Papafox's Daily TSLA Trading Charts

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

Friday was the culmination of the week following cybertruck delivery event. Tesla bears expected (and likely placed bets on) a sell the news dip. Surprise, We saw Toni Sacconaghi of Bernstein say his best investment idea of 2024 is to short Tesla. Unfortunately for Toni, he has never given TSLA a buy rating in the many years he has covered the stock, even duing the epic 2020 run past the moon and well towards mars. Bearish commentary such as his is more a reflection of what he has already advised others to do, rather than a careful reading of the tea leaves. Despite the FUD, and despite percent of TSLA selling hitting 65% on Friday, Tesla rose $1.20 on Friday and is up $4.82 for the week.

As a counterpoint to the bearish FUD, let me suggest taking a look at this Brighter with Herbert video in which James from InvestAnswers explores the plethora of potentially major profit sources that are under development at Tesla. Herbert and James then plug assumptions into a spreadsheet to come up with an eye-opening idea of where TSLA valuation may be heading.

Percent of selling tagged to TSLA shorts came in at a very high 65%. I believe 68% is the highest I've ever seen. Usually these big shorting spikes are short-lived and I repeat that it is strange that this intense shorting is happening when TSLA is not climbing steeply. Conclusion? Someone really doesn't like TSLA climbing this week. They had other plans.

Yields on 10 yr. treasury bonds ran higher on Friday but still ended the week at a low 4.23%

Max pain Friday morning was 240 (again), with that strike close to neutral while 245 was the massively high call wall. Any questions why TSLA closed between 240 and 245 on Friday?

Friday's TSLA options volumes

TSLA closed high in all 4 of the past 4 weeks. Such a performance does not sit well with those who bet for a "sell the news" dip following the cybertruck reveal.

For Friday, Dec. 15, max pain is 225 due to this being a longer-term expiration date for options. In other words, most of these bets were placed some time ago. Do the market makers want to push TSLA to 225? Not really. Srikes 240 and below are put-dominated, so there's little to gain with going that low. OTOH. strike 245 is call dominated and 250 is this coming week's tall call wall. If TSLA moved above 245 early in the week, it might get balanced with puts, and then 250 would become the week's apparent battle zone.

We enter the week with a 1.15 put to call ratio, which shows that puts are unusually high compared to calls going into the week. Again, this could be a hold-over from bets placed in earlier weeks.

The 50 day moving average is shallowing its descent toward the red 200 day moving average, which is good because a "death cross" would worry the technical traders. The low volume on Thursday and Friday made manipulations that much easier for the pirates. Yep, arranging a "death cross" and making it look like investor sentiment was one of the many reasons why we saw such an effort to thwart TSLA's climb this past week.

For the week, TSLA closed at 243.64, up 4.82 from the previous Friday's 238.82. It's been a good week for TSLA investors, my friends. Hoping you enjoyed quality time with those who matter to you this past weekend.

Conditions:
* Dow up 130 (0.36%)
* NASDAQ up 64 (0.45%)
* SPY up 2 (0.43%)
* TSLA 243.64, up 1.20 (0.49%)
* TSLA volume 102.1M shares
* Oil 71.23
* IV 43.9, 12%
* Max Pain 240 for Dec8, 225 for Dec15
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 65%
* Volume at 4pm closing cross: 3.3M shares

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

NASDAQ chart above (QQQ chart was gorked by a big spike)

Monday was a strange day for the macros. All of the Magnificent Seven stocks closed down while the Nasdaq as a whole closed up. For example, Nvidia was down 1.85%, META down 2.24%, Amazon down 1.04% and Apple down 1.29%. TSLA's loss of 1.68% was pretty typical. Here's a Tweet which suggests we're seeing something related to the Magnificent Seven rebalancing. I just wouldn't read too much into the day's trading, except I will point out that percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts was a high 62%, highly suggesting that to get that 1.68% dip of TSLA took some serious nudging. We saw 4.4M shares trade hands in the 4pm closing cross, TSLA volume was below 100M shares, The day was a manipulation friendly environment.

This coming week will be a doozy for financial news. CPI comes out at 8:30am on Tuesday, PPI at 8:30am on Wednesday, and later on Wednesday Darth Powell will do what he can to get the financial community shivering in its boots, even if there's not a rate increase. How these events turn out will set the tone for macros this week. Never a dull moment.

TSLA shorts were tagged with 62% of TSLA selling on Monday, a hefty amount on a low-volume day with sketchy macros. They're keeping the pressure on.

Yields on 10 year treasury bonds dipped to 4.19% on Monday

Max pain was 230 Monday morning. The 240 strike is put-dominated, but the 245 strike is definitely call dominated and the 250 call wall is more than 80K contracts high.

Monday's TSLA options volumes

Check out that third clump since late October. There's a slight rising trend to it. In the past week we've seen most trading remain between 238 and 245. I have no doubt that traders are now working those ranges.

Conditions:
* Dow up 157 (0.43%)
* NASDAQ up 29 (0.20%)
* SPY up 2 (0.39%)
* TSLA 239.74, down 4.10 (1.68%)
* TSLA volume 97.6M shares
* Oil 71.57
* IV 44.7, 18%
* Max Pain 230
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 62%
* Volume at 4pm closing cross: 4.4M shares

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

Yep, someone REALLY wants TSLA to dip lower after the cybertruck delivery event. I was expecting the highest shorting of the past several trading days on Tuesday in order to achieve the dip down to nearly 234 and then a revisit of that dip in early afternoon. Instead, shorts were tagged with "only" 51% of TSLA selling. Why so low? The pirates, I suspect, don't want to be too obvious with their bear attack. When TSLA dips this much below the Nasdaq on a day with no TSLA news of consequence, following several trading days of solidly escalating shorting, it's easy for me to believe that the day-shorters simply shifted their source for the short shares to non-FINRA exchanges and thereby avoided the SEC's scrutiny. A robust 4.4M shares trading at 4pm suggests LOTS of wheeling and dealing was underway on Tuesday.

Unfortunately for the pirates, investors started buying the discount in the afternoon and TSLA ran from a low of about 234 to 237. Those who sold at 234 likely feel badly for doing so. Rest assured that the pirates would like to get more mileage out of this dip, but here's how their effort can come unwound. Let's say they try another deep Mandatory Morning Dip such as Tuesday's morning's. That might be the incentive buyers need to grab shares quickly and send the stock price into the green. If that happens, momentum is on the side of the buyers and you could see a nice recovery. Another potential positive scenario would be the PPI numbers could come out cool and the market could run higher on the news, towing TSLA with it. The biggest negative of Wednesday is that Darth Powell will speak in the afternoon. He has often tanked the market, even during months where the Fed has chosen to hold interest rates level, and some traders could be wary in the morning of what could transpire in the afternoon. The PPI numbers don't normally sway the market much, but this month might be an exception if they are noticeably hot or cool.

Speaking of inflation numbers, the CPI numbers came out Tuesday morning pretty close to expected values. The month over month rise was 0.1% higher than expected, but the yearly number showed an improvement. It was mostly a wash. Here's CNBC's take.

Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts dipped to 51% on Tuesday. Do I believe that number accurately reflects the amount of shorting going on with TSLA. Nope, not even close. With macros bouncing back and no negative Tesla news of consequence, it would take a "sugar"-ton of shorting to get TSLA to underperform the Nasdaq and QQQ by this amount.

Yields on 10 yr. treasury bonds remained low at about 4.18% on Tuesday

Max pain on Tuesday was 230, but that strike is pretty heavily put-dominated. Even 240 is put-dominated. The market makers should feel no great need to push TSLA below 240. Other players, such as those hedge funds and shorts that bet against TSLA for the cybertruck delivery event are likely leading the shorting at the moment.

TSLA options volumes on Tuesday

Check out the bounce off the blue 50 day moving average. Someone didn't like the uptrend of this third clump of TSLA candles and is trying to start a downtrend. The market may see through the effort.

Conditions:
* Dow up 173 (0.48%)
* NASDAQ up 101 (0.70%)
* SPY up 2 (0.46%)
* TSLA 237.01, down 2.73 (1.14%)
* TSLA volume 94.9M shares
* Oil 68.08
* IV 43.5, 9%
* Max Pain 230
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 51%
* Volume at 4pm closing cross: 3.1M shares

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above
What a crazy day for TSLA trading. The PPI inflation numbers came in flat, which was good news for the markets, and you can see that QQQ remained nicely green but without much fanfare. I suggest that worry about Darth Powell's speech was a factor in the muted response. Once the Fed announced that rates would not be raised in December and that we could see three (or more) rate cuts in 2024, QQQ and Nasdaq went into rally mode. In particular, check out that QQQ after-hours rise. Shouldn't decreasing interest rates have an even bigger effect on TSLA? Of course, but TSLA hasn't yet emerged from this post-cybertruck reveal manipulation. Perhaps Thursday or Friday will be the ticket. Nasdaq futures are up 0.36% Wednesday night.

Thus we saw a price swing of $12 between high and low. TSLA closed near the high, which bodes well for Thursday's open. Percent of shorting tagged to shorts was lower at 47%, but 4pm closing cross volume was unusually high at 4.9M shares. I suggest the recall story (see below) wasn't sufficient to cause the day's dip and a good amount of day-shorting from non-FINRA exchanges was probably involved. The good news is that the manipulators likely got caught on the wrong end of the short Wednesday afternoon as first QQQ and then TSLA rose substantially. Couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch of pirates.

Naturally, the media had a field day with the news of Tesla recalling 2 million vehicles. Most made the point in burying somewhere in the story the fact that the recall will be handled through an over-the-air software update, but I suspect bots and non-observant investors fell for the bad-news-out-of-a-nothingburger routine. Tesla will make changes to the software to perhaps limit use of autopilot (not FSD) on roads that might have crossings that include stop signs or lights. We'll see. The irony is that some judgement-impaired drivers will continue to engage in dangerous activities such as texting and reaching for fallen objects, but without autopilot engaged going forward. This would be a net negative for safety, but that's where we're heading, it looks like.

The news item with some substance is the likely disappearance of Model 3 IRA credits after Jan 1, 2024. That story could have been affecting the stock price.

A developing controversy that may impact TSLA at some point (perhaps in a good way) is addressed in this Tweet by Sawyer Merritt. An FCC commissioner named Brendan Carr has made a strongly-worded dissent to a decision to revoke in a seemingly-underhanded fashion a 2020 award of over $800M to Starlink for providing rural internet service. Elon replied. If public pressure can be focused on this issue, then perhaps the type of behind-the-scenes targeting of Musk companies can be spared or at least lightened going forward. Biden is no fan of Elon, and OTOH the GOP is no fan of EVs. At the moment, Tesla is in the crossfire. The positive thing right now is that all these controversies can be discussed on a relatively even-handed X.com, more so than anywhere else.

Check out that cliff dive after the FOMC message came out, suggesting there may be three or more rate cuts in 2024. Yields on 10 yr. treasury bonds closed Wednesday at 4.03%. It's time to see money flowing back into stocks from bonds.

Max pain Wednesday morning was 227.50. There's little incentive to MMs for TSLA to be 230 or below since those strikes are all noticeably put dominated.

Wednesday's options volumes

TSLA opened at the 50 day moving average, dipped from there, then recovered at the mid bollinger band. Hoping none of you suffered whiplash while watching the chart

I'm posting a NASDAQ chart for the same period to give you an idea of what's been going on with the broader market. Since December 1, look at the rally that has been pulling Nasdaq higher. This has been a time of positive news for Tesla since the cybertruck delivery event on November 30. The disparity between TSLA and Nasdaq is eye-opening, especially given the positive news for Tesla during the period. Like I said before, someone doesn't want TSLA climbing and is willing to manipulate to achieve their ends, The high shorting percentages add credibility to that view.

The Dow closed above 37,000 for the first time ever on Wednesday.

Conditions:
* Dow up 512 (1.40%)
* NASDAQ up 201 (1.38%)
* SPY up 6.33 (1.36%)
* TSLA 239.29, up 2.28 (0.96%)
* TSLA volume 144.7M shares
* Oil 69.80
* IV 43.7, 10%
* Max Pain 227.50
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 47%
* Volume at 4pm closing cross: 4.9M shares

 

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TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

Congrats longs, TSLA gained nearly 5% on Thursday to close at 251.05. As I had hoped, the day's strong trading drove a spike through the heart of the post-cybertruck-delivery-dip. Why such a big reaction over the past day and a half?

* Once the post-cybertruck-delivery dip bottomed out and TSLA started climbing with the rest of the macros, it was game over for the manipulation. Some of the pirates involved in the manipulation likely started covering
* Tesla will be a strong beneficiary of lower interest rates
* The whole cybertruck delivery event dip was pretty apparent as being a nothingburger. The cherry on top of the nothingburger was the over-hyped Tesla 2M vehicle recall. More intelligent investors saw the dip for what it was and realized it was a buying opportunity.
* Remember the triangle with lower highs as one side and higher lows as another? Thursday's gains suggest the triangle could resolve through a breakout to the high side now.
* Many stocks have hit or are approaching all time highs. TSLA is far from its ATH but doing well in Q4, thus showing more potential for future price appreciation than many other stocks. Money is shifting out of the ATH stocks and into Tesla. The company's volume on Thursday was 160M (120M is normal), revealing a strong upswing in buying.

Naturally, the media is looking for one news item to explain TSLA's rally. This Motley Fool writer suggested that the reason for the rally is that wait times in China for new Teslas has decreased and buyers will be enthusiastic about the decreases. Ah, if any of you happen to see Troy reading that story on a computer, please call 911 and order an ambulance because I expect him to pass out in disbelief.

What to expect on Friday? The market makers of course will try for a push below the high call-wall at 250. They may be determined enough to succeed. OTOH, TSLA climbing above 255 or 260 and holding those gains would be a sign of a failed manipulation and an invitation for TSLA to climb higher. The trick will be to hold those gains, especially with the MMs eager to push below 250 by end of trading. A run higher and then pretty abrupt correction on Friday is definitely one possibility.

Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts fell all the way to 43% on a day when TSLA rose 5%. I suggest this is a work of fiction and LOTS of manipulative shorting was used on Thursday to keep TSLA from running even higher. If you look at some of the previous shorting spikes, they often occur as the stock is nearing a local high.

Yields on 10 yr. treasury bonds fell to 3.95% on Thursday. We haven't seen 10 yr. yields below 4% since late July.

Max pain Thursday morning was 230, which was a rather irrelevant number on Thursday. That super-tall call wall at 250 was much more of a consideration as market makers likely cranked up the short-term shorting to pull TSLA from its high of nearly 254 to bring it within striking distance of 250 on Friday. Those call walls at 255 and 260 are much lower but still significant (both are over 25K contracts high).

Thursday's options volumes

Thursday big run higher brought TSLA nearly $3 above the upper bollinger band. Typically, the stock can remain above the band for a couple days before a rising band or lower/moderating price allows it to come back in. The most positive aspect of the past two days trading has been the strong volume on both days. Investors with serious bucks are buying at present, which is pushing the price upwards.

Conditions:
* Dow up 158 ( 0.43%)
* NASDAQ up 28 (0.19%)
* SPY up 2 (0.32%)
* TSLA 251.05, up 11.76 (4.91%)
* TSLA volume 160.0M shares
* Oil 71.77
* IV 45.6, 26%
* Max Pain 230
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 43%
* Volume at 4pm closing cross: 3.8M shares

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

TSLA started Friday with the usual Mandatory Morning Dip, but it didn't hold so instead we saw at least four more whack-the-mole efforts to push TSLA back below the red/green line. Then in the final few minutes of market trading, both QQQ and TSLA ran higher.

At first I was truly surprised that the market makers couldn't hold TSLA below 250 for the close and then I saw the volume of the 4pm closing cross: 39 million shares in that one minute. Oh boy, there really was a S&P500 rebalancing on Dec15. What typically happens is that hedge funds and various other entities looking to make a few bucks buy or short TSLA so that they can be on the other end of the trade when all of the funds mimicking the S&P500 simultaneously do their trades. The fact that TSLA shot higher in the minutes just prior to 4pm suggests that the price had to rise to balance buyers and sellers at the 4pm closing cross.

The big question now is, with the Dec15 rebalancing over, how will the MMs and hedgies trade TSLA on Monday? Often we see retail investor buying enthusiasm at a Monday morning opening. If the MMs wish to sink TSLA, they might start shorting the initial upward bump Monday morning after it has done some rising and then profit with a momentum change. OTOH, buying has been strong lately, so perhaps TSLA has more climbing to go. We'll see.

News is that fear of Houthi terrorism has been causing some ships to bypass the Suez Canal and instead pass south of Africa, a much longer voyage to Europe. In this Tweet, Troy reduced his Q4 estimate.

The other side of the coin is that with every week Tesla gets a week closer to achieving substantial profits from Full Self Driving, Robotaxi, Dojo, Gen3, cyberbruck, and Tesla's possible future link with X.ai and Grok. Tesla energy is already profitable and growing quickly. Then there's this note from Adam Jonas of Morgan-Stanley suggesting just how enormous Tesla's Optimus robot project could become.

It's the same old Tesla as just a car company thinking vs. Tesla magnificent future. Slowly, a few on Wall Street are catching on.

Shorts were tagged with 58% of TSLA selling on Friday. What a truly wild shorting curve we had. As TSLA held its ground after the cybertruck delivery event, shorting escalated to over 60%. Then we saw shorting plunge for two days then zoom back up to nearly 60% again. Methinks someone continues to be unhappy with TSLA's recent price gains.

Here's a one year view of 10 year treasury bond yields, which closed Friday at about 3.92%

Max pain Friday morning was 235, which was largely irrelevant. Both 235 and 240 were put-dominated, while 245 was slightly call-dominated and 250 was a King-Kong 70K contract-high call wall. TSLA's close at 253.50 pushed all those 70K contracts into the money. Sometimes the pirates lose a round.

TSLA's Friday options volumes

The three largest U.S. markets have all gained each week over the pasts seven weeks. That macro influence has helped TSLA climb in all of the past 4 weeks and in 6 of the past 7 weeks.

For this coming Friday, max pain is 240 and tall call walls at 250 and 260 are the challenge for market makers as we enter the new week.

For the second day in a row, TSLA closed above the upper bollinger band, suggesting that it might close within the band on Monday.

For the week, TSLA closed at 253.50, up 9.86 from the previous Friday's 243.64. It's been a good week, my friends. Here's hoping you enjoyed your weekend with those who matter most to you.

Conditions:
* Dow up 57 (0.15%)
* NASDAQ up 52 (0.35%)
* SPY down 1 (0.16%)
* TSLA 253.50, up 2.45 (0.98%)
* TSLA volume 135.2M shares
* Oil 71.43
* IV , %
* Max Pain 235 for Dec15, 240 for Dec22
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 58%
* Volume at 4pm closing cross: 39 .2M shares

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

On Monday I smiled at all the reports for "the reason" TSLA faded after topping 258. The Jon Oliver mudslinging toward Elon was a popular guess, and then we had reasons such as other auto stocks not doing well on Monday and a Germany halt on EV subsidies for the final weeks of 2023. The real reason for the dip? It's nothing more than a return to business as usual. First, we had the quite common Monday morning retail investor exuberance push TSLA up shortly after market open. Notice that TSLA peaked well before QQQ did most of its gaining for the day. The Wall Street pirates bid their time and let TSLA get to a lofty high before jumping in with their shorting. By beginning the shorting at a high price and waiting for the macros to begin a dip, the pirates increased their profits for the day's activities. Once downward momentum was established it could be controlled. As QQQ and NASDAQ rose, TSLA could be capped until after 2pm when QQQ leveled off and it was possible to start the downward push to get TSLA into the red.

How was this a return to business as usual? It turns out that the S&P500 rebalancing on Friday caused the market makers to forego their usual heavy-handed end of week tactics as the hedge funds maneuvered their positions to profitably feed the S&P500 funds what they needed come Friday's close. There's apparently still honor among thieves. TSLA may have been unable to climb above 250 without that reprieve last week and so Monday was the time for the market makers to start making up for lost time. Unless macros do something really funky or bad Tesla news comes forth, the pirates who bet against Tesla for the cybertruck delivery event are likely going to be out of luck. They're going to lose the help of the MMs once TSLA is a couple bucks below 250. My point is that if you want to understand how TSLA can underperform the market for so long and then takes off all of a sudden for a blistering climb, days such as Monday help you understand the mechanism involved. It's what's best for the option sellers strongly influencing the stock price. In other words, it's the tail wagging the dog until all of a sudden things get out of hand and then TSLA runs higher quickly.

To pull off the manipulations on Monday, percent of selling tagged to shorts remained very high at 57% and volume during the 4pm closing cross was a massive 5.9 million shares.

News is generally positive:
* This Sawyer Merritt Tweet says we saw insurance registrations in China last week were 18,300, about 15% above expectations
* Sandy Munro was given a tour of the cybertruck line by Lars in this video, highly recommended
* Jay Leno's Garage covered the cybertruck with Franz and Lars along for the ride. Also highly recommended
* Pressed for time? Catch up on the key discoveries in those videos in this Tesla Daily Video Podcast
* Tesla Europe says in a Tweet that Tesla will pick up for the remainder of the year the EV subsidy dropped by Germany. James Cat Tweets that this will probably cost Tesla around 20M Euros.

Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts came in at a high 57% on Monday as the market makers (seeking to get TSLA below 250 again) joined forces with the unfortunate pirates who bet wrong on the cybertruck delivery event.

Yields on 10 year treasury bonds remained in the sub 4% arena with yields closing around 3.93% on Monday

Max pain Monday morning was 240 yet again. Looking at the open interest chart above, you can actually see a big put wall at 240, and so it's not a price that market makers are shooting for. Strike 250 is nearly 24K call contracts high, and the MMs definitely want to get TSLA below by week's end. Strike 260 is almost as high, but it's the 262.50 strike that is pushing 40K contracts at the moment. MMs REALLY don't want to see TSLA that high this week.

Monday's TSLA options volumes. Strike 260 calls were the most active.

After two trading sessions above the upper bollinger band, TSLA descended a bit, the band rose a bit, and TSLA once again came within the band, as usually happens after two days to the upside. Big institutional investors are now more likely to buy TSLA within the bands.

Conditions:
* Dow up 1 (%)
* NASDAQ up 91 (%)
* SPY up 3 (%)
* TSLA 252.08, down 1.42 (%)
* TSLA volume 115.4M shares
* Oil 72.50
* IV 44.9, 20%
* Max Pain 240
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 57%
* Volume at 4pm closing cross: 5.9M shares

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

So, the plot thickens. As we last left off, TSLA dropped on Monday as the Nasdaq rose well into the green. It certainly looked like the A team at the market makers and hedge funds organizations were back in charge of running the TSLA sledge-o-matic to get that stock price back where it belonged, below 250. Alas, Tuesday beckoned with yet another up day for the Nasdaq, and this time TSLA took off and closed up 2%, roughly 3X higher than the Nasdaq's climb. What gave? I think it was just too much macro growth for the pirates to hold TSLA back for yet another day. Investors rightly figured that TSLA was attractively priced, given the recent Nasdaq price increases. As the other stocks rally, the P/E ratios grow, making TSLA just that much more relatively attractive to pick up. The other change that affected TSLA's prices on Tuesday was the options market. TSLA calls and puts at 250 strike are coming closer together, making 250 not so important a line in the sand to hold any more. Max pain rose to 247.50.

How hard were the market makers and other manipulators working on Tuesday? Pretty darn hard if you consider 60% of TSLA selling was tagged to shorts and volume at the 4pm closing cross was a very strong 5.5M shares. My guess is that the new target is to try keeping TSLA below the big 260 and 262.50 call walls this week. They may or may not succeed, depending upon the macros and Tesla news.

So, congratulations longs, TSLA is finally making up for some lost climbing that has already taken place on the Nasdaq.

News:
* CNBC says that Tesla is giving 10% or higher raises to some of its GigaNevada hourly workers

Percent of selling tagged to shorts ran up to 60% on Tuesday, suggesting LOTS of manipulative shorting

Yields on 10 year treasury bonds closed yet again around 3.92%

Max pain Tuesday morning jumped all the way up to 247.50. How the options landscape has changed! Strike 250 is no longer a battlefield, with a growing number of puts it is on its way to become a neutral strike. Strike 255 is still positive but 260 and 262.50 are this week's tall call walls and where the real action is. Although 250 was topped last Thursday, I don't feel that it's "in the bag" until the options get close to neutral (calls vs puts).

Tuesday's TSLA options volumes

Tuesday's gains brought TSLA above $2 above the upper bollinger band, but recent gains have caused the upper bb to start climbing at a steeper angle, which works to support an ongoing climb. Meanwhile, with the stock price well above the blue 50 DMA line, we may soon get that 50 day moving average to start rising again and thereby avoid a "death cross" with the red 200 day moving average.

Conditions:
* Dow up 252 (0.68%)
* NASDAQ up 98 (0.66%)
* SPY up 3 (0.61%)
* TSLA 257.22, up 5.14 (2.04%)
* TSLA volume 106.2M shares
* Oil 73.44
* IV 44.4, 15%
* Max Pain 247.50
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 60%
* Volume at 4pm closing cross: 5.5M shares

 

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TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

Time constrained report
Hope nobody is getting whiplash from this wild trading. Thirty-five minutes after market open on Wednesday TSLA was pushing within about 40 cents of the 260 call wall. This act of trespassing on option seller sacred soil was met with a selling fury that started TSLA into a decline well before QQQ topped out that morning. The event looked very similar to Monday's smack-down when TSLA dared to approach the sacred 260 call wall. Alas, TSLA managed to recover from the red and flirt with the red/green line around 2pm when the whole market did a spectacular cliff dive. Although it's possible this dive was just algos and nervous traders reacting as stocks neared record highs, I suggest the speed of the dip smells like a coordinated effort of some big hedge funds to make a buck. Your choice.

In any event, TSLA fell nearly 4% compared to Nasdaq's 1.5% dip. Any one want to speculate that some short-selling was going on during that dip? Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts was a high 56% on Wednesday with a massive 5 million shares trading hands during the 5pm closing cross.

No Tesla news of significance has come out to warrant such volatility. I continue to believe that we're seeing a much greater than normal effort to keep TSLA from reaching prices that are expensive for the option sellers. Anything is on the table for the week's remainder, from a TSLA rebound to a further sink of macros. Keep that seatbelt snug.

Yields on 10 year treasury bonds slid to below 3.9% on Wednesday, closing near 3.88%

Max pain Wednesday morning was 250. Puts at last outnumbered calls at 250 strike, so there wasn't much incentive for market makers to push below 250. Wednesday's dip does give a comfortable margin below the 260 and 262.50 call walls, however.

Wednesday's TSLA options volumes

Looking at the tech chart, you can see that even with the big dip on Wednesday TSLA is still playing between mid and upper bollinger bands. Notice, too, that with all the drop of the stock price on Wednesday, volume was still only about normal.

Conditions:
* Dow down 476 (1.27%)
* NASDAQ down 225 (1.50%)
* SPY down 7 (1.39%)
* TSLA 247.14, down 10.08 (3.92%)
* TSLA volume 123.9M shares
* Oil 74.14
* IV 46.2, 29%
* Max Pain 250
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 56%
* Volume at 4pm closing cross: 5.0M shares

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above
Anyone sea-sick yet? Crazy week! You should ask yourself this question: Is market opinion of TSLA changing this radically on a day to day basis, or is TSLA being used as a yoyo in some game of maximize option-seller profits? I have my opinion! Also, the macro cliff dive from Wednesday seemed to disappear on Thursday. CNBC called the dive "profit taking" but I call it "scaring the traders out of stocks."

Thursday worked out to be a compromise between two possibilities: a TSLA rebound from Wednesday and a hard-core shorting exercise meant to clip TSLA's wings this week. A rebound of about three-quarters of Wednesday's losses did indeed occur, but percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts jumped all the way up to 65% (68% is the highest I can remember) and volume during the 4pm closing cross minute came in strong at 4 million shares. Mercy! The obviously heavy use of shorting kept TSLA far enough away from 260 that the market makers have a sporting chance of holding it below that tall call wall plus the 262.50 tall call wall. I believe we would have hit 260 on Thursday if not for the very strong-arm shorting we saw employed.

The shorting was used in a subtle fashion and its effects may not be too apparent to the naked eye. Nonetheless, check out that TSLA dip around 10:30am compared to QQQ's dip. Look at what percentage of the morning's gains were lost in the dip. Then check out the slope of QQQ's climb in the final hour of market trading TSLA was held back, but you don't notice at quick glance.

News is generally positive still. Wedbush analyst Dan Ives raised his TSLA price target from $310 to $350 and believes Tesla will once again his a trillion dollars market cap in 2024. Photos from GigaTexas show a respectable stream of cybertrucks coming out of the factory.

Judging from the effort already extended this week, Friday could have one crazy battle for 260. Can't wait to see. Don't leave the theatre until the credits are shown, though. This crowd likes to slip things in at the last minute.

Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts zoomed all the way up to 65% on Thursday, confirming LOTS of manipulations underway aimed at reducing TSLA's climb this week

Yields on 10 yr treasury bonds closed near 3.9% on Thursday

Max pain Thursday morning was 247.50, reflecting a dip in the share prices on Wednesday, which made some interesting changes in the max pain chart. Strike 250, which was put-dominated Wednesday morning moved noticeably call-dominated Thursday morning, giving MMs an incentive to see TSLA drop to below 250 by Friday's close. OTOH, Thursday's strength, particularly going into after-hours close, suggests continued buying pressure (upward pressure on stock price). Strike 255 has plenty of calls in excess of puts, so the market makers are more likely to try holding 255 than 250. Given how frisky TSLA has been this week, they may be lucky to hold TSLA a penny below 260.

Thursday's TSLA options volumes

On Thursday TSLA regained about three-quarters of the price it lost on Wednesday. Notice that despite the heavy fud and heavy shorting, volume during the past week's volatility has generally been below the 120M-ish average volume, suggesting that even with this turmoil, TSLA investors are not easily willing to sell.

Conditions:
* Dow up 322 (0.83%)
* NASDAQ up 186 (1.26%)
* SPY up 4 (0.95%)
* TSLA 254.40, up 7.36 (2.98%)
* TSLA volume 108.9M shares
* Oil 74.49
* IV 46.2, 29%
* Max Pain 247.50
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 65%
* Volume at 4pm closing cross: 4.0M shares

 

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TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above
Let's get Friday's summary out of the way so that we can move on to better things. The problem with the Friday of a three-day Christmas weekend is that many traders and investors go home early on Friday. Thus, volume was only 93.4M shares and volume was especially low in the afternoon. Thus, the market makers and hedge funds could move TSLA precisely where they wanted it and they did just that. Strike 252.50 was the highest put-dominated strike, with some mighty tall call walls above that. TSLA closed the day at 252.54, just 4 pennies above the go-no-lower-than-price, and it was a near perfect end to the week for the pirates. Whoever was running the TSLA sledge-o-matic will be getting their Christmas bonus. Notice how TSLA rose and fell similarly to QQQ, but with some big differences in scale. The early afternoon QQQ rise was much lower at TSLA, and after the 2:30pm dip TSLA was capped so that it never rose back up with QQQ and Nasdaq. Small points, but important points if you want to understand how TSLA underperforms the broader market on a regular basis (until it breaks loose and goes ballistic again).

Percent of selling tagged to shorts was a very high 63%, and nearly 2.7M shares traded hands (on this LOW volume day) during the 4pm closing cross.

Truflation.com 's inflation computations are more than 1/2 percent below the CPI number now

Looking at the big picture, inflation appears heading lower and Mr. Market will be pleased when the Fed starts cutting rates. With 60 month auto loan rates pushing 7.5% in September, that will be good news for the buying public and especially for Tesla.

So, let's look at factors influencing TSLA. For Q4, Tesla still looks on track to hit 1.8M deliveries in 2023, which would be good. Higher volumes should help yields. OTOH, inventory is growing and so some discounting is likely to wrap up Q4 and move vehicles in Q1. Lower interest rates aren't here yet. Luddites focused solely on Tesla's auto business might bring downward pressure during early 2024.

OTOH, Tesla is an idea factory and manufacturing virtuoso spending over $5 billion each year in R&D, so there's much good coming our way. Energy products are likely to surprise to the high side. Competitors slimming down their EV sales in the U.S. could help Tesla sell more credits. Gen 3 (Model 2) may roll out of the GigaTexas factory in late 2024, which would turn the auto business on its head. Optimus 2 is roaring along at full speed and may becomes reality before FSD and robotaxi. Dojo is going to grow massively in the coming months and will enable faster training of FSD and the Optimus brain. By end of 2025 the Tesla product line will have done wonders to the stock price and parts of the massive growth in shareholder value will likely be realized earlier than that. It's a waiting game, but sitting on the sidelines can become very expensive because we seldom see the next big rally ahead of time.

This week was another positive one for the Tesla as a car company vs. brilliant future divergence. Dan Ives of Wedbush joined Goldman-Sachs and Morgan-Stanley in understanding that Tesla has some big appreciation coming in the years ahead.

Truly the TSLA shorting activity has been eye-opening in the past couple weeks as percent of selling tagged to shorts has been often in the 60s, even though the stock price has not run considerably higher. Moreover, the SP has so far been pretty resilient to the significant shorting episodes. On Friday, 63% of TSLA selling was tagged to shorts.

Yields on 10 year treasury bonds closed around 3.9% on Friday. Here's a 12 month view to appreciate the decline since October.

Max pain Friday morning was 250. If you look at the open interest chart below, 250 was neutral but 252.50 was put-dominated. Everything higher was call dominated. I'm sure it's pure coincidence that Friday closed at 252.54, 4 pennies above the highest put-dominated strike. /s

Friday's TSLA options volumes

TSLA closed down less than $1 this week. The good news is that max pain rose considerably, which reduces the incentive for downward pressure on this stock. Remember, with TSLA the tail (option sellers) often wag the dog (stock price). Chart courtesy of @JimS

For this coming Friday, max pain is 247.50. Let the games begin.

We'd really like to see the blue 50 day moving average avoid a cross with the red 200 DMA. Technical traders get worried about such things. Counting the number of trading sessions since the big dip to (and below) 220, I count 45 sessions. That means in another week the really low late October and early November prices get taken away one at a time and replaced with much higher numbers. TSLA needs to hang in there this week and then the 50 DMA becomes much easier to raise.

For the week, TSLA closed at 252.54, down 96 cents from the previous Friday's 253.50. It's been a wild week with LOTS of manipulative shorting to keep TSLA from running higher. Let's hope the buying pressure continues into the coming week. Please step back from the computer this holiday to enjoy time with those who matter most to you.

Conditions:
* Dow down 18 (0.05%)
* NASDAQ up 29 (0.19%)
* SPY up 1 (0.20%)
* TSLA 252.54, down 1.96 (0.77%)
* TSLA volume 93.4M shares
* Oil 73.56
* IV 47.3, 35%
* Max Pain 250 for Dec22, 247.50 for Dec29
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 63%
* Volume at 4pm closing cross: 2.7M shares

 

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TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

There was plenty of reason for TSLA to do well on Tuesday. We learned on Christmas that China insured Teslas in the past week was the second strongest number of the year and third strongest of all time. Then Adam Jonas of Morgan Stanley released a note which raises their price target to 380 and (more importantly) explains that the raise was not due to automotive prospects for 2024, but rather to encouraging developments with other products at Tesla. Jonas had already made an earlier note which put him in the "Tesla brilliant future" category, but this note expanded significantly upon it. We had also heard from Dan Ives who raised his TSLA target to 350. We also saw very strong China insurance numbers for the week. Mr. Market liked these developments.

What's interesting is that Jonas is not expecting a good 2024 for Tesla automotive but his point is that it doesn't matter. OTOH, Ives is expecting a good 2024 for Tesla's automotive efforts and the two messages present a strong one-two punch to Tesla bears. Both the Ives statements on CNBC and the Morgan Stanley note are covered well and in detail in Brighter with Herbert and both discussions feature Hans Nelson. Both podcasts recommended.

China insured 18.5K Teslas this past week. Check out this Roland Pircher chart which shows just how strong the end of Q4 is turning out to be in China

Looking at the TSLA trading chart for Tuesday, you can see TSLA outperforming Nasdaq by about 3X. There was a potential for the outperformance to be higher but it looks like the Wall Street pirates were capping to keep TSLA below 258 (because any higher puts 260 in jeopardy. Such a whack-the-mole effort took resources, which is why percent of selling tagged to shorts came in at 57% and volume during the TSLA 4pm closing cross came in at a massive 5.7M shares. It's taking substantial effort by the market makers to keep TSLA from running above 260 this week and chiseling away at those profits the option sellers have been enjoying. With three more trading days this week, it could be exciting.

One important number from Tuesday was TSLA volume of only 86.7M shares. On the one hand, such low volume suggests the pirates are going to have an easier time with their manipulations this week. OTOH, the low volume as part of a strong climb suggests to me that there just aren't many investors interested in selling right now. Expect volumes to be on the light side this week, due to some Wall Street types who are taking the week off.

The bottom line is that with renewed optimism, emphasis on Tesla's brilliant future, and strong China performance in Q4, there continues to be upward pressure on the TSLA share price.

Percent of selling tagged to shorts remained high at 57%, suggesting lots of manipulations still underway

Yields on 10 yr. treasury bonds closed around 3.89% on Tuesday

Max pain Tuesday morning was 250, which was somewhat put-dominated. Strike 252.50 was somewhat call-dominated, and so the sweet spot for option sellers is somewhere in between. The put to call ratio was 0.68, meaning that with puts only reaching 68% the number of calls that calls are more numerous this week than normal (put-to-call ratio is often near 0.75).

Tuesday's TSLA options volumes

The slow upward march of the stock price continues. I just counted 13 days between the first time TSLA touched 250 until the day that TSLA closed above (and held) 250. Looks like 260 might be hand-to-hand combat as well.

Conditions:
* Dow up 159 (00.43%)
* NASDAQ up 82 (00.54%)
* SPY up 2 (00.42%)
* TSLA 256.61, up 4.07 (1.61%)
* TSLA volume 86.7M shares
* Oil 75.24
* IV 48.3, 41%
* Max Pain 250
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 57%
* Volume at 4pm closing cross: 5.3M shares

 

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TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

Wednesday was a strong day for TSLA, even though it gained "only" 1.88% on a day when Nasdaq was only slightly above neutral. Only four days after TSLA started flirting with 260 (reaching above 258 momentarily), TSLA managed to close above 260. Remember that it took 13 trading days from the time TSLA rose above 250 in intraday trading until it captured that treasure by closing above it (and holding it).

That said, there was no shortage of effort to keep TSLA from holding 262.50 after the stock shot through that mark less than an hour after market open. Percent of selling tagged to shorts was a high 61%, and we saw 4.4M shares trade hands at 4pm. Yep, the pirates were manning the sledge-o-matics but even with relatively low volume of 106.5M they couldn't get TSLA back under 260 by close. TSLA held 250 after it finally closed above and it's entirely possible that it'll hold 260 after Wednesday's close. Remember that it's the rejiggering of options bets that gives the market makers the incentive to finally back off from pushing to get TSLA below a critical strike price, and on Wednesday the 260 price was overshadowed by the taller 262.50.

Moreover, the past couple weeks have been a circus of FUD and one should not be so naive to believe that the FUD is unrelated to the heavy effort to keep TSLA from climbing right now. The hedge funds who bet wrong are still calling in favors from their pals in the mainstream media. Particularly egregious has been the behavior of Reuters which has been slinging FUD faster than all the rest. Fortunately, Tesla responded with clarity in a Tweet to the clearly ill-intended article about Tesla wrongly blaming part failures on innocent car owners. Naturally, the usual suspects, Senators Bloomenthal and Markley, called for recalls after reading the bogus article.

Close contender for the FUD of the week title is a stinker from Daily Mail that tried to suggest that a Tesla employee was injured when attacked by a robot. Elon's reply in this Tweet revealed that the incident happened two years ago (before Optimus even existed) when a Tesla employee was slightly injured when hit with a Kuka industrial robotic arm.

Did all this FUD hurt TSLA's trading on Wednesday? Nope. The investing public has slowly been learning that the mainstream media lacks credibility any more and has turned into a sensationalize for clicks machine. Sad for this transition, but positive for the awareness that is growing.

So, with over-the-top FUD being slung against Tesla, with modest macro behavior, and with option selling pirates shorting like fiends in an effort to halt TSLA's price progression, the stock keeps climbing. Bullish.

News:
* Bloomberg says that Tesla will be producing some revamped Model Ys in Shanghai soon in anticipation of a mid-2004 transition to the newer model

Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts bounced back up to 61%, suggesting Lots and Lots of manipulations in order to keep TSLA below 162.50

Yields on 10 yr. treasury bonds dipped to 3.81% on Wednesday

Max pain Wednesday morning was 250 again. Strike 250 was definitely put-dominated and it wasn't until 255 before we saw a relatively neutral strike. The call wall at 262.50 has soared higher than the 260 call wall again. It's game on for the call buyers vs. the market makers.

Wednesday's TSLA options volumes

Ever since the two big rally days in early December that pulled TSLA out of the 220s, the stock price has been remaining close to the upper bollinger band as it follows the upper BB higher. On Wednesday TSLA closed 23 cents below the upper BB.

Conditions:
* Dow up 111 (0.30%)
* NASDAQ up 25 (0.16%)
* SPY up 1 (0.18%)
* TSLA 261.44, up 4.83 (1.88%)
* TSLA volume 106.5M shares
* Oil 74.02
* IV 48.8, 44%
* Max Pain 250
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 61%
* Volume at 4pm closing cross: 4.4M shares

 

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TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

We shouldn't have been too surprised with TSLA's big dip of nearly 3% on Thursday on a day with neutral macros and no Tesla news of substance. After all, a similar dip occurred five trading sessions earlier and then the stock resumed its uptrend.

Since Reuters in particular has been the source of so much of the recent TSLA FUD, there has been some interesting discussion of the subject on the TMC investor's main forum. Check out @Hock1 's post here and @cliff harris 's post here. Bottom line: If you believe that Reuters is just a legitimate news organization trying its best to keep investors informed, you really need to read these posts.

Comparing the TSLA chart to the QQQ chart, you can see any time there was a dip with QQQ we saw a bigger dip with TSLA. When QQQ was heading higher, we saw level trading due to capping. It's the same old game we've been watching for weeks. Percent of selling tagged to shorts was a high 57% and 4pm trading was a robust 3.5M shares during that closing cross minute.

No matter what happens on Thursday or Friday's trading, it'll be Tuesday's trading once the Production and Delivery numbers come out that will set the trajectory for TSLA in the near term. Strong after-hours trading for TSLA suggests the stock's opening performance may be positive Friday morning.

Monday, January 1, 2024, is a trading holiday. Expect Tesla to release the P&D report Tuesday morning before market open.

News:
* Teslarati says that the government of Gujarat India is confident that Tesla will announce a factory there

Percent of selling tagged to shorts remained high at 57% on Thursday

Yields on 10 yr. treasury bonds closed at 3.84% on Thursday

Max pain Thursday morning was 255. All the strikes from 257.50 and below were put-dominated, which took much of the incentive away for market makers to be pushing TSLA below 255. TSLA's close at 253.18 was a bit of an overshoot, but remember that not all the entities shorting out there are market makers. OTOH, the overshoot might be intentional on the part of the market makers because we have previously seen a recovery day after a deep nonsense dip such as this. You have hedge funds, big shorts, and others who would like to see an oversized dip. Noticeably, the put to call ratio rose to 0.88 Thursday morning, which indicates a shift toward puts in the options buying. That shift would require some MM selling of TSLA shares to retain their hedging position.

Thursday's TSLA options volumes

On Thursday we saw yet another big dip that looked alot like the one five trading sessions earlier. Option sellers love these volatile sessions because more options are traded (investors buy puts because of fear, other investors buy calls because of an improved price.

Conditions:
* Dow up 54 (0.14%)
* NASDAQ down 4 (0.03%)
* SPY up 0 (0.04%)
* TSLA 253.18, down 8.26 (3.16%)
* TSLA volume 112.3M shares
* Oil 71.96
* IV 50.8, 50%
* Max Pain 255
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 57%
* Volume at 4pm closing cross: 3.5M shares

 

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TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

Welcome to 2024 , my friends. Let's review Friday's trading first. All was going well until about 10:30am when the macros did a spectacular swan dive. By 11am QQQ lost about 0.5% and TSLA lost three times that much. Remember that the shorting is done not just by market makers but by others as well who have lower targets than max pain. Getting closer to noon QQQ did a couple more dips but TSLA didn't follow too closely. Instead, we saw a dip of TSLA going into close which brought it very close to the 10:30ish dip's low. Hmm. Percent of selling tagged to shorts was 57%, which keeps the shorting pressure on TSLA as we close out the year. A large 4.4M shares traded hands at 4pm. I'm just thinking that someone wanted TSLA below 250 for the year and the macros made the pushdown easy.

Truflation's inflation numbers have plummeted over the past two days. Let's hope this is real.

Taking a look at the bigger picture, inflation is way down according to the latest Truflation.com chart. If this number is real and indicative of where the U.S. inflation rate is heading, the situation bodes well for rate cuts later in the year. I'll need to see some confirmation from the CPI numbers before getting too excited.

Looking back over my shoulder at 2023, I see the doubling of price during the calendar year as mostly the up side of recovery from the 2022 Elon is selling to pay taxes and Elon is selling to buy Twitter bad days. It's still a long way to go to reach 400, but keep in mind that interest rates went sky high in 2023 and Mr. Market didn't appreciate Tesla's cuts in vehicle prices to keep inventory moving and expand its market.

Good news as we move into 2024? Some Wall Street types like to use the term "options" for talking about the potential payoff if/when FSD, robotaxi, Optimus, Gen 3, a linkup with x.ai, and expanding energy sales happen. I find that term too pessimistic and think more in terms of "when" than "if/when". For example, Optimus Version 2 is evolving quickly and is perhaps the biggest surprise of 2023. It may indeed goose the stock price before FSD wows Wall Street. That said, reports that Version 12.1 FSD is working well are popping up on the internet. What's exciting is that if indeed end to end neural net training is the quickest way to get to full self driving, nobody has the data to match Tesla's nor do they have something as powerful as Dojo under development. These are exciting times! Nonetheless, I keep my never-expiring call options focused on the end of 2025 to give lots of wiggle room. Surprises happen in this business, and many are manufactured by financial wheeler-dealers who want to make money from our misfortunes. I'm set to HODL til the cows come home, thank you. I'm also prepared for positive surprises.

We'll likely see Q4 Production and Delivery numbers before market open on Tuesday. Fingers crossed. Tesla looks like it has likely beaten the 476K delivery number that will give it 1.8M deliveries for 2023. That should be enough to satisfy Mr. Market, but there are no guarantees. Remember that we are dealing with spin merchants.

Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts came in at 57% on Friday, suggesting lots of manipulations.

Yields on 10 year treasury bonds closed at 3.88% on Friday.

Strike 250 was put dominated on Friday while 255 was call-dominated. Max pain strike 252 would have been the sweet spot for market makers on Friday morning, but the macro dip during the morning upset the apple cart.

TSLA's Friday options volumes

In 3 of the past 4 Fridays, max pain and stock price came closely together to reward the option sellers. Chart courtesy of @JimS

Max pain for this coming Friday is 255

TSLA's decline on Friday was halted when the stock bumped the middle bollinger band

For the week, TSLA closed at 248.48, down 4.04 from the previous Friday's 252.54. It's been a good year my friends and 2024 promises to be exciting! Take time to appreciate those who most matter to you.

Conditions:
* Dow down 21 (0.05%)
* NASDAQ down 84 (0.55%)
* SPY down 1 (0.29%)
* TSLA 248.48, down 4.70 (1.86%)
* TSLA volume 100.9M shares
* Oil 71.65
* IV 50.7, 50%
* Max Pain 252.50 for Dec29, 255 for Jan5
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 57%
* Volume at 4pm closing cross: 4.4M shares

 

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TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

Congratulations, longs, Tesla beat analyst consensus and both produced and delivered more than 1.8 million vehicles in 2023. Well done!

Notable is the fact that S&X deliveries were way up in Q4 (good margins) and lease percentages were down (better Q4 profits, less risk should a big economic dip happen and defaults happen).

Unfortunately, this good news arrived on a real stinker of a macro day, a day when the Nasdaq was down 2% at times. It you take TSLA's normal multiplier of 2.1 time the Nasdaq's 1.6% dip, you would have a greater than 3.3% dip for TSLA. Instead it closed just about even for the day.

The only reason TSLA didn't perform much better is because some entity was shorting the "sugar" out it. Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts came in at 66%, a ridiculously high percent once again. Trading during the 4pm closing cross minute was a massive 4.9M shares (on a day with barely 100M volume total).

I look at a heavy shorting campaign as both a positive and a negative. It's a negative because it truly is affecting short-term TSLA pricing. It's also a positive because TSLA's resilience to the shorting reveals the upward pressure that continues on the stock.

So, why the continued shorting (manipulations) pressure since the Cybertruck delivery event? Part of the reason is that Cybertruck's event was a success and along with other positive news put upward pressure on the stock. Market makers have been working (mostly successfully) to keep TSLA close to max pain on each Friday's close. Another likely explanation is that some big dogs on Wall Street either bet against the Cybertruck event or they believed the event could be a sell-the-news beginning to a downtrend aimed at some future date. Perhaps @SOULPEDL with this chart is on the right track. Jan 19 is a huge options expiration date (yearly, I believe) and max pain is just 216.67. Someone would like TSLA to be lower than it is now when that date rolls around. Time will tell if that date was the end date for this profound shorting exercise. Believe me, we'll be able to tell when it's over.

Wednesday will be an opportunity to see if TSLA regains the spring in its step should the Nasdaq flatten out.

Yields on 10 year treasury bonds closed up at 3.94%

Max pain Tuesday morning was 252.50. Strike 250 is the neutral strike between put and call domination.

Tuesday's TSLA options volumes

TSLA ended up close to the middle bollinger band for the second day in a row

Conditions:
* Dow up 26 (0.07%)
* NASDAQ down 245 (1.63%)
* SPY down 3 (0.56%)
* TSLA 248.42, down 0.06 (0.02%)
* TSLA volume 104.3M shares
* Oil 70.30
* IV 49.1, 45%
* Max Pain 252.50
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 66%
* Volume at 4pm closing cross: 4.9M shares

 

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TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

Welcome to trading day 23 of the bear attack that started on Nov 30 with the cybertruck delivery event. During this time period, FUD, shorting, and volume during the closing cross minute have been greatly elevated. Up until last week, the pirates couldn't make progress with TSLA because macros were strong. Alas, the Nasdaq has fallen for the past three sessions, which has made a big difference in market reactions to the various provocations we've been seeing. Previously, investors were all too willing to buy any dips that the shorting started or enhanced. We'll return to that situation in time, but for now the ineffectiveness of the bear attack methods has been overshadowed by concern for the macros. That situation can change in a day with a big up day for both, so let's see what happens. Let's keep an eye toward Jan 19's big options expiration to see if that's the event that the manipulations are tied to.

Looking at the past four trading sessions, Nasdaq is down about 3.5% and TSLA is down nearly 9%. That's definitely a greater dip for TSLA than a 2.1X multiplier should produce, especially with a very positive P&D report on Tuesday.

Nonetheless, Tesla as a company has been doing well lately and some truly amazing technologies are in the words (Optimus, Cybertruck and the concepts it introduced, Gen 3, and Full Self Driving. What's coming for Tesla is really exciting, but it's a waiting game at the moment, and the way I handle it is to HODL and keep an eye on Tesla's execution and new product development. In time, those factors win out. In the meantime, there's no way that just the power of your wishing will raise TSLA, and I choose these times to focus on other aspects of my life where growth is occurring. Life is simply too short to fret during the stale periods. Fellow longs, our time will come again (and again, and again). Elon made a prediction of Tesla growing to a bigger market cap than Apple and Aramco combined. He's pretty good at figuring out the path of TSLA since he managed to capture every segment of his last compensation package despite claims by the naysayers that such growth, profitability, and stock price appreciation was beyond silly. Watch for the India Gigafactory announcement shortly and other indications that massive growth and profits lie ahead.

Percent of selling tagged to shorts was "only" 56% on Wednesday, but trading during the 4pm closing cross was massive: 6.5M shares. Methinks there was likely non-FINRA shorting augmenting the FINRA shorting because the 10:30am dip was just too deep to make sense without significant manipulations with no supporting news.

Yields on 10 year treasury bonds closed at 3.93% on Wednesday

Max pain was playing like a broken record, 250 again. Strike 250 moved to call-dominated while 247.50 and below were put-dominated.

Wednesday's TSLA options volumes

The lower bollinger band is at 233.28 and could potentially cause a bounce if the stock hits it.

Conditions:
* Dow down 285 (0.76%)
* NASDAQ down 174 (1.18%)
* SPY down 4 (0.82%)
* TSLA 238.45, down 9.97 (4.01%)
* TSLA volume 120.5M shares
* Oil 72.95
* IV 49.9, 48%
* Max Pain 250
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 56%
* Volume at 4pm closing cross: 6.5M shares

 

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TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

First bear in mind that the QQQ chart really wasn't moving all that much. It looks volatile, but the distance from previous close to Thursday's close was only about 1/2 a percent. The QQQ dip into close was slightly more than 1/4 percent. OTOH, TSLA's dip in the final half hour was 3X that amount. It's easy to slide in an oversized dip into close without being noticed. That last half hour dip of the macros was a true gift to those entities trying to keep TSLA down.

Percent of selling tagged to shorts was 50% on Thursday, but with nearly 5 million shares trading hands in the final minute I'm betting there was plenty of wheeler-dealer action afoot.

Although Tesla didn't hold its morning gains, it outperformed the Nasdaq on Thursday, suggesting that the fear of TSLA falling was being somewhat overcome by a desire to buy TSLA on a dip.

Yields on 10 yr. treasury bonds climbed to 3.99% on Thursday

Max pain Thursday morning dipped to 245. Strikes 240 and below were put-dominated and strikes 250 and above were call dominated.

Thursday's TSLA options volumes

Count them, it's been 5 red days in a row. Time for a green day to bring TSLA closer to max pain on Friday? Fingers crossed.


Conditions:
* Dow up 10 (0.03%)
* NASDAQ down 82 (0.56%)
* SPY down 2 (0.32%)
* TSLA 237.93, down 0.52 (0.22%)
* TSLA volume 102.2M shares
* Oil 72.72
* IV 49.3, 45%
* Max Pain 245
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 50%
* Volume at 4pm closing cross: 5.0M shares

 

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TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

As the market opened on Friday both TSLA and QQQ were climbing out of the pre-market red. QQQ went green and topped out about 11am. TSLA, OTOH, first had to go through a Mandatory Morning Dip before journeying into the green. I'm getting pretty convinced that the reason for the MMD is to test the market and see if they will respond with fear when the stock starts its immediate drop. In this case, investors bought the dip and TSLA rejoined QQQ for a morning ralley. Both stocks flirted with red at times throughout the day, but look at the finish. QQQ managed to climb into the green at day's end and TSLA stayed in the red. I'd be willing to bet someone was actively working to keep TSLA red in order to keep the losing streak going (6 red days in a row now). Percent of selling tagged to shorts was "only" 50% and a hefty 3.1M shares traded hands in the 4pm minute. Volume was an anemic 92M shares.

The big question for the coming week will be whether the over-the-top shorting effort continues. It's moderated over the past two days, so perhaps that's a positive sign.

Percent of selling tagged to shorts was 50% on Friday. I offer a chart stretching from March of 2023 to present day to illustrate a change in shorting behavior. As you can see, when the yellow line gets "too" high, the shorting spikes and tends to quickly bring the stock price down. Strangely, starting about mid-November (when the yellow price line first peaks after a big dip two-thirds of the way across the chart) we saw many instances of extreme shorting even though the stock price was growing very gradually or not growing at all. My guess? Some entity is using short-term shorting to try and trim TSLA's recent modest gains.

Interestingly, @Artful Dodger in this TMC post suggested that the PR campaign targeting Elon began Nov. 12. Hmm, maybe a connection with the short spikes since mid-November?

How do we know that the shorting is primarily short-term? Every day we see the equivalent of millions of shares of TSLA shorted, and yet in the twice monthly reports of total quantity of TSLA shares shorted (short interest), we see only small changes as roughly 3% of TSLA shares are computed to be shorted (with minor variations).

On Friday, 10 year treasury bond yields once again exceeded 4%, closing around 4.05%

Max pain Friday morning was 245, right at the transition point between put-domination and call domination. Market makers would have done better on Friday if TSLA closed around 245. Might they have their eyes two weeks down the road for the Jan19 close? We should get a pretty good idea this week.

Friday's TSLA options volumes

The oddity of this past Friday's close is how the stock drifted away from Max pain all week when news of substance was lacking.

For Jan 12, max pain is once again 245. That big call wall is located at 252.50.

TSLA has now seen 6 red days in a row, with negative macros being the primary driver of the dip. It looks like TSLA bounced off the blue 50 day moving average on Friday. One bit of good news? The 50 day moving average should start rising this coming week (baring crazy stock prices) as the big October dip days are replaced with current stock prices in the 50 day average calculations.

For the week, TSLA closed at 237.49, down 10.99 from the previous Friday's 248.48. Hoping you enjoyed your weekend with those who matter to you.

Conditions:
* Dow up 26 (0.07%)
* NASDAQ up 14 (0.09%)
* SPY up 1 (0.14%)
* TSLA 237.49, down 0.44 (0.18%)
* TSLA volume 92.5M shares
* Oil 72.84
* IV 47.9, 37%
* Max Pain 245 for Jan5, 245 for Jan12, and 216.67 for Jan19
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 50%
* Volume at 4pm closing cross: 3.1 M shares

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

Nasdaq chart above (QQQ chart got gorked with a spike)

Two things were affecting TSLA on Monday. There was lots of FUD going around based on the WSJ drug accusations against Elon and the macros really had a barnburner of a rally day with Nasdaq up 2.2%. If TSLA was trading at its typical 2.1X multiplier it would have climbed 4.6%. NVDA did better than that with a 6.4% climb.

Subtract some of the climb for the FUD, then subtract additional climb for the Mandatory Morning Dip when Nasdaq was climbing and not looking back. Subtract more for the plateauing of TSLA below 240 until it powered through after 2pm. The MMs didn't want TSLA to claim 240 because that strike is call-dominated. Further, whatever entities have been shorting TSLA ferociously for over a month were still at it as evidenced by 56% of TSLA selling being tagged to shorts and a massive 5.1M volume during the closing cross, which suggests to me on a very low volume day that actual shorting was quite a bit higher than that 56% number suggests.

When the stock is battered like this for over a month straight (it managed to climb for much of that time despite the headwinds), traders generally go elsewhere and the buying slows. We saw an anemic 84.9M shares traded on Monday. I suppose the good news is that it looked like there just wasn't much selling generated by the WSJ hit piece.

In the good news department, we saw Adam Jonas of Morgan Stanley reaffirm his 380 price target for TSLA and he suggests margins don't really matter all that much in 2024 because Tesla is becoming far more of a company than simple auto builder. He suggests that if you take a look at likely future Tesla profits and then discount them back to the present day, the value of the company looks pretty good (thus the 380 target). Dan Ives of Wedbush thinks Tesla will do okay with the car business in 2024. What we need is a surprise to the high side on the Q4 ER (coming Jan 24) to get the stock heading higher again until the really incredible things coming in the future can become more real in the eyes of the investing public. A nice release of revamped Model 3s in the U.S. in January and a nice growth of Cybertruck production would give clues of the good things ahead. Ditto an India gigafactory announcement.

Anyway, the most apparent battle in the coming week would be the market makers trying to protect 245 and 252.50. Expect the manipulation pressure from the rather unknown sources to continue in the near future.

News:
* Sawyer Merritt Tweets that for the first time ever Tesla has moved above both VW and Subaru in U.S. market share

Note: This post was made possible by my Tesla Powerwall battery. A big storm took out my town's power a few hours ago and I have my desktop computer plus refrigerator and all lights in the house working. Tesla is making the world a better place, my friends.

TSLA shorts were tagged with 56% of TSLA selling on Monday, suggesting lots of manipulations

Yields on 10 year treasury bonds closed at 4.02% on Monday

Max pain Monday morning was 242.50. The open interest chart above shows that 240 is call dominated, so the market makers would be okay with TSLA dipping below 240. Strikes 245 and 252.50 and the tall call walls this week.

Monday's TSLA options volumes

Looks like TSLA was supported by the blue 50 day moving average again on Monday. Notice that the 50 DMA has started moving higher, as expected. The biggest concern right now is the low volume on a big up day for the market.

Conditions:
* Dow up 217 (0.58%)
* NASDAQ up 320 (2.20%)
* SPY up 7 (1.43%)
* TSLA 240.45, up 2.96 (1.25%)
* TSLA volume 84.9M shares
* Oil 70.84
* IV 46.1, 29%
* Max Pain 242.50
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 56%
* Volume at 4pm closing cross: 5.1M shares