Papafox's Daily TSLA Trading Charts

[Papafox]

Today we saw both the prelude to the 3Q delivery numbers and the after-hours response to those numbers. Both are important for guessing what the stock price does tomorrow and in the future. Tesla delivered 26,150 vehicles in Q3, of which 14,065 were Model S, 11,865 were Model X, and 220 were Model 3. This was the all-time best quarter for Model S and X deliveries, representing a 4.5% increase over Q3 2016, Tesla's previous best quarter, and a 17.7% increase over Q2 2017. Notice how significantly the Model X deliveries have grown.

My take? The record S&X deliveries along with the disappointing Model 3 deliveries says "Tesla as a company will be going gangbusters as soon as the Model 3 production can ramp up, and it should happen within weeks." Stated differently, "Tesla may have some short-term trading issues but once Model 3 is shown to be ramping up the stock begins its new climb to previously unexplored heights." Thus, if you're holding calls that expire within a few weeks, you may feel pain, but if you can just sit through the short-term, the longer term look really great.

Shorts tend to bet on momentum and technicals, so you can pretty much expect them to do tomorrow what they did today, which is try for a mandatory morning dip to define this delivery message as a big negative. Thus, if you have dry powder, you probably will get a buying opportunity tomorrow and perhaps for a short period thereafter. On the other hand, TSLA is now set up for a short down, big up (which arrives with Model 3 ramping well). Once the dip subsides in the near future, the upside for this stock looks amazingly good. Of course many traders try to anticipate the upside, and so the dip could be relatively short. It'll be a battle of psychology for a while, but I'm staying long and strong because the delivery numbers imply a better 3Q ER than we would have otherwise, Tesla Semi-truck reveal (plus something else) is just weeks away, and best of all when Model 3 starts ramping well the stock will climb. It's only a matter of time.

Conditions:
* Dow up 152 (0.68%)
* NASDAQ up 21 (0.32%)
* TSLA 341.53, up 0.43 (0.13%)
* TSLA volume 5.2M shares
* Oil 50.57, down 1.10 (2.13%)

 

[Papafox]

Right on schedule, the shorts hit TSLA with a barrage of market open short-selling, as high as 100,000 shares/minute, to provide longs with a short buying opportunity in an unsuccessful attempt to define yesterday's delivery numbers as a big negative. Longs lapped up the discounted shares then came looking for more, which freaked out many shorts and led to a significant rise during the day. Some shorts were manipulating while others were running for cover. It was shorts vs. shorts with a few longs thrown in, and it was a thing of beauty. Today is EXACTLY why the shorts manipulate, because if they lose control of the stock price and it runs uphill too quickly, other shorts start to cover and the situation quickly becomes unmanageable for them, as we saw today.

Take a look at the trading. We began with the highest-volume mandatory morning dip I have ever witnessed, we saw the start of a secondary dip attempt at about 10:30am which got demolished by buying, at 11am(ish) we saw horizontal trading (capping) which got defeated, at noon a very short game of bop-the-mole took place, about 2pm we saw a push to a lower price and capping which got defeated and led to a climb into close with capping leading into the close. The capping effort was turned off after the close and TSLA ran up another $3 before trading level (which confirms capping was taking place). A delightful day!

Both the Dow and the NASDAQ had nice up days without any substantial dips, which was a very good environment for TSLA's trading today.

The Papafox Awards:
* Best Screenplay by an Analyst- Ben Kallo, for predicting about 300 Model 3 deliveries and still giving a "buy any weakness" recommendation. Right on!
* Best Director of Forecasting (TMC)- @luvb2b for calling 25,739 deliveries of s&x, plus 300 deliveries of model 3 for the 3Q numbers
* Best Supporting Actor- @techmaven for warning us not to get to crazy near the ATH because Model 3 sightings suggested the ramp was still well below expectations

Looking at the technical chart you can see that TSLA has a good $35 of headroom until it bumps up against the upper bollinger band, which suggests there's lots of upside potential if shorts panic and longs join the buying.

Conditions:
* Dow up 84 (0.37%)
* NASDAQ up 15 (0.23%)
* TSLA 348.14, up 6.61 (1.94%)
* TSLA volume 10.1M shares
* Oil 50.18, down 0.28 (0.55%)

 

[TrendTrader007]

View attachment 251561
Right on schedule, the shorts hit TSLA with a barrage of market open short-selling, as high as 100,000 shares/minute, to provide longs with a short buying opportunity in an unsuccessful attempt to define yesterday's delivery numbers as a big negative. Longs lapped up the discounted shares then came looking for more, which freaked out many shorts and led to a significant rise during the day. Some shorts were manipulating while others were running for cover. It was shorts vs. shorts with a few longs thrown in, and it was a thing of beauty. Today is EXACTLY why the shorts manipulate, because if they lose control of the stock price and it runs uphill too quickly, other shorts start to cover and the situation quickly becomes unmanageable for them, as we saw today.

Take a look at the trading. We began with the highest-volume mandatory morning dip I have ever witnessed, we saw the start of a secondary dip attempt at about 10:30am which got demolished by buying, at 11am(ish) we saw horizontal trading (capping) which got defeated, at noon a very short game of bop-the-mole took place, about 2pm we saw a push to a lower price and capping which got defeated and led to a climb into close with capping leading into the close. The capping effort was turned off after the close and TSLA ran up another $3 before trading level (which confirms capping was taking place). A delightful day!

Both the Dow and the NASDAQ had nice up days without any substantial dips, which was a very good environment for TSLA's trading today.

The Papafox Awards:
* Best Screenplay by an Analyst- Ben Kallo, for predicting about 300 Model 3 deliveries and still giving a "buy any weakness" recommendation. Right on!
* Best Director of Forecasting (TMC)- @luvb2b for calling 25,739 deliveries of s&x, plus 300 deliveries of model 3 for the 3Q numbers
* Best Supporting Actor- @techmaven for warning us not to get to crazy near the ATH because Model 3 sightings suggested the ramp was still well below expectations

View attachment 251562
Looking at the technical chart you can see that TSLA has a good $35 of headroom until it bumps up against the upper bollinger band, which suggests there's lots of upside potential if shorts panic and longs join the buying.

Conditions:
* Dow up 84 (0.37%)
* NASDAQ up 15 (0.23%)
* TSLA 348.14, up 6.61 (1.94%)
* TSLA volume 10.1M shares
* Oil 50.18, down 0.28 (0.55%)

I'm buying with all I got at open tomorrow

 

[EinSV]

View attachment 251367

Today we saw both the prelude to the 3Q delivery numbers and the after-hours response to those numbers. Both are important for guessing what the stock price does tomorrow and in the future. Tesla delivered 26,150 vehicles in Q3, of which 14,065 were Model S, 11,865 were Model X, and 220 were Model 3. This was the all-time best quarter for Model S and X deliveries, representing a 4.5% increase over Q3 2016, Tesla's previous best quarter, and a 17.7% increase over Q2 2017. Notice how significantly the Model X deliveries have grown.

My take? The record S&X deliveries along with the disappointing Model 3 deliveries says "Tesla as a company will be going gangbusters as soon as the Model 3 production can ramp up, and it should happen within weeks." Stated differently, "Tesla may have some short-term trading issues but once Model 3 is shown to be ramping up the stock begins its new climb to previously unexplored heights." Thus, if you're holding calls that expire within a few weeks, you may feel pain, but if you can just sit through the short-term, the longer term look really great.

Shorts tend to bet on momentum and technicals, so you can pretty much expect them to do tomorrow what they did today, which is try for a mandatory morning dip to define this delivery message as a big negative. Thus, if you have dry powder, you probably will get a buying opportunity tomorrow and perhaps for a short period thereafter. On the other hand, TSLA is now set up for a short down, big up (which arrives with Model 3 ramping well). Once the dip subsides in the near future, the upside for this stock looks amazingly good. Of course many traders try to anticipate the upside, and so the dip could be relatively short. It'll be a battle of psychology for a while, but I'm staying long and strong because the delivery numbers imply a better 3Q ER than we would have otherwise, Tesla Semi-truck reveal (plus something else) is just weeks away, and best of all when Model 3 starts ramping well the stock will climb. It's only a matter of time.

Conditions:
* Dow up 152 (0.68%)
* NASDAQ up 21 (0.32%)
* TSLA 341.53, up 0.43 (0.13%)
* TSLA volume 5.2M shares
* Oil 50.57, down 1.10 (2.13%)

Great call yesterday @Papafox. I didn't get a chance to read yesterday's post until late this afternoon and when I did it was if I was reading a play by play of what actually happened. Thanks for all the great contributions.

 

[Papafox]

I traveled to Hawaii today and will keep this late report short. TSLA was red hot yesterday and of course that enthusiasm spilled into today's trading. Notice in pre-market how flat TSLA was prior to that dip before market open. Shorts were likely capping the pre-market to dampen the enthusiasm of longs, but it didn't work very well once the opening bell rang. The NASDAQ dipped at 1:30pm today and so did TSLA, which suggests TSLA is getting back to more typical patterns now.

I continue to believe that once Model 3 demonstrates a reasonable ramp up, TSLA will head back to ATH territory. Consolidation or a slow climb would be a natural fit with the wait to see higher volume in Model 3 production.

Conditions:
* Dow up 20 (0.09%)
* NASDAQ up 3 (0.04%)
* TSLA 355.01, up 6.87 (1.97%)
* TSLA volume 8.2M shares
* Oil 49.93, down 0.05 (0.10%)

 

[Papafox]

Today was a big up day for the broader markets and TSLA, is not known for tagging along with the broader markets on big up days. It basically was a consolidation day for TSLA. Are we likely to see a long consolidation? Probably not as TSLA will be ready to climb just as soon as the Model 3 ramp is confirmed to be improving to higher production rates. Judging from Elon's Sloths can fly tweet and recent appearances of Model 3s at various service centers, this stock may be about to fly.

Conditions:
* Dow up 114 (0.50%)
* NASDAQ up 51 (0.78%)
* TSLA 355.33, up 0.32 (0.09%)
* TSLA volume 4.2M shares
* Oil 50.76, down 0.03 (0.06%)

 

[Papafox]

Congrats Longs, TSLA closed today at 356.88, up 15.78 from last Friday's 341.10. Tesla's mixed results (record S & X deliveries, low Model 3 deliveries) provided ammunition for both bulls and bears, but the bulls won out in Tuesday morning's slugfest.

For today, TSLA drifted higher before peaking about 2pm and then heading lower. The broader markets did not dip after 2 pm. One possible explanation is that word may have gotten out early about Tesla's plans to delay the semi-truck unvealing until Nov. 16. The reason given was to concentrate instead on increasing battery output for Puerto Rico and other hurricane-ravaged islands and to fix the bottlenecks in Tesla's Model 3 production. This decision will likely help Tesla in the long-run by showing both the benevolent character of the company and the advantage of having a grid with batteries, solar, and decentralization. Between creating the world's largest battery in South Australia and fixing broken grids throughout the Caribbean, Tesla should generate enough additional interest in their energy products to put the products on the radar screen for analysts computing the value of the company. The news does provide possible short-term liabilities when the FUDmasters start exaggerating the negatives of these tweets, but over time the positives of Tesla rescuing Puerto Rico and showing the advantages of decentralized grid structures with batteries will go a long way to convincing other hurricane-prone areas to work with Tesla. Bottom line: while Model 3 is ramping up, Tesla Energy is about to go full throttle. Within a few weeks the very positive impact of this week's events will be evident.

A delay of Tesla's run to 400 and above into November may be a good thing if the run-up is in response to seriously large numbers of Model 3s coming off the production line. We've had two false-starts for 380 and above (one right after the Model 3 reveal and the 400,000+ reservations, the other a few weeks ago in anticipation of Model 3 ramping). If the run-up is accompanied by the ramp-up, then there's an excellent chance of the next ATH holding and being eclipsed by new ATHs in short order.

Enjoy your weekend.

Conditions:
* Dow down 2 (0.01%)
* NASDAQ up 5 (0.07%)
* TSLA 356.88, up 1.55 (0.44%)
* TSLA volume 4.2M shares
* Oil 49.30, down 1.49 (2.93%)

 

[Papafox]

Looking at my previous post, I don't wish to come across as stating that TSLA is going to run to 400 in November. It might, but it might not. Rather, I wish to say that the Model 3 speed of ramp so far has changed many short-term expectations for the stock.

What we know about Tesla is that it is positioning itself for terrific future growth. With countries starting to give drop dead dates for ICE vehicle sales and big companies such as GM stating they are preparing to transform themselves into electric vehicle manufacturers, there should be little doubt that Model 3 is going to cause EVs to hit the tipping point where there's no return to ICE once the advantages of an affordable BEV such as Model 3 are known. Further, Tesla Energy is about to burst into the awareness of analysts (at last!) as South Australia and Puerto Rico highlight the advantages of transforming grids by using solar and large numbers of Powerpacks and Powerwalls.

Ironically, recent news has put us in that same kind of situation we were in when the Q3 delivery numbers were released: some disappointing news for the short run and some really good news for the long run. Will TSLA run up or down in the coming week? I'm not sure because we have conflicting forces at work on it. The negative trend in after-hours trading on Friday suggests a negative opening on Tuesday morning unless the news emphasis for Tesla changes this weekend. I can tell you, however, that I believe in my TSLA investing formula more now than ever and that formula is to invest in the long-run of TSLA and avoid the temptation to play the short-run games except when you have specific knowledge of a powerful reason for a short-term move. Investing in the long run is just too reliable a method for making money in this stock right now versus gambling in shortish-term bets.

 

[Papafox]

Was expecting a trading holiday today.My bad. Please move trading action message from Tuesday to today.

 

[kenliles]

Was expecting a trading holiday today.My bad. Please move trading action message from Tuesday to today.

Bond market is closed and it's not a settlement day for equities , so you were partially right (glass half full!)

 

[Papafox]

To nobody's great surprise, TSLA had a negative trading day today due to FUD produced late last week by the Wall Street Journal, the delayed semi-truck event, and due to tweets by Elon which confirmed that Tesla is still working out the bottlenecks with Model 3. We're back in the usual cycle where shorts pull out the stops to exaggerate any weakness in the stock and eventually those efforts of the shorts are wiped out by an enthusiastic rally. The good news is that the Model 3 ramp up will happen this year and the stock price will respond favorably when that ramp up comes.

Should you have played the dip Friday afternoon as the stock began its dip? In retrospect it would have worked, but what could have gone wrong was a release of really good news over the weekend by TSLA and if that had happened you would have been behind in shares as the stock started its gallop upward. I'm perfectly content to sit out these kind of dips this close to the Model 3 ramp up to significant volume.

Let me share a story about playing a dip. Early on Friday, Sept. 8 I sold 700 shares of TSLA because I was going to play what I expected to be the Hurricane Irma dip. Can you imagine a Category 4 or 5 storm doing to Florida what another storm of that strength did to Puerto Rico? By the end of trading on Friday TSLA was down $7 and I was feeling like the smartest person in the room. Come Sunday evening, however, Irma deviated from its game plan. Rather than marching up the east coast of Florida as a Cat 4 or 5, it was changing direction to a less threatening path and quickly decreasing to a more benign Cat 1 or 2. I woke early to buy back my 700 shares pre-market, but TSLA had already gapped up to erase all my Friday gains plus it added a bit more. I ended up buying back most my shares at a small loss, which is good because TSLA then ran up $20 on Monday, Sept 11. The lesson? Playing a dip can backfire, even if you think you have superior knowledge going into the trade.

Looking at daily chart, you can see two interesting up and down blips in pre-market trading which tested the market to see who (longs or shorts) had the jitters. After about 2:00 pm the NASDAQ started a descent and this was a perfect opportunity for shorts to execute the "sticky dip on steroids" in which they sell shares to exaggerate the broader market's dip and then sell additional shares to keep TSLA from recovering with the broader market. Keep in mind that the NASDAQ only lost 0.16% today and TSLA lost 3.93%. This is not "the usual accelerated" dip by TSLA.

There's plenty of rocket science employed by Elon in his SpaceX business (congrats on a great launch early today!) but there's little rocket science needed to understand what will reliably send TSLA into orbit. It is a successful ramping up of Model 3 volume production. Everything else for a nice climb of the stock is already in place.

Conditions:
* Dow down 13 (0.06%)
* NASDAQ down 10.45 (0.16%)
* TSLA 342.84, down 14.04 (3.93%)
* TSLA volume 7.4M shares
* Oil 49.52, up 0.23 (0.47%)

 

[Papafox]

Here you can see improvement in after-hours trading, in likely response to today's price target upgrade of TSLA by Adam Jonas. Just as after-hours trading on Friday hinted at a down day today, it's hinting at an up day tomorrow.

 

[Papafox]

Today TSLA gained back the vast majority of what it lost yesterday. The Adam Jonas upgrade carried a great deal of weight. Since Jonas predicted very small numbers of Model 3s delivered in 2017, he could revise his estimate upward based upon the 3Q delivery numbers and other metrics such as the recent rapid growth of the Tesla supercharger network. The good news is that if Tesla can show that it will easily deliver more than 2,000 Model 3s in 2017, Jonas will be positioned for another upgrade of the stock before the year is over. The uptrend in after-market trading yesterday turned out to be a good barometer at predicting a positive trading day today.

Until Tesla can start producing Model 3s at a good rate, TSLA will remain a bipolar stock and for this reason will be difficult to time. Longs have been given a window of opportunity in which Tesla is expected to show progress ramping up the Model 3. If they succeed, then it's off to the races. If not, then dread sets in at longsville and the shorts get time in the driver's seat. We know that Tesla will eventually succeed with ramping up Model 3, and for this reason a plan of remaining long and strong and avoiding shortish-term gambles is a likely road to investing success.

Conditions:
* Dow up 70 (0.31%)
* NASDAQ up 8 (0.11%)
* TSLA 355.59, up 12.65 (3.69%)
* TSLA volume 7.0M shares
* Oil 50.92, up 1.34 (2.70%)

 

[MitchJi]

I'm tentatively planning to purchase puts on Thursday or Friday (with a stop loss) because I'm Michael Jenkins SCF he has TSLA listed for a cyclic turn on the twelfth and the four or five that I've seen have amazing to me. The last one he listed was just before the SP dipped to about $335.

He expects it to be a top on Thursday. So I'm planning to monitor the SP on the daily and weekly charts to confirm that the SP is currently bullish, then look at the hourly charts for the turn to start or if it's still up at the end of the day on Thursday I might buy my puts, without waiting for the prices to start decreasing. I could get messed up by the spike if I'm not careful though. Also when the prices start to switch it's possible that that could be only a morning dip, so the stop loss will hopefully lock in some of the gains from a dip if that happens.

The reason I'm posting this here is that I have some questions. About what is the overall percentage of days that either start with a morning dip or a small spike followed by a dip? Do those percentages increase on down days?

About how often are declines a continuation of a morning dip?

Any recommendations for Mac OS charting software? My needs are pretty simple.


Thanks!

 

[Papafox]

I'm tentatively planning to purchase puts on Thursday or Friday (with a stop loss) because I'm Michael Jenkins SCF he has TSLA listed for a cyclic turn on the twelfth and the four or five that I've seen have amazing to me. The last one he listed was just before the SP dipped to about $335.

He expects it to be a top on Thursday. So I'm planning to monitor the SP on the daily and weekly charts to confirm that the SP is currently bullish, then look at the hourly charts for the turn to start or if it's still up at the end of the day on Thursday I might buy my puts, without waiting for the prices to start decreasing. I could get messed up by the spike if I'm not careful though. Also when the prices start to switch it's possible that that could be only a morning dip, so the stop loss will hopefully lock in some of the gains from a dip if that happens.

The reason I'm posting this here is that I have some questions. About what is the overall percentage of days that either start with a morning dip or a small spike followed by a dip? Do those percentages increase on down days?

About how often are declines a continuation of a morning dip?

Any recommendations for Mac OS charting software? My needs are pretty simple.


Thanks!

I think the difficulty quantifying percentage of days that begin with a dip is in defining "dip". Just browsing through this page's charts, you can see all sorts of dips, many of which would be hard to quantify with a simple yes or no answer. For example, look at Monday's trading where the stock was already down quite a bit in pre-market. Do you call that a dip or not?

The biggest difficulty with trying to use technicals or cycles to time the market is that news can overpower expectations in the flash of a tweet. For example, we've seen a lack of Model 3s turned out in the past week or so. Is Tesla tweeking the production line? Very possibly. Should Tesla start to roll out Model 3s at a much higher clip after these tweeks and Elon suggests so in a tweet, the stock runs way up very quickly. These are the challenges of trading a bipolar stock.

The good news is that all the daily charts are preserved here for quick review, and they're royalty free! Just give me a flight in your future private jet, "The Spirit of Marin County" some day.

 

[MitchJi]

I think the difficulty quantifying percentage of days that begin with a dip is in defining "dip".

I was happy that you or someone who is familiar with your collection of charts could give me an approximate percentage.

Just browsing through this page's charts, you can see all sorts of dips, many of which would be hard to quantify with a simple yes or no answer. For example, look at Monday's trading where the stock was already down quite a bit in pre-market. Do you call that a dip or not?

Your could also consider my purpose in requesting that information.

For example for the purposes of buying puts the day before an expected decline happens that is clearly a yes.

But I don't believe I asked my question correctly, or even clearly knew exactly what I'd like to know.

What messes my plan up is significant spikes before a dip. So my question is approximately what percentage of down days are the dips preceded by spikes vs the approximate number of down days with immediate dips including the premarket. If it's not immediate or in the premarket I can just wait.

 

[pdq]

Papafox:

A month ago I bought some January $265 Puts. If Elon doesn't make his Q4 promise on M3 production numbers, I expect to make a lot of money.

 

[pz1975]

Papafox:

A month ago I bought some January $265 Puts. If Elon doesn't make his Q4 promise on M3 production numbers, I expect to make a lot of money.

Is there an award for the most random post of the year?

 

[AlMc]

Papafox:

A month ago I bought some January $265 Puts. If Elon doesn't make his Q4 promise on M3 production numbers, I expect to make a lot of money.

Is there an award for the most random post of the year?

Papafox: A couple years ago I bought some TSLA. I expect it to make a lot more money than it has already.

Edit: Suppose to be funny...guess I missed the mark

 

[Papafox]

Today typically would have been the small up day following yesterday's big up day, but looking at the mandatory morning dip and the numerous plateaus with some downward spikes that were quickly ignored by the market, I would guess the shorts were pretty busy out there.

Jumping on another airplane now so I have to keep this report short.

Conditions:
* Dow up 42 (0.18%)
* NASDAQ up 16 (0.25%)
* TSLA 354.60, down 0.99 (0.28%)
* TSLA volume 4.5M shares
* Oil 51.09, down 0.21 (0.41%)