Papafox's Daily TSLA Trading Charts

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

Note: Sorry for the late posting for Wednesday. I completed the post at night on my usual schedule but didn't push the "post" button.

Thursday's trading was more about what didn't happen than what did happen. The strong pushdown after market opening was expected: shorts and hedge funds had just regained significant ability to push the stock price lower now that the alternative uptick rule for shorting had expired and greatly exceeded the macro dip on a percent basis. They used their regained tool effectively and pushed TSLA down more than 5%, compared to QQQ's early morning dip of about 1.4%. My guess is that holding the price near 108 would allow them to pick up where they left off come Friday and explore a deeper pushdown. Lo and behold, though, sufficient buyers materialized to scoop up shares and prevent much of a dip below 108. Then as the noon hour approached TSLA began rising even though QQQ was trading flat. Thus, the first "what didn't happen" was the shorts losing control of the stock price as buyers pushed TSLA higher in late morning.

The other important "what didn't happen" was the late afternoon pushdown into close. I was expecting shorty to try a late afternoon pushdown into close, even if the macros were flat. Instead, QQQ really dipped in the final hour of trading, and this was a gold-embroidered invitation for shorty to push TSLA down, only at a higher rate. To my delight and surprise, TSLA traded more or less flat into close while QQQ dipped significantly. Thus, the expected dip into close didn't happen.

There's evidence of manipulations, of course. Over 5.1 million shares traded hands at 4pm as the shorts covered their day shorting and traders sold shares that appreciated in the afternoon. Percent of selling tagged to shorts rose to 53% on Thursday.

Overall, I was very pleased with Thursday's TSLA performance. The pirates lost control of their morning cap at 108 and buyers prevailed over sellers in TSLA trading during the afternoon macro dip. Again, when I see manipulations fail it's a bullish sign to me. After 5 sessions of flirting with 108-109, we might have more investors thinking the bottom is in and grabbing shares at this discount price. Once there's big upward movement, the smarter shorts will start to cover and the momentum of options delta-hedging changes to aid the longs. After all, the likely-positive Q4 ER is just a little over two weeks away. Tick, tick, tick.

News:
* This video by Wuwa says Shanghai production is underway again
* On Twitter, Ray says that Tesla has slashed prices on some model configs in China
* Troy's comment on Twitter compares new Model 3 price with BYD Seal. Now prices are comparable. With competitive pricing and a Covid meltdown in China that will soon be turning the corner, say bye bye to China demand fears.

Yields on 10 year treasury bonds once again closed near 3.7%

Max pain Thursday morning was again 114. On Friday the market makers would want to keep TSLA above 105 but below 115.

Thursday's options volumes

Looks like shorty and the hedgies are having problems pushing TSLA much below 108.

Conditions:
* Dow down 340 (1.02%)
* NASDAQ down 154 (1.47%)
* SPY down 4 (%)
* TSLA 110.34, down 3.30 (2.90%)
* TSLA volume 156.5M shares
* Oil 73.88
* IV 81.7, 95%
* Max Pain 114
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 53%

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

Friday was a wild ride as TSLA tested new lows during pre-market trading, but then joined the broader markets in an upward move caused by an employment report that showed wages were up a mere 0.3% vs. the expected 0.4%, according to this CNBC article. This was the fifth time in recent days when TSLA tested the 108ish low but managed to once again close above it (see tech chart). Volume was a massive 220.9 million shares.

We saw a pre-market dip of more than 8% turn into a climb of more than 1% at day's end. That's a huge increase as the day went on. Some effort to accelerate the morning dip by the shorts and hedgies likely occurred, with percent of selling by shorts up to 56% and 2.4 million shares trading hands during the 4pm closing cross. The main objective of the market makers (max pain was 114) on an up day would have been to keep TSLA from closing above the 115-strike call wall. They succeeded. OTOH, the shorts and hedgies that shorted in pre-market and shortly after open got spanked hard by the stock price rising for the remainder of the day. Any time the stock price closes at a relative high to the opening you can expect that the pushdown manipulators came away with big losses. Enough losses and they choose not to do that any more.

Overall, we saw negative sentiment toward TSLA in the early hours as investors worried about the effect of the China price cuts on margins, but as the day wore on and images of large crowds at Tesla stores appeared, TSLA investors became more optimistic as the macros all gained more than 2%. Keep in mind that many investors were likely unsure how to interpret the China price cuts but when the shorts and hedge funds amplified the morning dip with short-selling, the result was that unsure investors saw the big pre-market and opening dips as a negative signal. It was a perfect opportunity for a manipulation (until the macros pulled TSLA higher).

Various Twitter posts put the China price cuts into perspective this week:
* Tesla Facts started it all with this Tweet showing the overall price reduction taking place that was temporarily broken by big price increases during a time of supply chain issues that increased Tesla's costs. He quotes Pierre Ferragu in making the point that Tesla can still have a strong 2023 after the price cuts.
* Then we have this Tweet by Roland Pircher showing the enormous recent disconnect between TSLA price and Tesla's profits. Granted, a big part of that disconnect was due to the macro situation and interest rates in particular, but these too will correct in time.
* Finally, there's the Tweet below by Kevin Yang that puts the China covid situation into its place. The big wave that moved through Chinese big cities is waning, leaving a level of herd immunity behind and allowing workers to return to Tesla's factory and factories of suppliers and transportation companies. Consumer confidence will return after the worst of the covid wave is over.

Yields on 10 yr. treasury bonds dipped well below 3.6% as the bond market digested the smaller than expected rise in wages.

Percent of selling by shorts rose to 56%, an indication of well-above-normal manipulations

Max pain on Friday morning for Jan6 expiration was 111. Notice the 115-strike call wall that would inspire the MMs to make sure TSLA closed below 115.

Friday's options volumes

Max pain is 116 for Jan 13's expiration. The 115-strike is pretty well balanced between puts and calls, suggesting that the market makers may try to draw the line at 120 if the coming week is a positive one.

This past week saw a dip on Monday (P&D report miss) but the stock slightly recovered and held its own for the remainder of the week. Chart courtesy of @JimS

On this chart, pay more attention to closing prices than to lows. You can see that even with substantial dips, the stock has still been closing at or above the 108ish level. High volume confirms that lots of big buyers are picking up shares right now.

For the week, TSLA closed at 113.06, down 10.12 compared to last Friday's 123.18. For the second week in a row, TSLA showed resilence to the big pushdown we've been seeing, even though news was largely perceived as negative this past week. Let's hopefully see what a little good news and good macros might do this coming week. Hoping you all are enjoying a satisfying and meaningful weekend.

* Dow up 701 (2.13%)
* NASDAQ up 264 (2.56%)
* SPY up 9 (2.29%)
* TSLA 113.06, up 2.72 (2.47%)
* TSLA volume 220.9M shares
* Oil 73.77
* IV 83.0, 97%
* Max Pain 111, next Friday 116
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 56%

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

Monday was a day I traded TSLA and was well aware of its movements, but it was a day when I had no time for research, so I'll be concentrating on trading observations.

Congratulations longs on a strong TSLA trading day. Macros faded as the day progressed, but notice how much more of its gains TSLA retained vs. QQQ. We saw QQQ rise to about 2.4% and then fall to 0.63ish%, a loss of nearly three-quarters of its daily gains. OTOH, TSLA topped out up more than 8.5%, closed up nearly 6% and thereby retained nearly 70% of its daily gains. I strongly suspect that the dip to 119.77 was helped by the market makers, who would like to protect that large number of 120 calls. They may or may not succeed this week, depending upon the buying and upon the macros.

I do see chatter on the internet about Tesla having to do something in the US to prop up sales. Let me just say that Tesla is certainly working on a strategy to claim a fair share of the IRA subsidies. Perhaps it involves something as simple as raising Model Y by less than 2". Rest assured someone will bring up the topic at the Jan21 earnings conference call.

Yields on10 year treasury bonds dipped below 3.55% on Monday

Max pain Monday morning was 115. You can see a fairly high call wall at 120 that market makers would prefer TSLA to remain below. A close at 119.77 suited their needs

Monday's options volumes

At last we see another bounce that brings TSLA above the 108ish bottom. Every time TLSA climbed above previously there was another shoe dropping that returned us to the bottom. With serious volume as TSLA is climbing, we no that some big dogs are loading up on TSLA shares. Let's hope the loading continues.

Conditions:
* Dow down 113 (0.34%)
* NASDAQ up 66 (0.63%)
* SPY down 0 (0.06%)
* TSLA 119.77 up 6.71 (5.93%)
* TSLA volume 188.4M shares
* Oil 74.38
* IV 78.8, 92%
* Max Pain 115
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 52%

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

Tuesday was looking positive for TSLA at market open when the stock lost $4 in the blink of an eye like it had fallen down an elevator shaft. Granted, QQQ showed a dip at this time, too, but the degree of dip was way out of proportion with TSLA. Similarly, TSLA descended to 115 at 10:45am when QQQ took another minor dip. Then as QQQ recovered to a strong finish for the day (particularly in the final 15 minutes, TSLA remained unresponsive to the macro climb. Diagnosis? Bear attack of the market maker variety, my friends.

If you check out the max pain chart, you'll see a tall call wall at 120 strike. Market makers simply do not want to pay off these calls this week and are working hard to keep TSLA below 120. Besides the exaggerated dips relative to QQQ, check out the over two hour long level trading of TSLA just below 118 between 1pm and 3pm. The macros were moving rapidly but TSLA didn't budge. As further evidence, I offer percent of selling by shorts rising to 55%. TSLA rose too much to suit the MMs on Monday and now they're trying to apply the brakes.

The December CPI report will be released pre-market on Thursday, Jan 12, and I am optimistic. Here's why:

December saw continued drop in crude oil prices. It takes time for these lower prices to make it to the pump but the decline has been significant (and energy prices affect most other prices). Further, we're now beginning a stairstep of about half a percent increases in the base rate (for one year comparisons) through March or so, and those rapidly rising base month inflation numbers make 12 month comparisons look all the better. There are always plenty of unknowns in these computations, so fingers crossed.
PS: notice that oil prices peaked in June 2022, the same month inflation peaked. It's been a downhill run ever since

News:
* Electrek says that Tesla has resumed posting autopilot safety numbers and the results are impressive
* Electrek also says that Tesla has announced a $770 million expansion at Giga Texas. Take that, growth naysayers!

Yields on 10 yr. treasury bonds closed at 3.6% on Tuesday

Max pain Tuesday morning was 118. The call wall at 120 is now over 27K contracts high, giving market makers incentive to defend the price

Tuesday's options volumes

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Tuesday was yet another high volume day. Note that the closing price is getting somewhat close to the 131ish mid bollinger band. TSLA crossed above the mid-bb in early December, early November, and then mid September (looking backwards). A rise above the mid-bb within the next couple weeks would be welcomed by technical traders.

Conditions:
* Dow up 186 (0.56%)
* NASDAQ up 107 (1.01%)
* SPY up 3 (0.70%)
* TSLA 118.85, down 0.92 (0.77%)
* TSLA volume 167.2M shares
* Oil 74.61
* IV 79.0, 92%
* Max Pain 118
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 55%

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

Here's the most significant aspect of Wednesday's positive trading: it confirms that Tuesday's weak trading was a massive effort by market makers to protect their 120 strike call options. It really wasn't the market turning negative on Tesla.

On Wednesday QQQ started off positive and climbed throughout the day to close up 1.73%. TSLA, meanwhile, exited pre-market trading up about 2.7%, peaked up about 5.7% and then closed up 3.68%. Volume was once again very high at 183.3M shares, and the closing cross was pushing 3 million shares traded during the 4:00pm minute. Most revealing was the nearly 4 hours of trading between about 122 and 123. I attribute this level trading of TSLA while the NASDAQ was rising to market maker capping.

Fingers crossed on Thursday morning's CPI numbers.

I highly recommend checking out this article by Michael Grinsphun that appeared Wednesday in CleanTechnica, highlighting the seriously messed up Treasury Department's handling of the question "What is an SUV" for the purposes of IRA subsidies. There's even a link to contact the Treasury Department with your comments.

News:
* Tesla stock upgraded to "buy" by Edward Jones
* Drive Tesla Canada writes Tesla thumps BMW to claim title of top US luxury brand in 2022 for the first time
* Rumors by unnamed sources have circulated about Tesla preparing for a factory in Indonesia but in this Tweet Elon casts doubt
* Morningstar has been a perpetual Debbie Downer on TSLA, for the most part. They've changed their tune here and are saying TSLA is a buy with a fair market value of $220.

Meanwhile, shorts grabbed another 2 million shares this past week. @Artful Dodger reports here that short interest in TSLA is up 10% since the last reporting period. Instead of covering, they've been doubling down. Once TSLA starts rising higher with gusto, the switch from shorting to covering is going to accelerate that climb.

Yields on 10 yr treasury bonds dipped to about 3.53% on Wednesday. Once again, the market is assuming that inflation is on its way down.

Max pain on Wednesday morning was 118. Of course it's below the big call wall at 120. If the CPI numbers come in cool Thursday morning TSLA could run above 125, but the market makers would put up stiff resistance for a cross above 130 with that even bigger call wall. If the numbers come in hot, then I suspect the MMs would want to keep TSLA above 110 to protect that put wall this late in the week.

Wednesday's options volumes

A climb of a bit over $5 would put TSLA above the mid-bollinger band and send an important signal of recovery to technical traders.

Conditions:
* Dow up 269 (0.80%)
* NASDAQ up 189 (1.76%)
* SPY up 5 (1.26%)
* TSLA 123.22, up 4.37 (3.68%)
* TSLA volume 183.3M shares
* Oil 77.56
* IV 76.7, 90%
* Max Pain 118
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 48%

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

All eyes were on the CPI numbers come 8:30am. Fortunately, the numbers came in reasonably well, with CPI down 0.1% month over month (meeting analyst expectations) and was 6.5% for 12 months vs. 7.1% in November. Here's CNBC's take. Since some investors had been hoping for a beat rather than a meeting of expectations, there was initially enough uncertainty so that both QQQ and TSLA fluctuated up and down after the announcement. Such lack of clarity was a perfect opportunity for the pirates of Wall Street to inject a little fear shortly after market open. Thus, we saw QQQ dip about 1.2% and TSLA dip about 4.9% shortly after open.

While QQQ recovered into the green come afternoon, the market makers and hedgies managed to cap TSLA first around 120 and then around 121 for most of the day's trading. Only in the final two hours did TSLA manage to break free of the cap. If you look at the max pain chart, you'll see that the market makers are now protecting 123 and 125. A close at exactly 120 would be best. Evidence of shenanigans includes shorts being tagged with 53% of TSLA selling.

What I've seen with TSLA this week is that it has been alternating between underperformance due to capping, positive performance, and then another underperformance/capping day. Fingers crossed that we see TSLA break the capping on Friday and rise higher. Friday is a tough nut to crack with the market makers, though. I've truly been astonished at the efforts put into dampening TSLA's climb this week.

News:
* South China Morning Post reports that Tesla's price cuts have not been matched by competitors and will likely lead to a resurgence of sales

Yields on 10 yr. treasury bonds closed below 3.45% on Thursday, suggesting the market doesn't believe that the Fed is going to take rates up to about 5.4% and hold them there for a long period

Short sellers were tagged with 53% of TSLA selling on Thursday, suggesting substantial manipulations

Max pain Thursday morning was 120. If you look at the 120 strike the number of puts is rapidly approaching number of calls, and so that strike is no longer a must defend level for the market makers. OTOH, 123 and especially 125 are definitely call dominated, however, so this is the reason why we've been seeing the stock price hovering near

Thursday's options volumes

With the mid-bollinger band falling and the stock price slowly rising, TSLA is only about $3 away from crossing the mid-bb now.

Conditions:
* Dow up 217 (0.64%)
* NASDAQ up 69 (0.64%)
* SPY up 1 (0.36%)
* TSLA 123.56, up 0.34 (0.34%)
* TSLA volume 168.7M shares
* Oil 78.30
* IV 75.2, 88%
* Max Pain 120
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 53%

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

This post written above the Pacific about an hour out from Hawaii. Starlink, we need you!

The big news on Friday was first day of trading after price cuts of up to 20% were announced on Teslas in the U.S. TMC members in European countries also reported cuts there as well. The knee-jerk reaction (with a little hedgie and short-seller manipulations thrown in on top) was for a pre-market and early market trading of down 6% (compared to QQQ down about 1%). By noon TSLA had risen to about 120ish and the MMs were apparently capping like crazy to keep it near 120 as QQQ showed a steady afternoon climb. QQQ turned green about 2pm, and MMs lost control of their 120ish cap in the last hour of trading, when TSLA rose above 122.

Why were the market makers working furiously all week to keep TSLA near 120? As the week progressed, a max pain of 118 gave way to a max pain of 120. More importantly, if you look at the max pain chart for next week, max pain rises all the way up to 135. That's right, that buying pressure can safely be released in increments and the MMs can still make a bundle next week too. All they had to do was hold TSLA close to 120 until this past Friday was over, and they almost did. I feel that TSLA would have climbed noticeably above 122.40 this week if not for a VERY concerted effort. Evidence of manipulations includes near level trading between about noon and 3pm, followed. by capping near 122 during the final hour. Volume was a robust 180 million shares, percent of selling by shorts rose to 55% on Friday, and we saw nearly 4 million shares trade during the 4pm closing cross. I hate to sound like a broken record, but always keep in mind that we aren't playing in an honest casino.

Here's why TSLA rose as the day progressed. The knee jerk reaction was that TSLA normally sells vehicles with a margin of about 30% and that if the company cut Model Y prices by 20% we'd see margins sink to maybe 10%. Here on TMC we had lots of discussion that cast serious doubt on such a negative margin future for Tesla.

This Tweet by Mathias Fons illustrates how close the new Tesla prices are to the prices of March, 2021. When supply chain issues developed and commodity prices for things like steel and aluminum soared, TSLA was forced to raise its prices. Many of the reservations for 2022 Teslas were made back in 2021 when there was a long waiting list. Thus, many of the recently sold Teslas in the U.S. were at 2021 prices, rather than the elevated 2022 prices. Commodities have since fallen, Berlin and Texas gigafactories are now producing far more vehicles than in Q3, and thus Tesla can afford to lower prices back to March 2021 levels. These gigafactories are no longer such drags on Tesla's margins. Much of the market hasn't figured out the big picture yet.

Will you have a chance to pick up shares at a discount Monday Tuesday morning? Maybe, maybe not, depending upon how quickly word spreads on the kind of margins Tesla will have going forward. Deutches Bank mostly figured it out and reiterated its "buy" rating for TSLA and a $250 price target. Shorts and hedgies may try a fakeout dip right after market open. It's going to be interesting and could go either way.

Max pain for Friday, Jan 20 rises to 135, which should get the market makers off our back for a day or two. It's possible we could see 135 by week's end. If TSLA starts rising too quickly and appears ready to shoot through 135, don't be surprised to see the heavy hand of the market makers try to defend that price. At some point, TSLA buyers will simply overpower the market makers if they think the price of TSLA is just too low for the circumstances.

Yields on 10 yr. treasury bonds closed near 3.5% on Friday

Friday morning's max pain was 120. You can see parity between puts and calls at 122, but 123 was definitely call dominated. Thus, the market makers put lots of effort into keeping TSLA below 123 on Friday.

Friday's options volumes

Here's next Friday's max pain chart with a max pain of 135. Notice how close some of the strike prices are between puts and calls. Puts actually dominate at 135, so the MMs would probably prefer a close slightly above 135 than below.

At long last we have a second week in a row of rising prices. Chart courtesy of @JimS

TSLA has little more than 2.50 to climb in order to rise above the mid-bollinger band. Tick, tick, tick.

For the week, TSLA closed at 122.40, up 9.34 from the previous Friday's close of 113.06. Interestingly, most of those gains were made on Monday, with market maker manipulations on Tuesday-Friday slowing TSLA growth to closely match max pain on Friday. Hoping you will have a splendid weekend with those you love.

Conditions:
* Dow up 113 (0.33%)
* NASDAQ up 78 (0.71%)
* SPY up 2 (0.39%)
* TSLA 122.40, down 1.16 (0.94%)
* TSLA volume 180.1M shares
* Oil 80.07
* IV 74.4, 85%
* Max Pain 120, on 1/20: 135
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 55%

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

Yep, over the long three-day weekend more investors figured out what we suspected on Friday here at TMC: the margin hit from Tesla's recent price drops isn't going to be terrible. We actually saw the market trying to push TSLA higher Friday afternoon, but the market makers were dead set against allowing TSLA to get much higher than 122. Fast forward to Tuesday, and this week's max pain is now 133.33. By some great coincidence, Tuesday happened to be the day TSLA ran up to 131.49. Wonderful coincidences, aren't they? I'm your dedicated tinfoil hat conspiracy theorist reporting on such matters, even though no one in the mainstream media would ever whisper the word "manipulations."

Heavy buying in pre-market kept the usual TSLA dip before market open from taking place. There was just too much buying pressure and TSLA rose throughout the day despite macro fluctuations and overall weakness. TSLA volume was high at 182.9M, percent of selling by shorts was rather high at 53%, and we saw 2.7 million shares trade hands during the 4pm closing cross. Although market makers were allowing the rise, some other players (perhaps shorts and hedgies) weren't so keen on the rise and thus the evidence of manipulations.

Wednesday may be our chance to see if the market makers will offer serious resistance if TSLA appears ready to ascend above max pain. The max pain curve from about 130 through the low 140s is flat enough so that perhaps the MMs won't be too desperate to hold TSLA back. We'll soon find out.

In the chart above from this Tweet, Roland Pircher does a nice job of showing how high the past week's China Tesla deliveries were relative to the same week last quarter.

News:
* Drive Tesla Canada says that Tesla China's price cuts are causing mass deflection from BYD
* Electrek says Tesla stores are seeing unprecedented demand, with some stores hitting new records

Yields on 10 yr. treasury bonds closed at about 3.55% on Tuesday

Here's another one of those strange max pain charts where many of the puts and calls were placed long ago. Max pain was 133.33

Tuesday's options volumes

Congrats, longs, Tesla has finally managed to close above the mid bollinger band. That's an important step in reversing the long taboggan run into a climb. Volume continues to be high as buyers respond to the lower Tesla prices around the world, and enough investors are concluding that margins might not be as bad as feared.


Conditions:
* Dow down 392 (1.14%)
* NASDAQ up 16 (0.14%)
* SPY down 1 (0.18%)
* TSLA 131.49, up 9.09 (7.43%)
* TSLA volume 182.9M shares
* Oil 80.85
* IV 70.7, 79%
* Max Pain 133.33
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 53%

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

Wednesday was a low research day (too busy) but a careful view of trading day for me. The news that sent TSLA and the macros higher pre-market was a very cool PPI report. Month over month changes are showing deflation. Why the market change in sentiments hours later, then? We used to have a bad news is good and good news is bad attitude in the macros because Powell would react negatively to good news. On Wednesday the market decided that news of inflation coming under control could instead be interpreted as a recession is coming. So, now we have bad news is bad and good news is bad. Sheesh.

I did view Rob Maurer's video podcast for the day and found it very informative. Rob went into detail about the PPI report, he spoke of Alex Potter's note that it's time to buy TSLA (rated overweight with a new, somewhat lower price target of 300). Basically, Potter is joining Deutsche Bank and Tesla Motors Club investor forums as expecting the recent Tesla price cuts as not being all that bad for gross margins (maybe 24.X%). Rob talked about Model 3 and Y inventory and took a cautious tone because inventory didn't fall to practically zero after the price cuts, like they did after the December $7500 discount. My take is that Rob has missed an important point: the December discount left buyers with just days to grab a Tesla before the good deal went away. The current discount is good until at least some time in March, making it less important to grab any Tesla in inventory when there's enough time to get the exact configuration that you may desire. Overall, this was a particularly good video by Rob, highly recommended.

Okay, let's talk about TSLA trading. The very cool PPI numbers is good news for growth stocks like TSLA, because Darth Powell has less ammunition for continuing his scorched market approach to achieving 2% inflation. TSLA cannot recover to its prior highs until the Powell curse subsides and the Fed's pivot takes place. We then had the market get worrisome about the prospects of a recession if the PPI numbers are that good, and we saw profit taking after a nice 7 session upward run by the NASDAQ. Take a look at the extent of the MMD about 10am for TSLA compared to QQQ. I think this was the market makers working on keeping TSLA for overrunning its 131 max pain number by too much. A little after 10:30am TSLA followed QQQ down into the red, where both stayed for the remainder of the day. I'd like to point out how QQQ continued to fall for the final hour of market trading but TSLA held its own. Good strength, TSLA, and probably no interference by the MMs by then.

So, to answer the question about market makers stepping in on Wednesday morning to keep TSLA from running away from the max pain number, my answer is yes.

After the PPI numbers came out Wednesday morning, yields on 10 yr. treasury bonds plummeted to about 3.37%

Max pain on Wednesday was 331. Did the market makers engineer a TSLA mandatory morning dip to avoid a run higher by TSLA. Sure looks that way. Unfortunately, the macros dipped Wednesday and took TSLA even lower before TSLA regained some lost ground.

What is so strange about the options volumes on Wednesday is all the action in the 160s and higher puts. I have no idea why.

Despite TSLA's negative trading on Wednesday the stock remains above the mid-bollinger band.

Conditions:
* Dow down 614 (1.81%)
* NASDAQ down 138 (1.24%)
* SPY down 6 (1.58%)
* TSLA 128.78 down 2.71 (2.06%)
* TSLA volume 195.7M shares
* Oil 78.34
* IV 70.9, 79%
* Max Pain 131
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 54%

 

[khorton]

Max pain on Wednesday was 331.

Typo alert - 131, or 133 perhaps?

 

[Papafox]

Typo alert - 131, or 133 perhaps?

It was 131. Thx.

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

Overall, TSLA was following the macros on Thursday, but with moments of bullishness. While QQQ was dipping after market open, TSLA was toying with 130 for nearly an hour before a bigger macro dip pulled it down too. Futures are green for Friday, as of this writing, so perhaps TSLA can ascend back into the 130s before Friday close. The caveat is that the market makers tend to be heavy handed on Fridays to maximize their profits.

Nonetheless, we saw QQQ bottom out shortly before noon, down about 1.4% while TSLA bottomed down about 3.5%, a higher than usual multiplier. On the positive side, we saw QQQ dip for the final hour of market trading while TSLA lost considerably less ground and showed strength into the close. This repeats the trend from Wednesday when TSLA likewise shrugged off the macro dip going into close. My take: there are still plenty of investors watching TSLA, ready to get in if it pops but being careful until this week's macro weakness turns around.

TSLA continues with high volume, 170 million shares today. I can't help but wonder who is selling, but of course a big part of the buying and selling is high-speed trading algos stealing pennies all day from all sorts of trades. I'm just wondering if part of the huge increase in volume is related to much more active high-speed trading in TSLA.

Wednesday's action with the 160s and 170s Puts
Thanks to an interesting discussion in the main investors forum, I'm getting a better picture of why so much volume in those high-strike puts. Leo Koguan sold lots of 160 puts and stated he was going to be assigned the shares and he was ready to pay for them. Some of this action could be related to Uncle Leo. More broadly, buying deep in the money puts can be a way to dispose of shares without affecting the market price or, if you receive cash to take over the sold position of the put, it could be a way of acquiring shares without affecting the market price.

The Tesla Inventory Question, Revisited
Again, discussions in the main investor's thread at TMC have been enlightening. It turns out that the vast majority of Model Ys still in inventory are priced over $55K, thus making them ineligible for the IRA discount. Tesla can, of course, use some as demonstrators and reduce the price below $55K over time or they could swap out some wheels and sell immediately. This doesn't sound like a demand problem to me.

On a personal note- My 50-strike calls are working well for me at this price point. I bought Jun23s, have zero-cost (or near zero-cost) rolled all of them to Sep23s, and now about 30% of the Sep23s are moved to Jan24s. I'm hustling to get a year of wiggle room in front of me and then it'll be nice to sleep in for many 4:30am market opens here in Hawaii. A roll that requires $2-$3 of price change is pretty easy. Those $5-7 rolls with 100-strikes were wearing heavily upon me. Live and learn.

Yields on 10 yr treasury bonds remained below 3.4% on Thursday. The market doesn't believe that Powell is going to hike the fed rate to 5.5% and then hold it there for a long time. Powell is being handed a soft landing if he's willing to take it but I think he's more determined to show how focused he is on his 2% year over year target. The thing is that his target is for 2% inflation, and this past month's CPI and PPI data is showing deflation already.

Max pain on Thursday was 130.

Thursday's options volumes. That weird activity with the 160s and 170s puts went away since yesterday

TSLA is hanging in there above the mid-bollinger band even though the macros have been down the past few days. Notice the upper and lower BBs now heading inward toward the mid BB after a few days with very little price movement.

Conditions:
* Dow down 252 (0.76%)
* NASDAQ down 105 (0.96%)
* SPY down 3 (0.73%)
* TSLA 127.17, down 1.61 (1.25%)
* TSLA volume 170.3M shares
* Oil 80.76
* IV 71.7, 80%
* Max Pain 130
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 51%

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ market hours chart above

Oh man, the market makers weren't just sitting back and allowing TSLA to go wherever it wanted to go on Friday. You can see the sizeable Mandatory Morning Dip right after market open with no bad news for Tesla and no dip in QQQ. Now look at the rather constant climb of QQQ from market open to about 1pm. In contrast, TSLA leveled off about 10am and stayed their until nearly 2pm. This was classic option-seller capping on a Friday. As we often see on strong climb days for the macros, the cap can be broken by continuous rise of the macros (QQQ), and that's exactly what happened. Around 1:20pm, QQQ started climbing at a noticeably steeper rate, but TSLA didn't follow until about 1:30pm. Thus, the pirates held TSLA back for about 10 minutes but the cap fell apart and TSLA started climbing very quickly to close up 4.91% for the day compared to QQQ's climb of 2.74%, a multiplier of about 1.8X. TSLA should have been able to do a 2.1X, so the capping did have some effect. Volume was a bit lower, at 138M shares, but we did see over 4.5M shares trade during the 4pm closing cross with 53% of selling tagged to shorts, and so the pirates were apparently busy trying to reduce TSLA's gains on such a big options closing day.

Big stories of the past few days included Sandy Munro's estimates of gross margins for Model Y after the price cuts and a stunning addressable market chart by Mathias Fons.

Here's a link to Sandy's Youtube video where he details the type of gross margins that Tesla should be able to get for Model Y in late 2022, after the price cuts. You'll notice that his price is $58,990, which I believe is a weighting of the various Model Y models available for sale. Not everyone is ordering a Y that qualifies for the U.S. IRA discount, of course. The great news is that he shows a hefty 33% gross margin possible at these post-price-cut prices, a very respectable number. Sandy's team knows how much every screw and board costs, so they are likely much closer in GM estimates than the casual back of the napkin prognosticators. Sandy also mentioned a 40% margin number, but this is a number that includes late additions of FSD and other enhancements that will not show up on the initial earnings report. Personally, I would think that this video should create buying pressure from big investment houses which were holding back on TSLA because of fears of what the price cuts will do to margins. I was buying during Friday's MMD, mostly on the strength of the Sandy Munro video.

Mathias Fons provided the TSLA investment community with a chart that gives you an idea of just how big the addressable market for vehicles becomes when the price moves for $40Kish toward $30Kish. It's simply astonishing and you can see where Model 2 could take Tesla in volumes should it use the IRA to help price this vehicle in the low $30Ks. Cha-ching! Take that analysts who are giving Tesla mere 25% growth numbers!

News:
* TMC's @Curt Renz brought to our attention Carter Worth's appearance on CNBC to describe why TSLA may be heading higher from a technical trading standpoint. All the things that make a technical trader excited: inverted head and shoulders, cup and handle, and a climb out of the downtrend are there. Worth was thinking TSLA could climb into the mid 150s. By the way, if you don't believe in technical trading, consider that many investors at big investment houses DO believe in technical trading. As long as the people controlling the buying believe, techincals are relevant regardless of your opinion of them.

Yields on 10 yr. treasury bonds are fluctuating with fears of recession. When fearful or when data shows inflation is receding, the yields go down. On more optimistic days such as Friday, the yields can go up. Yields closed on Friday slightly below 3.5%.

Three charts are combined above (in order): 1) Max pain for Jan 20 exiration, 2) Jan 20 options volumes, 3) max pain for Jan 27 expiration. Both the Jan 20 and Jan27 max pain numbers were 130 on Friday morning. I peeked at the Jan27 max pain early in the week and it was much lower. Traders are definitely buying call options. For the coming Friday, market makers would love a close at 130, but if the ER is strong, such a low number is not likely to be in the cards. They definitely want TSLA below 150 at week's end and 140 or 135 would be even better. Let's see what skirmishes develop if the stock price assaults these numbers.

Closing prices bottomed out on Jan 3 and TSLA has been in recovery mode since. Thanks @JimS for the chart. Our mantra is "up and to the right".

TSLA extended its climb well above the mid-bollinger band and is only about $4 away from bumping its head on the upper BB. Bullish.

For the week, TSLA closed at 133.42, up $11.02 from the previous Friday's 122.40. That's nearly a 9% gain for the week. Hoping you're enjoying your weekend. Get in some relaxation because we have a big week ahead.

Conditions:
* Dow up 331 (1.00%)
* NASDAQ up 288 (2.66%)
* SPY up 7 (1.86%)
* TSLA 133.42, up 6.25 (4.91%)
* TSLA volume 138.1M shares
* Oil 81.64
* IV 67.4, 67%
* Max Pain 130 1/20 and 130 1/27
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 53%

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

Monday was a strong day for TSLA with a climb of better than $10. The reason for TSLA's strength was primarily macros, with all indexes up and the NASDAQ rising over 2%. That's more than double the Dow's rise, which suggests we saw money flowing out of other sources and into growth stocks on Monday. TSLA closed up 7.74% on 201.8M shares volume. For comparison, Nvidia closed up 7.59%, and Square 7.22%. We also saw strength in some EV stocks with NIO up 8.94% and XPeng up 7.45%.

Comparing the TSLA and QQQ charts, you can see a rather massive rise of QQQ after the 10am hour but level trading of TSLA as the MMs went to work trying to cap TSLA below 140. With over 200M shares trading hands, it didn't work. The efforts to hold TSLA back required percent of selling by shorts to rise all the way up to 60%.

TSLA's rising in after hours trading bodes well for Tuesday's opening.

My favorite story or video of the day was this video podcast from Solving the Money Problem. Mark does a great job of breaking down a WSJ article about retail investors spending more buying TSLA in the past 6 months than they did in the previous 5 years. Thus, we have been seeing Wall Street investment managers selling TSLA to retail buyers. You gotta love it, especially with retail once again showing it has a better handle on Tesla than Wall Street.

News:
* The Wall Street Journal says Tesla is Wall Street's favorite car company, with more than two-thirds of analysts having favorable opinions of the company.
* Wired magazine released a real stinker of a FUD piece on Tesla, designed to turn buyers away from the company
* Business Insider was scraping the bottom of the barrel, looking for any kind of FUD to throw at Tesla and decided upon a story of a Tesla raffle where the tickets are now harder to sell and a buyer who is disgruntled that he bought right before the big price dip

Percent of selling tagged to shorts ran all the way up to 60% on Monday as the market makers and hedgies pulled out the stops in an attempt to slow TSLA's ascent. With over 200M shares traded, that was too much for them to pull off.

Yields on 10 yr. treasury bonds closed a bit above 3.5% on Monday

Max pain remains at 130. On the chart, you can see the big call wall at 140 which inspired the MMs to cap TSLA during early morning hours (it didn't work). The call wall at 150 towers above 30K contracts, and so 150 will be a fight if/when we get there.

Monday's TSLA options volumes

Talk about strength: TSLA powered right through the upper bollinger band and closed more than $4 above it. Notice how high the volume has been for the past several weeks. We're told that volume increase when a big reversal in the stock price is underway, and so far the data suggests just this. Notice that TSLA hasn't closed above the upper bollinger band for the past 5 months. Notice, too, the the descending mid-bb since September has at last leveled out and is threatening to climb if another good day reveals itself.

Conditions:
* Dow up 254 (0.76%)
* NASDAQ up 224 (2.01%)
* SPY up 5 (1.20%)
* TSLA 143.75 up 10.33 (7.74%)
* TSLA volume 201.8M shares
* Oil 81.78
* IV 66.6, 61%
* Max Pain 130
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 60%

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

This week is an earnings report week and the pirates of Wall Street didn't like the growth stock rallies on Friday and Monday, and so we saw a widespread manipulation of growth stocks on Tuesday. The same type of whack the mole game we saw with TSLA today showed up clearly on the QQQ chart above, suggesting a more widespread effort to reign in this recent growth stock rally. Apparently the pirates aren't positioned properly for a rally.

At TSLA, we saw no less than 20 moves through the red/green line during the day. Percent of selling by shorts was way, way up at 66%, and a large portion of trading had shifted from FINRA exchanges to dark pools. Sounds sinister, doesn't it (it is!). More than 2.7M shares traded hands in the 4pm closing cross as the day-shorters covered their manipulations. TSLA volume was 158.7M shares.

Come after-hours trading, indexes and TSLA were up right after the bell as Microsoft reported a small beat on earnings. That euphoria reversed later as Microsoft's guidance showed the next quarter and the coming year might not be as rosy. Keep in mind that advertising is a major source of income for tech companies such as Microsoft and that advertising budgets get cut in uncertain times. Tesla does not make money from advertising, but expect the pirates to treat TSLA just as if it did.

Thus, for Wednesday I expect to see the pirates trying to exaggerate the implications of Microsoft's soft guidance for all growth stocks. TSLA may experience some weakness for this reason. OTOH, buying pressure as we enter the final trading day before Wednesday afternoon's Q4 2022 ER may overpower the macro manipulations.

As for the ER itself, Bloomberg has higher numbers than those assembled by Tesla IR, and so after market close you could see conflicting interpretations with some media calling a TSLA miss and some calling a TSLA beat. It could be interesting. Tesla's Q4 ER could actually be just the opposite of Microsoft's with weakish earnings commentary but with strong guidance coming later during the conference call. Looking at analyst expectations in this Gary Black Tweet below, the deliveries growth should be easy to project higher, as should be the 2023 earnings. The big question mark will be 4680 progress and the availability of friendly state sourced materials for batteries. With its 4680 Nevada factory announcement now made, you would think that Tesla is confident in a good 4680 solution by now.

My personal feelings are that Tesla will do fine in 2023 (assuming no big dips in the economy) and that analyst expectations are too low. It's going to be a very interesting ER and CC!

News:
* In this blog post, Tesla made it official that it's investing $3.6 billion in Northern Nevada for semi-truck production and a 100GWh/yr. production of 4680 batteries
* TMC's @The Accountant has compiled here a list of GAAP and non-GAAP earnings estimates . He posted his Q4 ER computations starting with this post
* Sawyer Merritt tweets that Tesla has increased the price of the Model Y LR by $500

Percent of selling tagged to shorts soared to 66% as the options sellers (market makers and hedge funds) pulled out the stops and used a robust game of whack the mole to keep TSLA from gaining on Tuesday.

Yields on 10 yr. treasury bonds drifted back down below 3.475% on Tuesday afternoon

Max pain Tuesday morning was 135, up $5 from Monday's MaxP. MMs have incentive to push TSLA below 140 on a down day and prevent a rise above 145 and 150 on an up day

Tuesday's options volumes

TSLA stubbornly refused to descend below the upper bollinger band on Tuesday, despite the considerable efforts of the Wall Street pirates.

Conditions:
* Dow up 104 (0.31%)
* NASDAQ down 30 (0.27%)
* SPY down 0 (0.11%)
* TSLA143.89, up 0.14 (0.10%)
* TSLA volume 158.7M shares
* Oil 80.37
* IV 68.2, 71%
* Max Pain 135
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 66%

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

Congrats longs, we had a good Q4 earnings report and TSLA wiggled out of the early morning Mandatory Morning Dip. TSLA is pressing 152 in after hours trading, as I write.

As I mentioned on Tuesday, the option sellers were likely to do a big Wednesday downward push on TSLA as well as other high growth companies in order to use the Microsoft weak guidance as a lever to stop the current rally. The TSLA dip bottomed out at nearly 4% down while the QQQ dip bottomed with a loss of about 2.5%, for a TSLA multiplier definitely less than the usual 2.1X. Since I perceived the TSLA dip to be a manufactured event that was unsustainable on a day when there was likely to be buying pressure, I bought near the dip's bottom. Fortunately, both TSLA and QQQ rose throughout the day from then on, with TSLA helping to pull QQQ higher.

In many ways, this ER was just the flip side of the Microsoft ER: TSLA has a weak beat on profits, but the stock took off on a conference call with positive guidance. Non-GAAP EPS came in at 1.19%, just a couple pennies below TMC's @The Accountant 's estimate. Nice work! Although Tesla offered 1.8M vehicles as the production goal for 2023, Elon just couldn't help himself and let slip that it could easily be 2 million. So much for the sandbagging. The market liked the answer to a question about whether TSLA's automotive margins might dip below 20% or ASP dip below 47K going forward. Zach said no to both. Both Zach and Elon were obviously giddy about a future product, which will likely be commercial and unveiled at the March investors' day event. Can't wait.

For Thursday, the market makers may try the old "nothing to see here, move along" routine and an attempt to bring TSLA back below 150, but they may fail because of enthusiasm for TSLA moving into 2023. All in all, I'm feeling good about TSLA going forward in 2023 and beyond.

Percent of selling tagged to shorts ran all the way up to 68% on Wednesday. That's about as high as you see it. Looks like the pirates were busy playing defense in case of a good ER.

Yields on 10 year treasury bonds remained relatively level on Wednesday at 3.450%

Max pain rose $3 to 138 (see I didn't say 318!) on Wednesday. Take a look at that call wall at 150. TSLA has ascended above 150 during after hours for at least some of time. Expect MMs to do their best to hold at 150 on Thursday, but again they might get overwhelmed by buying volume.

Wednesday's options volumes

The mid-bollinger band has now twisted upward, along with the upper BB, which TSLA price is now riding. This is a bullish development. The 50 day moving average is at 152.24, a price that TSLA has been flirting with after hours, and a close above the 50 DMA would get technical traders all the more excited.

Conditions:
* Dow up 10 (0.03%)
* NASDAQ down 21 (0.14%)
* SPY up 0 (0.04%)
* TSLA 144.43, up 0.54 (0.38%)
* TSLA volume 174.3M shares
* Oil 80.15
* IV 67.5, 68%
* Max Pain 138
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 68%

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

What a day: a nearly 11% gain day following the Q4 ER. While some pundits are wondering why the big bump in buying and the price, I think the answer is pretty simple: TSLA has been bargain priced, and both the demand and auto margin questions were very satisfactorily answered during the ER's conference call. The third biggy for those paying attention is that Tesla is emphasizing that with energy and other income sources, automotive gross margin is now inadequate for gauging the health of the company. More income streams ahead. For those investors waiting on the sidelines, the Q4 ER was the all clear siren, and volume of nearly 235M shares provided the punch to raise the price.

Normally, you would expect the MMs to succeed in bringing TSLA below 160 on a Friday with a big call wall at 160. They'll likely succeed since futures are down. Still, it's been an amazing week even if there's a bit of settling on Friday.

You have many options for getting a rundown of the Q4 ER. Normally I go with Rob Maurer or Dave Lee, but this time I thought that this Solving the Money Problem video did a really great job of going through the ER data and making sense of everything. Worth a look.

Wondering how Tesla is doing compared to the other big tech companies when it comes to growth? Check out the graphic in this Tweet by Forward Cap:

Yields on 10 yr. treasury bonds closed just below 3.5%

Max pain rose to 140 on Thursday. Look at that tall call wall that popped up at 160 strike. It's more than 37K contracts high! No wonder the market makers were defending 160 on Thursday. Their failure to defend into the close was noteworthy. Alas, futures are down for Friday, so NASDAQ weakness may give the MMs a chance to send TSLA back below 160 for a day.

TSLA options volumes on Thursday. 160 certainly was the hotspot.

What's not to like with this tech chart: 5 green days in a row, TSLA running away from the upper bollinger band, and TSLA crossing well above the 50 day moving average. I suppose the downside is that we're due soon for a profit-taking day.

Conditions:
* Dow up 206 (0.61%)
* NASDAQ up 199 (1.76%)
* SPY up 4 (1.10%)
* TSLA 160.27, up 15.84 (10.97%)
* TSLA volume 234.8M shares
* Oil 81.32
* IV 56.7, 27%
* Max Pain 140
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 62%

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

A second 11% TSLA climb in a row, anyone? Gotta love it. As many of you may remember, I was rather expecting Friday to be a mewl day with negative macro futures and time for a little profit-taking on TSLA. What a pleasure to be wrong.

What started the ball rolling was a PCE inflation report issued before Friday's opening. What's remarkable is that not only was the PCE data cooler than expected, but for the second month in a row Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) were actually negative. Since PCE inflation is the preferred inflation datapoint that the fed likes to look at, the results should have been regarded as a big positive by the NASDAQ and particularly by growth stocks. You can see in the QQQ chart that at 8am when the report came out, there were positive movements of the index that got immediately shot down. My guess is that the big dog Wall Street pirates were doing the classic "nothing to see here, move along" procedure with multiple stocks to keep the indexes red.

It worked, at least for a while, with QQQ opening in the red. TSLA, OTOH, was trading positively in pre-market. You can see six dips below 160 which were almost certainly market makers selling big enough blocks to bring TSLA below 160, but none of the sales stuck. TSLA started climbing steadily, which I think was the main reason that QQQ and the NASDAQ turned around (why are we trading negatively when the PCE report was nearly perfect for challenging Darth Powell's constant rate increases while TSLA is heading to the stars?). Now QQQ started heading upward in TSLA fashion.

Around 11am TSLA crossed resistance point 167 and continued to climb. I did a buy here on TSLA zooming through the 167 resistance. By 3pm TSLA exceeded 180 but could not hold it through the close. OTOH, look at the big QQQ dip going into close and notice that TSLA did not follow very closely. Most likely, the market makers HAD to continue buying to catch up with delta-hedging their sold options. Such a big rise well over the max pain number likely was likely a classic gamma squeeze.

Were we witnessing a short squeeze, too? Looks like the opposite may be true. @Artful Dodger reported in this TMC post that between 12/30/22 and 1/13/23 TSLA shares shorted increased by 10 million. Then in this Lora Kalodny CNBC article, she reports:

Despite the rally, active short selling continues, S3 managing director Ihor Dusaniwsky told CNBC. Short sellers view Tesla’s appreciation as having created “an overheated and overbought stock that is due for at least a short-term reversal,” he said. In the last week, S3 Partners said it’s seen a 3.9% increase in total shares shorted, while investors shorting the stock lost $4.3 billion over that stretch. (bold added by Papafox for emphasis)

So, instead of covering, the shorts have been doubling down this past week, expecting a negative Q4 ER or at least a big correction to the climb. Truly remarkable ignoring of the news. I therefore award the Papafox Ostrich award to Tesla short seller's for their blind behavior this past week. Truly well deserved. Looks like our TSLA short squeeze is still a future event.

Of course the market makers were doing their best to stop TSLA's 11% rise from happening. We saw percent of selling tagged to shorts at a very high 68%, and we saw no less than 6.1 million shares trade hands during the 4pm closing cross. Volume was a phenomenal 306.6M shares.

For the week, TSLA closed up 33%. Keep in mind that when a stock falls from 400 to 100, that is a 75% loss of value (300/400), but to rise from 100 to 400 you need to see a 300% rise (300/100). The reason for this seeming disparity is that the starting number (400 or 100) is so much different.

On the calendar, we have the Darth Powell show on Wednesday, Feb 1 in the afternoon. Normally, you can expect Powell to growl sufficiently to push the market down at such FOMC meeting results, but I suspect the favorable CPI, PPI, and PCE inflation reports this past month will at least defang Darth a bit. We'll see how the market reacts. Then March 1, just a mere 4 weeks later, we have the Tesla Investors Day event at GigaTexas, where Tesla will likely reveal a more efficient production technology plus might even reveal one or more new products in the pipeline. Normally, such events don't move the stock price, but this one may be an exception, particularly in this environment.

News:
* Reuters reports that "Elon Musk met two top White House officials on Friday in Washington to discuss how the car maker and Democratic President Joe Biden could work together to advance electric vehicle production and speed electrification of U.S. vehicle networks."

Yep, the market makers were trying their best to minimize TSLA's climb on Friday with a whopping 68% of TSLA selling tagged to shorts. Can you imagine what the climb would have been without this restraint applied?

Yields on 10 yr. treasury bonds closed at 3.51% for the week, not bad and another data point that the market either expects a recession or (more likely) doesn't believe Darth Powell when he says he's going to bring the fed rate to 5.5% and hold it there for a long time.

Max pain on Friday was 147.00. The big call wall remained at 160 strike, with 165 and 170 each a bit smaller and 175 only about half the size of the 160 call wall. Nonetheless, the MMs had to pay for (or cough up the stock) for a sugarload of in the money call options this week.

Friday's options volumes

Next Friday's max pain is 145.00. It will no doubt rise as both put and call buyers place bets at higher strike prices.

Looks like @JimS really nailed the "up and to the right" shape for closing price we've been requesting for the chart. Thanks Jim! TSLA bottomed out around Jan 3-4 and has been accelerating its climb since.

What a lovely chart, particularly with the massive volume to complete seven up days in a roll. Look at the nice turn upwards of the mid bollinger band. TSLA hasn't been above the 200 day moving average since September, but the 200 DMA is only about $45 above TSLA now.

For the week, TSLA closed at 177.90, up 44.48 from the previous Friday's 133.42. That's a better than 33% climb in a single week. Not bad. Hoping you enjoyed a restful weekend and are ready for the coming week.

Conditions:
* Dow up 29 (0.08%)
* NASDAQ up 109 (0.95%)
* SPY up 1 (%)
* TSLA177.90, up 17.63 (11.00%)
* TSLA volume 306.6M shares
* Oil 79.68
* IV 73.0, 80%
* Max Pain 147 for 1/27, 145 for 2/3
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 68%

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

The profit-taking day that I was expecting on Friday instead arrived on Monday, with a 6.32% dip during market hours and a 0.53% dip after hours. When compared to the nearly 75% climb since early January, though, the profit-taking/correction has been within reason so far. Still, there's quite possibly a day 2 of the dip and then we get to hear the Darth Powell show on Wednesday. Not exactly a bouquet of roses way to start the week.

At open, TSLA was outperforming QQQ, as QQQ went negative TSLA started with about a 2X multiplier to QQQ's dips, but through judicious manipulations the shorts and various pirates who benefit from a lower price managed to bring TSLA to more like a 3X multiplier. In order to effect this deeper multiplier, shorting was needed and a full 64% of TSLA selling was tagged to shorts. Besides the usual day shorting I suggest the overconfident shorts were piling in on Monday to take advantage of what they are hoping is a return to early January numbers. Such thinking has not served the shorts well over the years. At the 4pm closing cross we saw 2.3M shares trade hands, suggesting lots of covering from day-shorting.

For comparison purposes, NVDA closed down 5.91%, ARKK down 4.65%, and AAPL down 2.01%

News:
* Teslarati says Tesla is offering $3000 or free supercharging as an incentive for current Tesla owners to trade up to a Model S or X

Percent of selling by shorts remained extremely high at 64% on Monday, suggesting that the various Wall Street pirates were working TSLA to achieve maximum dip on Monday's macro weakness

Yields on 10 yr. treasury bonds reached 3.55% on Monday

Max pain Monday morning was 157.50. Strikes of 165 and below are dominated by puts, and so the market makers don't have a great amount of incentive to keep pushing down.

Monday's options volumes

On Monday TSLA lost a portion of Friday's gains. When looked at as a profit-taking consolidation, the dip so far is small compared to the 33% rise just this past week. TSLA remains above the 50 day moving average. Upper bollinger band was at about 167 on Monday, and so TSLA, after spending two days above the upper bb, slipped below it (as so often happens after two days outside the BBs).

Conditions:
* Dow down 261 (0.77%)
* NASDAQ down 228 (1.96%)
* SPY down 5 (1.25%)
* TSLA 166.66, down 11.24 (6.32%)
* TSLA volume 228.2M shares
* Oil 77.93
* IV 68.2, 72%
* Max Pain 157.50
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 64%

 

[Artful Dodger]

Upper bollinger band was at about 167 on Monday

Thx for the update! Just a quick note to let you know that Bollinger bands were not plotted on this chart.

Cheers!
Lodger