how volume picked up around 2:30ish when TSLA stuck its head into the green and volume again increased as the 3:00pm push down got underway.

@Curt Renz in this post said it best:
Still no fresh news to explain the push downward of TSLA during the final 80 minutes of regular trading. Amid the low trading volume, hefty option writers were apparently able to shove down the share price by selling short the stock, thus allowing them to keep more of their option premiums, for a net gain even if covering the shares becomes costly on Tuesday. They likely took advantage of weak longs with tight stop limits, resulting in a cascade of sales by those heading to the sidelines before a three-day weekend.

Many of the victims were probably novice day traders who are stuck an home and seeking a substitute for all the cancelled activities including sporting events. Fresh meat for the manipulators.

While the week's final hour of trading was disappointing, the week as a whole was quite positive for Tesla but not so much for its stock price. Two full weeks have now passed since Friday, May 8, when Elon stuck his neck out to restart the Fremont factory with or without the county's approval. The first week was a tentative one with Alameda spinning the restart as an expanded basic configuration that would depend upon good countywide numbers to be given the go-ahead. Slowly the situation evolved into this previous week's situation, which was full production of the Fremont factory with the county's blessings. You would think that such an evolution to full factory output with county approval would be reflected in a marching upward of the stock price, but taking a look at the tech chart and counting back 10 trading sessions, you can see that TSLA has been inappropriately flatish in price during this time. In fact, on May 8 TSLA closed at 819.42, a few dollars higher than Friday's close. Someone has been managing TSLA SP, short-selling any morning run ups for a substantial profit before covering that afternoon and cutting off any afternoon rallies before they go ballistic.

Nonetheless, news over the past two weeks has been positive (besides Tesla's Fremont factory busy cranking out vehicles):
* The EU is considering removing the VAT tax from EVs
* China has been considering extending EV subsidies into 2022 now
* Estimates of Q2 production suggest nothing horrible. In fact there's a slight chance of a $1 profit, which would lead to S&P500 inclusion
- Troy's estimate for Q2 is 79,000 deliveries (he was low last quarter and his numbers typically grow as we near end of quarter)
- Rob Maurer's estimate for Q2 deliveries is 88,000, the same number as Q1. Rob was spot on with delivery and production numbers last quarter, so let's see how he does this time around. Moreover, in this youtube video, Rob predicts 555K deliveries in 2020.
* The first RORO has already come and gone (to South Korea) from Pier 80. Two more are scheduled through 6/1.

Here's a two month view of percentage of selling by shorts. Notice the two day drop from the 60s to the 30s that happened in late April.

Looking at the tech chart, the low volume of the past week and the artificially mild trading of that time period suggests capping at the high end (actually short-selling the morning run ups profitably) and a ready supply of buyers at the low end of the range.

For the week, TSLA closed at 816.88, up 17.71 from last Friday's 799.17. Have a great weekend.

Conditions:
* Dow down 9 (0.04%)
* NASDAQ up 40 (0.43%)
* TSLA 816.88, down 10.72 (1.30%)
* TSLA volume 10.0M shares
* Oil 33.25
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 36.7%

 

[Papafox]

Monday perspective

With the US markets closed for Memorial Day, we have a chance to contemplate what type of week lays ahead.

* One negative historical footnote is that sometimes we have seen bear attacks on short weeks and this coming week will be short. Weeks that offer half-day trading on Friday are particularly attractive for manipulations. OTOH, bear atttacks in the past have usually involved FUD, and we've seen the TSLAQ crowd and others struggling to generate any believable FUD as the number of shares sold short continues to decrease. Here's Ihor Dusaniwsky's latest chart:

* A positive view of recent trading is that there's upward pressure on the stock price and has been for a few weeks, but that upward pressure has been neutralized by concerted manipulations. The biggest reason for the heavy manipulations is that it's profitable because of low volumes, an element of uncertainty generated by COVID19 issues, and plenty of new TSLA investors who are not wise to the typical manipulations. Volume has been low in recent weeks, but we know when good news comes forward and the stock price rallies, volume picks up and the manipulators lose some or all of their control. Sooner or later a catalyst arises that generates enough volume of buying that the bulls take control of the stock price.
* Frankfurt- TSLA was trading near 830 in Frankfurt over the 3 day US weekend. I think this price equates to the price at which retail investors are willing to trade. For Tuesday, we could see a pushdown of TSLA trading in Europe as the NASDAQ prepares to open (manipulations are indeed an international thing, now). OTOH, we may see manipulators happy to see a "Monday Morning Buyers' Exberance" on Tuesday's opening, only to see the gains pushed down in a lucrative short-selling flurry once a vulnerable price point is reached (approaching 840?).
* Patterns:
- The most negative common patterns we've seen are:
* Walking down of early morning rallies. Don't be surprised to see this on Tuesday.
* Push downward into close in low volume late afternoon trading
- The most positive patterns are those where the stock runs higher all day, though the close. A macro environment that is gaining points as the day goes on is conducive to such a relentless rally.
- Another positive pattern is the typical trading through early afternoon, followed by a breakout into close. Again, the secret to seeing positive patterns is afternoon strength that overpowers the typical afternoon manipulations

TMC's @FrankSG did a great job of laying out his and other possible investment strategies in TSLA. in this detailed blog post. If your 3 day weekend allows the time, it's definitely a worthwhile read.

In a nutshell, we have everything possible from a nice upward breakout that takes us into the mid-800s this week, to more of the same stalemate from the past two weeks, to macro weakness that would allow a drift lower. My guess is that a big spurt of Monday Morning (on Tuesday) Buyers' Exuberance may well occur, and the most likely outcome is more of the same lucrative pushdowns into another stalemate. If the stock price rebounds and starts climbing in the afternoon, or if the pushdown is overruled by buying and the stock holds or climbs through the day, then the new higher price might have some staying power.

On Wednesday, SpaceX launches two astronauts to the ISS, at long last returning the United States to a position where it can deliver human payloads to earth orbit. There's going to be a lot of positive press if all goes well (and it should) so don't be surprised for a successful launch to provide at least some catalyst to TSLA. It's going to be an interesting week!

 

[adiggs]

Volume has been low in recent weeks, but we know when good news comes forward and the stock price rallies, volume picks up and the manipulators lose some or all of their control

Hey @Papafox. One explanation for the low volume comes from this article:
How Retail Investors Took Over The Stock Market

The gist being that across the whole market, not just TSLA, retail investors are where the bulk of trade volume is coming from right now, while the institutional / hedge fund / investment bank investors are sitting out this rally.

"Sitting out" of course is a relative thing, and there's plenty of activity in the current week option market (10's of thousands of daily call transactions mostly, but may thousands of put transactions also) for TSLA (I don't know about other companies). The mystery in my mind on that option market volume isn't on the sales side - it's easy for me to see why sellers would want to be in the transaction - the mystery to me is where the buyers come from for 10's of thousands of contracts.

Edit: Mod hat on. I believe no posts aside from Papafox are permitted here, but this looks like something he might respond to.

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

I've always regarded pre-market trading as an indicator of retail investor sentiment. There was a while when we saw the big dogs pushing TSLA down in the final hour or so of pre-market trading, but mostly this trading is the domain of retail investors. In pre-market we saw TSLA reach 835 early on, but as market trading began the NASDAQ embarked upon a downward trajectory and so did TSLA.

Overall, today was yet another rebalancing day where money flowed from stocks that had been highly valued to stocks that were still very much on sale, such as Ford, GM, and Carnival Cruise Lines. Seems a bit risky, no? As @adiggs points out in the previous post, Wall Street has figured out that retail is now accounting for a huge portion of the current trading (which might explain the transfer of funds to riskier stocks that might show some "pop" in the short term). Favored tech stocks such as Apple, Amazon, and Nvidia were all down today, owing to the downward slope as money moved into the stinker stocks. Thus, the Dow closed up 2.17% but the NASDAQ was only up 0.17%. Consider today's TSLA action as stronger than typical tech stocks today, so that's good. Doing a little Googling, I see that a few years ago retail money accounted for about 30% of funds invested, and I suppose that percentage is even lower now. Moreover, algos are credited with about 70% of trading. I suspect the algos are still running, but evidence suggests that many retail investors who are still at home are busy trading.

What then are the implications of retail doing much of the trading these days? On the negative side, we saw that they are more susceptible to the kind of manipulations that took place in the final hour of last Friday's TSLA trading. Moreover, when big money feels the need to get back into TSLA, they could generate a dip to scare away weak retail longs. On the positive side, if buying in recent months has primarily been from retail investors, it means that the big investment houses are likely still low on TSLA holdings and there would be a mighty upward push for TSLA when it's evident that the stock has qualified for S&P500 inclusion. As always, my inclination is to ride out any shorter-term dip in order to be properly invested when positive word about the S&P500 comes along.

News coverage is increasing about Wednesday's SpaceX launch to return the U.S. to human spaceflight missions. Last I heard, weather gives about a 60% chance of the launch about half an hour after the market closes. Looking forward to it!

Looking at the tech chart, the very narrow trading range continues. Looks like retail is giving upward pressure on TSLA and the hedge funds plus sometimes market makers are providing the cap. I'm okay with this situation as it brings us closer to Battery Day at a decent stock price. Also, the trend continues to be upward, though slowly. The price 820 has fallen, 830 is routinely being crossed intra-day, and all the moving averages continue to creep higher.Stability at a respectable stock price is not a terrible thing when you're in the middle of a pandemic.

In breaking news, Tesla has applied some lower prices to its vehicles (here is an article on electrek.co). Generally the market is skittish about such cuts, but with Tesla's battery technology moving forward, perhaps it's passing along the efficiencies to customers, so as to maximize the market. We'll see what Wall Street thinks on Wednesday.

Conditions:
* Dow up 530 (2.17%)
* NASDAQ up 16 (0.17%)
* TSLA 818.8 7, up 1.99 (0.24%)
* TSLA volume 8.1M shares
* Oil 33.92
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 41.8%

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

Overall we saw TSLA trading today at a typical multiple to QQQ, with perhaps a little extra weakness from the price reduction of various Tesla models news of last night. Since Model Y was not included in the price cuts, one interpretation is that Tesla is re-balancing the relative prices of the vehicles to perhaps shift some demand from Model Y to other vehicle types as Tesla works to maximize Tesla deliveries in North America during June.

Notice that both the 10am and 10:48am dips of TSLA were reflections of similar QQQ dips. During the latter dip, QQQ was down a little more than 2% while TSLA dipped about 4%, suggesting a possible bit of fuel added to the dip by shorts, but overall the day showed little in the way of mischief.

Today was launch day for the SpaceX flight that would return human flight to U.S. soil, and the positives of this launch included considerable press coverage plus great scenes of the astronauts riding out to the launch site in a pair of Tesla Model Xs with NASA markings. Who needs commercials when you have this kind of exposure.Unfortunately, the launch (scheduled for 33 minutes after market close) was scrubbed due to weather, and the launch is now rescheduled for Saturday.

Interestingly, about the time the launch was scrubbed, you can see a dip in after-hours trading that is not reproduced at QQQ. This nonsense dip of about $6 coincided with the scrubbed SpaceX flight. Perhaps we were seeing the slight negativity of the S,X, and 3 price cuts offset by the positivity of the SpaceX launch, and when that launch was scrubbed the negativity re-emerged. Interesting.

A more interesting phenomenon might be that last night's news plus morning macro weakness could have been an excellent opportunity for the type of manipulations we saw in previous years, but instead we ended the day with the unusual price stability of TSLA once again intact. One possible explanation is that the market makers are making money on this stability and they don't want their cash cow interrupted, which suggests a bit of a bias toward stability.

Overall, we saw the Dow up about 3 times as much as the NASDAQ today, with names such as NVIDIA and Amazon closing down. Thus, it looks like more sector rebalancing was underway.

News:
* Wedbush upped their TSLA price target to 800
* Price changes of Tesla Models in North America are as follows:
3 SR+ down $1K
3 others down $2K
S&X models down $5K

Looking at the tech chart, you can see how strangely stable the TSLA stock price has been during the past two weeks of trading, even on a day like today, when a price cut of various Tesla models would normally have led to a more negative result for the day.

Conditions:
* Dow up 553 (2.21%)
* NASDAQ up 72 (0.77%)
* TSLA 820.23, up 1.36 (0.17%)
* TSLA volume 11.4M shares
* Oil 31.46
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 41.3%

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

Today must be Thursday because the end of week manipulations have begun. Yesterday I enjoy almost a full day (can you believe it!) of no significant TSLA manipulations but our role in life right now is to suffer the slings and arrows of big-dog option sellers come end of week. You can see not only did TSLA show significantly-enhanced dips when the macros were heading down, we saw abundant icicles throughout the day, indicating big selling burst intended to sink the stock price. You can see that in mid-morning when QQQ rose into the green, "those guys" played whack-the-mole games with TSLA in the morning and then capped the stock price a few dollars into the red until it had the nerve to go green around 2pm. As the macros gave up gains in late afternoon, take a look at how volume increased as the shorting started up to maximize TSLA's dip into close.

Normally I'd expect a close around 800 on Friday, but the market has developed a fright after China's Hong Kong policy as we await Trump's response press conference on Friday. A more icy trade war again? Markets don't like such things and so there's the possibility of a deeper dip on Friday.

In news:
* Tesla's annual meeting will be Tuesday, July 7, at the usual location
* Elon Musk has earned the first award of his compensation package, worth nearly $800 M

Looking at the tech chart, you can see today's dip still stayed above the mid-bollinger band, so it's not too far out of the playbook. If there's a sizeable macro dip on Friday, it'll be interesting to see if the market makers try to support TSLA to keep the uber-stability unbroken or if the usual characters try to exaggerate the macro dip with TSLA. Interesting times.

Conditions:
* Dow down 148 (0.58%)
* NASDAQ down 43 (0.46%)
* TSLA 805.81, down 14.42 (1.76%)
* TSLA volume 7.3M shares
* Oil 33.31
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 40.8%

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

Comparing the QQQ chart above with TSLA's you can see general agreement with many of the moves. The important detail, however, is that the QQQ chart looks choppy because the scale was so low for much the day. Movements of QQQ between 230 and 231 constituted less than 1/2 of 1%, whereas TSLA's jumps between 805 and 820 were closer to 2%. Thus, TSLA was significantly higher than QQQ on Friday as both went through their gyrations.

Notice, too, that the surge of TSLA in the final 10 minutes of trading that allowed it to close at nearly 3X the NASDAQ's gains for the day was a reaction to a surge in QQQ as well during this time period.

TSLA's strong performance on Friday was in stark contrast to the clearly manipulative push down of TSLA going into it's Thursday's close. It's as if one force was trying to set TSLA up for an end of week dip Thursday afternoon but come Friday the good news was just too overwhelming to allow for the push down to continue on Friday. Moreover, the anticipated bad news of Trump overreacting to China's Hong Kong crackdown never happened as the POTUS gave a somewhat measured response to China's power move in Hong Kong.

For the first time in this rally, TSLA closed above 830 and did so with conviction. Each of the $10 increments, 800, 810, 820 and 830 were fiercely defended and yet eventually hard won. TSLA climbed above 830 multiple times intraday, but Friday was the first day we saw it close above 830, which suggests 840 and maybe even 850 is now in play.

Notice that TSLA ran up nearly 30 points on Friday (more than that if you look at after-hours trading) with a mere 11 million shares trading on an options close Friday. What this huge run and light volume means is that there's no way the market makers could adequately delta-hedge their sold options on Friday, particularly with the steep climb in the final 10 minutes of market trading. For this reason, it's not surprising that nearly 655K of shares traded hands during the 4pm minute and a prearranged trade of 159K shares happened at 5:26pm. These trades helped market makers prepare for further climbing next week if it comes. It could also have been indicative of some manipulators trying to close their daily shorting. I particularly like the after-hours climb into the 6pm hour because it was not a reproduction of QQQ's movements. Generally, a climb in after-hours suggests a positive opening the next trading day. Hoping so!

So, what caused TSLA optimism on Friday? Here are a couple contributing factors:
* Jim Cramer says Tesla will "crush" high end car market
* Stuart Varney of Fox News said Musk is the most important executive in the world
This Stuart Varney turnaround is meaningful because Varney had developed a really negative view of Elon and his brother Kimbal. You may remember that when Varney had Kimbal on his show and tried to get him to talk about some sensitive subject that Kimbal felt was off limits, Kimbal kept giving his "plant a seed day" answer whenever asked and these answers infuriated Varney. Now he has seen what Elon can do and is finally impressed. No doubt Elon's defying Alameda County to reopen the Fremont factory contributed to this newfound appreciation of Musk. Further, I looked at the comments on FoxNews regarding Varney's commentary, and the comments were uncharacteristically positive. Normally the Foxnews.com crowd is heavily antagonistic to things Tesla and Musk. What's happened is that Elon has created the CyberTruck as a truck to beat all existing trucks and he's now regarded as the most "badass" CEO in the world. This badass designation will filter down to the products and when we emerge from the coronavirus pandemic, Tesla will have substantially expanded its potential customer base.

The successful launch of two astronauts to the Space Station by SpaceX on Saturday not only cemented the "badass" view of Musk but generally brightened his halo, as well. Don't be surprised to see some of the positivity from the launch carry over into Monday's TSLA trading. Images of two Model Xs carrying the Astronauts Doug and Bob to the launch pad will undoubtedly provide yet more halo for Tesla's products.

Tesla shorts were tagged with 39.4% of selling on Friday. Looking at the two month chart, you can see a very definite step down from about 60% of selling to about 40% of selling, starting after April 24. Such a clear change in behavior suggests to me that the shorting was likely part of high-speed trading being run by one large hedge fund or by a confederation of similarly-minded organizations, working together. They may have finished covering their short positions on that day and felt the auxillary efforts were no longer needed nor profitable.

Here's a look at the tech chart with a bit of magnification on May's transactions. You can see that May really was the month in which TSLA cemented its claims to being an $800 and above stock. Now that the mid-bollinger band has risen to nearly 800 and the mid-bb has previously worked as support, there's additional reason for TSLA to remain above $800.

For the week, TSLA closed at 835.00, up 18.12 from last Friday's 816.88. Over the past two weeks TSLA is up more than $35 even though there's been a clear effort underway to cap TSLA's climbs. Have a good weekend.

Conditions:
* Dow down 18 (0.07%)
* NASDAQ up 121 (1.29%)
* TSLA 835.00, up 29.19 (3.62%)
* TSLA volume 11.3M shares
* Oil 35.49
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 39.4%

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

Congratulations, longs. After three weeks of consolidation trading in a slight climb to 800 and then above, TSLA broke out from the tight trading pattern today with a climb to nearly 900 in market trading. I had said that TSLA's close above 830 on Friday put 840s and 850s in play, but the run to 900ish gave a solid heads up to the market that TSLA is no longer in the duldrums.

What's peculiar about today's rally is the extent of the climb on low volume. A 63 point climb on a mere 15.1 million shares traded suggests few were interested in selling and a 60+ point climb was needed to allow new buyers into the stock. It's also hard for market makers to keep up with delta-hedging when TSLA is climbing all day long and there's little volume to work with as market makers pick up shares in an effort to remain neutral with their investments and that delta-hedging further bids up the stock price. Thus we see one of TSLA's most positive patterns, which is the big rise throughout the day as market makers trying to catch up on their delta-hedging buying provide too great a force for manipulators to counteract with a dip. The increase in the climb shortly before close is particularly indicative of this pattern.

The primary catalyst for today's breakout was, I believe, Elon's halo effect after SpaceX successfully transported astronauts to the International Space Station. Looking at the charts above, you can see that even though QQQ was showing negative trading in pre-market hours, TSLA was already trading in the 850-860 range.

Lest one believe that the macros were a major part of today's TSLA rally, I wish to point out that TSLA closed up about 12X to the NASDAQ's climb.

Macros began the day in the red as riots raged throughout the country over the weekend, but unless there's a major turn for the worst markets tend to tolerate such unrest and we saw both the Dow and NASDAQ rise into the green as the day went on.

After hours, Elon Tweeted "Off Twitter for a while". Generally, such announces are received positively by the market.

Looking at the tech chart, you can see the very conspicuous break above the upper bollinger band today, signalling a serious breakout from the stale duldrum trading pattern of the past three weeks. If you look further to the left on the chart you'll see the highest closing price of the 2020 rally, which was on Feb 19 when TSLA closed at 917.42. It's gone much higher intraday elsewhere, but the 917 becomes a point of resistance that TSLA must break through to go higher. I think many tech investors expect TSLA to test 917 in this breakout. We probably would see selling increase as the price nears that amount because it represents a potential local high, and so volume would likely need to increase to get TSLA over the 917 resistance.

With plenty of analysts giving price targets in the 900s now (including Goldman-Sachs), there's a real possibility that TSLA can climb higher from here. Since the next 3 or 4 years look so promising, I remain focused on shares and long-term calls as we await TSLA's next moves. There will be ups, there will be downs, but the overall trajectory with more factories and more products coming on line, and a lack of credible competition, will be continued, substantial appreciation over time. Elon knew what he was doing when he set the incentives for his compensation. He just earned the first, and more are to come.

Conditions:
* Dow up 92 (0.36%)
* NASDAQ up 62 (0.66%)
* TSLA 898.10, up 63.10 (7.56%)
* TSLA volume 15.1M shares
* Oil 35.69
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 38%

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

What a difference a day makes. Today's volume wasn't much different than yesterday's, 13.4M shares vs. 15.1M shares, but TSLA lacked the type of continued strength you typically see on the second day following a big rise. Even though QQQ was green leading into today's market trading, TSLA was choppy in the low red area, suggesting someone was manipulating. After TSLA's opening, we saw rapid up and down gyrations in a game of whack-the-mole every time TSLA reapproached the green. Closer to 11am, the macros took a dip and that dip for TSLA was a dip on steroids as short-selling poured fuel on the fire.

Notice, too, how as QQQ recoverd to the green by 1pm, TSLA was being hampered in a way that kept its recovery behind those of the macros. Notice the failure of TSLA to break into the green in the afternoon, also a sign of someone massaging the stock so as to prevent a second day of climbing. Finally, QQQ made an aggressive climb going into the close, but then then the pushdown into close was already underway and such macro exuberance was not reflected with TSLA.

Overall, I would say the sellers of call options expiring on Friday are being proactive, trying to discourage any additional rally. In particular, I suspect they're trying to protect the 900 strike calls. The weakness that allows them to do this is some natural profit-taking today by some traders plus (if you look at the tech chart below) TSLA remaining above the upper bollinger band, a place where the stock typically doesn't reside for more than 2 days in a row unless the stock is blistering hot on substantial good news. The stock price and upper bb are only $7 apart at close and we'll likely see a combination of rising upper bb and a possible slight decrease in the SP to get TSLA below the upper bb.

OTOH, many investors are still expecting this breakout to test 917 at some point, and so the sellers of the options could lose control of the stock price any day, just as what happened on Monday. I'd hate to be playing short-term options right now because the manipulations are back, but so is FOMO whenever TSLA starts heading higher.

Looking at the tech chart, you can see the very substantial climb from the 300s in December to the 900s just a couple months later. TSLA endured a coronadip and now, after a long consolidation, is flirting with 900 again. Notice the ATH closing of 917.xx on Feb 19.

Conditions:
* Dow up 268 (1.05%)
* NASDAQ up 56 (0.59%)
* TSLA 881.56, down 16.54 (1.84%)
* TSLA volume 13.4M shares
* Oil 37.25
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 40.7%

 

[Papafox]

Chart of TSLA above

Chart of QQQ above

FOMO was in the air again this morning with TSLA flirting with $900 from just a few dollars away about 10am this morning. QQQ took a brief dip into the red just past noon, and the macro weakness at that moment allowed many of the morning's gains to be undone. When QQQ and the NASDAQ rose again during the afternoon, the manipulators had control of TSLA during the exceptionally low volume hours and prevented a runup with the index. The entire day's volume for TSLA was a mere 7.9M shares.

Rebalancing was once again underway with the forgotten stocks receiving more love today. Although the NASDAQ closed up 0.78%, the DOW was the big performer, closing up over 2%.

How to explain TSLA's relative weakness in the afternoon after an exciting start of the day? I think the chart below (provided by a fellow investor) helps explain what's going on. Since mid-April, TSLA has entered a slow climb channel after the deep coronadip. We see a big rise and loss of that rise on Apr 30, first trading day after the Q1 ER, and then we see an immediate dip, which was Elon's " Tesla's stock price is too high imo" hit the wires. Other than those two anomalies, trading has remained within the channel. Looking one chart further down, the tech chart, you can see that this channel has fallen into the range between the upper and mid- bollinger bands. Because the price continues to trade above the mid-bb, the stock price HAS to continue rising, albeit at a modest rate. It is this drifting within the channel and typically within the upper to mid-bollinger bands that is the target for TSLA right now. Such a predictable climb helps the sellers of options remain profitable and it offers incredibly profitable manipulations if enough big players are joining the game and making money as TSLA fluctuations within the expected channel.

Case in point: Many technical traders expected TSLA to run up and retest 917 after Monday's big day. No doubt money was bet with that end in mind. Alas, Tuesday we saw TSLA end the day down nearly 2.5% below the NASDAQ on no significant news. Much of that disparity happened during a low volume end of afternoon pushdown, which is one of the profitable short-selling patterns. On Wednesday, TSLA greatly outperformed QQQ in the morning as tech traders were expecting the rally to come alive again, but at exactly 10am (2 minutes before the QQQ dip), we saw TSLA lose its climb and start a rapid descent. You will notice that many of the unexpected dips of TSLA take place right on the top of the hour, and I suspect this timing is a signalling method for other manipulators to join in. Think of how profitable it would have been to short TSLA at 898 today and then easily cover below 885 later in the day? So, I think we see big dog hedge funds and other such entities profiting from this shallow climb by placing limits on how high the stock goes. The market itself seems to be providing the upward force. Ironically, such firms could be holding core long positions in TSLA to profit from the climb in the channel and eventual S&P500 inclusion, but also making money shorting the stock down from morning highs to afternoon lows when the stock is trading too close to the upper bollinger band.

Typically, TSLA reenters the bollinger bands within about 2 days when it strays outside. On Monday, TSLA close at 898 a good $33 above the upper-bb. Today TSLA closed 14 cents below the upper bollinger band, two days after the big excursion above the upper-bb, so right on schedule.

How to profit from these patterns? Buying when near the mid-bb and selling at or above the upper-bb with trading shares is one possibility, and the number of approaches with options that could work (including spreads) are significant as well. Sooner or later really bad macros will pull TSLA below the channel or TSLA news of significance will pull us once again above the channel, so keep in mind that no pattern lasts forever. Personally, I've done well enough from HODL over the past year that I no longer feel the desire to wake early and make some extra money with short-term bets. HODL has served me incredibly well.

Today @FrankSG provided this link to a page he created where he details the holdings of TSLA's top 58 shareholders. It's a terrific resource, complete with TSLA stock ownership graphs for individual entities over time. You owe it to yourself to check it out. TMC's @Right_Said_Fred in this post pointed out, "Almost 153 million shares are in the hands of the 58 biggest shareholders. That leaves about 27 million for the rest, which is not much." He speculated about what's going to happen with Tesla is added to the S&P500. Trust me, you want to be a shareholder when that happens.

This chart shows the channel that TSLA has been trading in, to give you an idea of the relentless (but moderate) climb that has been underway.

Right on schedule, the rising upper bollinger band and the sagging TSLA price worked together to get TSLA a few pennies below the upper-bb two days after it's excursion well above the upper-bb. The good news is that all bollinger bands, upper, mid, and lower are rising, which sets TSLA up to continue rising in the channel that has apparently been anointed by the manipulators.

Conditions:
* Dow up 527(2.05%)
* NASDAQ up 75 (0.78%)
* TSLA 882.96, up 1.40 (0.16%)
* TSLA volume 7.9M shares
* Oil 36.69
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 37.6%

 

[Papafox]

Chart of TSLA above

Chart of QQQ above

Thursday was a great setup for a manipulation, with the NASDAQ in a downward trajectory after 10am. We saw some sector rebalancing, so that the Dow actually closed up a few points and airline stocks, among others, received the love today. Volume of TSLA was again low at 8.9M shares, which made manipulations even easier.

Notice the push downward into the close. QQQ showed a rapid recovery into the close, but TSLA stayed put below 870 and closed the day 3X further down on a percentage basis than the NASDAQ.

News: This electrek.co article reports that Germany is increasing EV incentives to nearly $10,000 for the Model 3.

For call options expiring Friday, notice the enormous number of 900 strikes, 950s, and 1000s. That's more than 7K of each. Interestingly, there's a big bunch of 880s, too, so expect the hedge funds to try keeping TSLA below 880 as well on Friday.

For over a month, there's been nothing of interest to show on the percent of selling by shorts chart. On Thursday, that percentage rose from 40ish of May to 53.6. Hmmm.

Here's 12 months in a tech chart, showing TSLA's climb from below 200 to its current range over 800. Today, TSLA closed at 864, close to 23 below the upper bollinger band at 887, giving it room to climb.

Conditions:
* Dow up (0.05%)
* NASDAQ down 19 (0.69%)
* TSLA 864.38, down 18.58 (2.10%)
* TSLA volume 8.9M shares
* Oil 38.15
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 53.6%

 

[Tslynk67]

Hey @Papafox - no post for Friday? I hope you're OK...