Papafox's Daily TSLA Trading Charts

[neroden]

My CleanTechnica article on the New York Times hit piece is now live.
The Billion-Dollar Tesla Hit Piece | CleanTechnica

The comment about Musk probably being INTJ on the Myers-Briggs test was interesting. I am INTJ. Apparently we're the second least common of the 16 Myers-Briggs types (according to the sources I found, only INFJ is rarer). One characteristic is being rather obsessively honest (though obviously not necessarily correct).

 

[AWDtsla]

The comment about Musk being INTJ on the Myers-Briggs test was interesting. I am INTJ too. Apparently we're the second least common of the 16 Myers-Briggs types (according to the sources I found, only INFJ is rarer).

Shouldn't be a surprise. Typical for an engineer and/or "on the spectrum" people. Probably over-represented in the owner/shareholder population as well.

 

[Ugliest1]

However, I would caution everyone that one cannot "see" what MB type someone else is, from examining them from the outside.

Full disclosure: I'm ENTJ. So the only difference between Musk and me is that I can't think without a white board -- that follows, right??? Although my ex-co-workers would likely have simply said that I can't think.

Here's a tongue-in-cheek chart of the MBTI types. BTW, MBTI typing is an extremely valuable experience (if you don't know about it, don't take the humour chart as gospel).

 

[Papafox]

Very cool that there were no big surprises today. The fade from deep dip to shallow dip in the pre-market trading was a prelude to the fade from deep dip to shallow dip during market trading. The enthusiasm shown by TMC investors was mirrored by the larger market to some extent and limited the dip due to the privatization news. We began the day with exuberant Monday morning opening buying pushing TSLA up to within 40 cents of the previous close before the shorts went to work on the stock.

Then at 9:55am, the near vertical descent of TSLA shallowed a tiny bit and bottomed out before a climb ensued. Were any of the rest of you saying to yourselves, "I've seen this pattern twice already in the past two weeks, I don't trust a climb following a near-vertical descent this early and I'll wait to buy until after 10:30am"? Sure enough, the recovery was premature and a new, deeper dip set in. The pattern of the pre-market trading predicted the market trading, and TSLA recovered most of its losses.

We didn't hit green today but I think we will before week's end.

My story at Clean Technica has been well received, and today a small news story broke that gives additional credibility to my position and challenges the credibility of the New York Times writing team. Zach at Clean Technica will publish this information later tonight in a larger, broader story, but if I don't see it later tonight I'll post it here so that you have the information before tomorrow.

In other news, Electrek published two important stories of interest today. In the first story, a judge in Ontario has ruled that the government discriminated against Tesla in the phase-out of EV credits. This is great news to affected Canadian Model 3 buyers in that province and small but good news to Tesla investors, too. In the second story, Electrek mentioned they had a reliable source within Tesla who reports that Model 3 production numbers aren't anywhere near as high as suggested by the Bloomberg Tracker, but they are high enough so that with a nice improvement in the final third of the quarter Tesla might still be able to make the 50,000-55,000 Model 3 target for the quarter. That's the bad news and Neroden has already briefed us that the Bloomberg numbers were too much higher than other likely more accurate estimates. The good news is that labor per car is being reduced substantially on the Model 3 line and we should see an improvement in gross margins because of this development.

TSLA shorts sold 63% of TSLA today. This high number is no surprise, given the intensity of the effort by shorts to define the end of Tesla's privatization effort as a big negative.


Conditions:
* Dow up 259 (1.01%)
* NASDAQ up 72 (0.91%)
* TSLA 319.27, down 3.55 (1.10%)
* TSLA volume 12.9M shares
* Oil 68.93, up 0.21 (0.31%)
* Percent of TSLA selling by shorts: 63.33%

 

[ZachShahan]

View attachment 329563
Very cool that there were no big surprises today. The fade from deep dip to shallow dip in the pre-market trading was a prelude to the fade from deep dip to shallow dip during market trading. The enthusiasm shown by TMC investors was mirrored by the larger market to some extent and limited the dip due to the privatization news. We began the day with exuberant Monday morning opening buying pushing TSLA up to within 40 cents of the previous close before the shorts went to work on the stock.

Then at 9:55am, the near vertical descent of TSLA shallowed a tiny bit and bottomed out before a climb ensued. Were any of the rest of you saying to yourselves, "I've seen this pattern twice already in the past two weeks, I don't trust a climb following a near-vertical descent this early and I'll wait to buy until after 10:30am"? Sure enough, the recovery was premature and a new, deeper dip set in. The pattern of the pre-market trading predicted the market trading, and TSLA recovered most of its losses.

We didn't hit green today but I think we will before week's end.

My story at Clean Technica has been well received, and today a small news story broke that gives additional credibility to my position and challenges the credibility of the New York Times writing team. Zach at Clean Technica will publish this information later tonight in a larger, broader story, but if I don't see it later tonight I'll post it here so that you have the information before tomorrow.

In other news, Electrek published two important stories of interest today. In the first story, a judge in Ontario has ruled that the government discriminated against Tesla in the phase-out of EV credits. This is great news to affected Canadian Model 3 buyers in that province and small but good news to Tesla investors, too. In the second story, Electrek mentioned they had a reliable source within Tesla who reports that Model 3 production numbers aren't anywhere near as high as suggested by the Bloomberg Tracker, but they are high enough so that with a nice improvement in the final third of the quarter Tesla might still be able to make the 50,000-55,000 Model 3 target for the quarter. That's the bad news and Neroden has already briefed us that the Bloomberg numbers were too much higher than other likely more accurate estimates. The good news is that labor per car is being reduced substantially on the Model 3 line and we should see an improvement in gross margins because of this development.

View attachment 329579
TSLA shorts sold 63% of TSLA today. This high number is no surprise, given the intensity of the effort by shorts to define the end of Tesla's privatization effort as a big negative.


Conditions:
* Dow up 259 (1.01%)
* NASDAQ up 72 (0.91%)
* TSLA 319.27, down 3.55 (1.10%)
* TSLA volume 12.9M shares
* Oil 68.93, up 0.21 (0.31%)
* Percent of TSLA selling by shorts: 63.33%

Thanks, Papafox!

Here's the piece you kindly referenced and sent me the tip for: No Active Search For Tesla COO, Tesla Says | CleanTechnica

I also plan to build on one of the key narratives in there in another story tonight or tomorrow.

 

[TQCLove]

Thanks, Papafox!

Here's the piece you kindly referenced and sent me the tip for: No Active Search For Tesla COO, Tesla Says | CleanTechnica

I also plan to build on one of the key narratives in there in another story tonight or tomorrow.

Linked both articles over in the M3OC forum. Really enjoyed them both, well done!
Thank you @Papafox and @ZachShahan!

 

[Ocelot]

Shouldn't be a surprise. Typical for an engineer and/or "on the spectrum" people. Probably over-represented in the owner/shareholder population as well.

Hey there. I know you have stated this a few times, so feel I am going to pipe in here. Firstly I do not know Elon. Like many here, I have listened to him and watched him for years. Secondly it does not really matter, hence the delayed comment.

Elon is not on the autism spectrum.

 

[AWDtsla]

Hey there. I know you have stated this a few times, so feel I am going to pipe in here. Firstly I do not know Elon. Like many here, I have listened to him and watched him for years. Secondly it does not really matter, hence the delayed comment.

Elon is not on the autism spectrum.

Going deep OT here but, anyone worth their salt in Silicon Valley is on the spectrum.

 

[Papafox]

Today was a day in which TSLA could have gone green. You can see the classic "icicle" trading shapes of deep dips by robust short-selling followed by near-time recoveries. By about 12:45pm TSLA was on its way to going green or at least requiring a lot of short-selling in order to keep it from doing so, when Elon responded to a baiting tweet. Yoda's pedo tweet occurred at noon, but 41 minutes later Elon responded with the tweet below. Shortly after Elon's tweet, the SP started heading down in what I strongly suspect was a dip on steroids. There was little reason for someone to get in the way and buy while it was on such a descent, and so we lost $7 today.

The negative is that Elon took the bait, commented about the pedo guy, and TSLA shares suffered. Another negative is that this tweeter figured out how to get Elon to respond (by attacking his honesty) and others will likely try similar tactics in the future.

The positive is that Elon's tweet was more carefully considered and worded and therefore much less damaging than the original. Another positive is that Elon had something to get off his chest (Elon is suggesting there's good reason the diver doesn't want to get into a courtroom setting and see the evidence that Musk's team produces regarding the offending name) and now that he has done so he doesn't need to do so again. Another reason why Elon might have done a risky tweet today was to demonstrate that he really does have the backing of the board and that he has not been put on a short leash regarding his tweeting.

A similar revelation today was that Elon tweeted he did not shed any tears during the NYT interview (as accused) and that his voice broke only once. Thus, we continue to see evidence that the NYT interview was a significantly distorted account. The "unnamed sources" incorrectly said that the board was actively looking for a COO to assist Musk, and now we know the Elon's state of mind was better than what the authors suggested (you only have to look at the Marques Brownlee interviews with Elon to reach this conclusion).

Anyway, so far the media hasn't jumped on Elon's tweet, so we might get off relatively lucky with only an afternoon decline of the SP. We also see by the percent of selling by shorts that the short sellers are still in near full-court-press mode.

Percent of TSLA selling by shorts was still quite high today at 60.9%

Conditions:
* Dow up 14 (0.06%)
* NASDAQ up 12 (0.15%)
* TSLA 311.86, down 7.41 (2.32%)
* TSLA volume 7.5M shares
* Oil 68.53, down 0.34 (0.49%)
* Percent of TSLA selling by shorts: 60.9%

 

[oneday]

The negative is that Elon took the bait, commented about the pedo guy, and TSLA shares suffered. Another negative is that this tweeter figured out how to get Elon to respond (by attacking his honesty) and others will likely try similar tactics in the future.

The positive is that Elon's tweet was more carefully considered and worded and therefore much less damaging than the original. Another positive is that Elon had something to get off his chest (Elon is suggesting there's good reason the diver doesn't want to get into a courtroom setting and see the evidence that Musk's team produces regarding the offending name) and now that he has done so he doesn't need to do so again. Another reason why Elon might have done a risky tweet today was to demonstrate that he really does have the backing of the board and that he has not been put on a short leash regarding his tweeting.

A similar revelation today was that Elon tweeted he did not shed any tears during the NYT interview (as accused) and that his voice broke only once. Thus, we continue to see evidence that the NYT interview was a significantly distorted account. The "unnamed sources" incorrectly said that the board was actively looking for a COO to assist

Quite insightful. Thank you for this!

 

[Papafox]

Today the media finally started running with Musk's response to the Thai diver tweet of yesterday, which put further pressure on the stock price. The stock bottomed out at 1:09pm and then started rising, but I suspected the shorts would make another attempt in the afternoon to eclipse their dip. They tried but couldn't get the SP down that low. Overall, volume was moderate and there doesn't seem to be any real selling pressure coming from longs. Instead, you have a lot of buyers busy elsewhere with other stocks or sitting on the sidelines, waiting for this latest excuse for a dip to run its course. With the change of momentum on Tuesday and today, I'm no longer holding my breath for going green by the end of the week.

Looking at the tech chart, you can see that history is repeating itself. TSLA is bouncing off the lower bollinger band and upper bollinger band as if this was a game of pinball. The good news is that the lower bb is less than $8 below TSLA's current price, and so there's a limit to this madness. A careful observer would realize that Musk is here to stay, he's not losing his mind but is working very hard, and he was absolutely right that there's no suitable replacement for him out there. His brother Kimbal, a member of the board, says in this NYT story that "We feel we are at war," referring to Tesla's relationship with its short sellers. That story tells of how on August 18, three robots in the paint shop went down from what is portrayed to be a malware attack by some short-seller inspired rogue employee's actions. Elon managed to repair the software and elsewhere I learned that he looked into a winding machine at the gigafactory that was not running quickly enough and sped the machine up by 10% with some software tweaks. Like Elon said, if you know of anyone who can suitably replace him in his day to day duties at Tesla, please let him know. Good luck!

Between the first and last minutes of market trading, 200,000 shares traded hands today, suggesting that the shorts are up to their usual manipulative tricks.

Meanwhile, the Bloomberg Model 3 tracker dropped to 4588 M3/wk, suggesting that these numbers from Bloomberg are just too volatile and too erratic to take seriously.

Meanwhile, Tesla's factories keep cranking out the batteries and vehicles, bringing us just that much closer to a Q3 ER that has the potential to be its most important ER yet. Looking forward to getting there.

Conditions:
* Dow up 61 (0.23%)
* NASDAQ up 80 (0.99%)
* TSLA 305.01, down 6.85 (2.20%)
* TSLA volume 7.4M shares
* Oil 69.70, up 1.17 (1.71%)

 

[Papafox]

* Percent of TSLA selling by shorts today: 59.9% (1% less than yesterday)

 

[Lbkmxp100d]

It’s been a while since I have been on the forums. Been frustrated at Elon’s behavior. I have always had Elon’s back and continue to do so but he really needs to keep hurting himself, $TSLA and all us investors by these non sense tweets. Yesterday’s bates tweet being a prime example. Until a couple weeks ago I have never felt this way but he has got to get a COO or someone who can help take some of his load. A Sheryl Sandburg type would send the stock skyrocketing. Problem is not sure who would want the job. People close to him need to be honest and get him off tweeter when it comes to baited responses. Not sure why he feels the need to defend himself.

All that being said, I think Elon has set Tesla up for a great quarter and Teala is primed to explode. If it doesn’t this week I suspect it will next. Thanks for your insight Papa!

 

[Stormy]

A Sheryl Sandburg type would send the stock skyrocketing.

Actually, as a long, I'm invested in Elon - both his technical ability and his leadership is what I believe will put Tesla in the same strata as Apple, Amazon and Google. My biggest fear - and one for most longs I think - is Elon not leading. That would reduce Tesla's long term growth rate drastically, and devastate the stock price. Don't think for a minute that the talking heads who are so helpfully pitching a COO to help out the poor overworked Elon, won't immediately turn around as soon as one is hired and pitch it as the Board having a lack of faith in Musk and try to frame it as though they're grooming his ouster every time he does something unCEOlike. And that would have a real impact on the stock price because its the one real fear when valuing future-Tesla.

Elon is of the opinion that a falsehood left uncorrected may as well be truth. It's an opinion I find quite valid, especially in today's world of mass communication. If somebody slights him, he won't let it sit. He can't. It's a reflection of how much he values truth. Just take the good with the bad and roll with it.

As entirely out of line as publicly calling someone a paedophile is, I have to imagine he had some reason for that particular choice of insult. I was actually hoping it would go to court and he'd have some kind of evidence. But it hasn't... And you gotta believe that lawyers and shorts are lining up to try to get Unsworth to sue. The fact that he hasn't probably does say something. I mean, he could just be magnanimously just letting it go, but he just doesn't seem like that kind of guy...

 

[neroden]

Going deep OT here but, anyone worth their salt in Silicon Valley is on the spectrum.

It's deliberately selected for when hiring programmers (and sometimes other types of engineers), and for good reason.

“The reason Elon seems to attract drama is that he is so transparent, so open, in a way that can come back to bite him,” said Kimbal Musk, Mr. Musk’s younger brother and a Tesla board member. “He doesn’t know how to do it differently. It’s just who he is.”

Practically anyone diagnosable with what used to be called Asperger's syndrome would recognize this description of themselves. I certainly do.

 

[Papafox]

Despite closing down slightly, today was a very positive day for TSLA. The shorts jumped right into a mandatory morning dip after market open on a day when the macros opened in the red. Once the SP fell below 300, though, buyers gobbled up the shares and the morning recover was so enthusiastic we almost saw green. Such a result would destroy the downward momentum on this nonsense dip, and so the shorts went back to work selling and trying to retake 300, capping whenever they were a few cents below 300, but the hungry longs were just as resilient, and so we saw what looked like trench warfare along the 300 line for most of the afternoon. Strike 1.

Between 2pm and 3pm the broader markets fell significantly as Trump spoke of another 200 billion in tariffs on China, but TSLA remained virtually untouched by this macro action, which is bullish. Strike 2 for the shorts.

Between 2pm and 3pm the broader markets fell noticeably but TSLA shrugged it off

Finally, about 2:30pm, TSLA made a break higher, shorts readjusted their cap to keep TSLA below 301 (and likely set it up for a last-minute attempt to dip below 300 in the final minutes). Unfortunately for them, the fact that shorts needed to raise their cap did not go unnoticed by Mr. Market, and this weakness suggested that TSLA may have bottomed out on this dip at a little below 300. Strike 3. With shorts showing weakness in pressing TSLA any lower, we saw buying into the close as (I imagine) both longs and shorts who think the dip has bottomed out began loading up.

The extensive capping by shorts today took its toll and shorts needed to do 62% of TSLA's selling to prevent the SP from running back to the red/green line.

What to expect for tomorrow? Shorts will likely try again for a quick mandatory morning dip, but if this dip is defeated and TSLA climbs into the green, it has plenty of room to run to recover lost territory. I also think nervous shorts who think this is about as low as TSLA will go will cover into the close tomorrow, trying to close their positions prior to the weekend and the threat of an enthusiastic Monday morning opening exuberance (edit: but on a Tuesday after a 3-day weekend) by buyers.

Conditions:
* Dow down 138 (0.53%)
* NASDAQ down 21 (0.26%)
* TSLA 303.15, down 1.86 (0.61%)
* TSLA volume 7.1M shares
* Oil 70.25, up 0.74 (1.06%)
* Percent of TSLA selling by shorts: 61.86%

 

[Intl Professor]

Monday morning opening exuberance by buyers.

Tuesday. 9-3 is Labor Day this year.

 

[RABaby]

View attachment 330460

What to expect for tomorrow? Shorts will likely try again for a quick mandatory morning dip, but if this dip is defeated and TSLA climbs into the green, it has plenty of room to run to recover lost territory. I also think nervous shorts who think this is about as low as TSLA will go will cover into the close tomorrow, trying to close their positions prior to the weekend and the threat of an enthusiastic Monday morning opening exuberance by buyers.

Conditions:
* Dow down 138 (0.53%)
* NASDAQ down 21 (0.26%)
* TSLA 303.15, down 1.86 (0.61%)
* TSLA volume 7.1M shares
* Oil 70.25, up 0.74 (1.06%)
* Percent of TSLA selling by shorts: 61.86%

Remember, it's a three day weekend so let's hope for a violently enthusiastic Tuesday.

 

[Papafox]

Welcome to Friday. There were lots of similarities between yesterday's trading and today's including:
* a false recovery before 10:30am
* market rejection of sub-300 trading. The good news: Low of day yesterday: 297.72, low of day today: 298.60
* low volume: Yesterday: 7.1M, today: 5.3M
* climb into close: yes on both days
* high first min/last min trading (suggests shorts covering from manipulations) over 200,000 shares traded today and yesterday (if I remember right)

On the technical chart, you can see that 300 is working well so far to prevent the SP from closing below that level. Nothing is set in stone, but the dip has lost its momentum, which is about all it has going for it at this point.

The big question is whether the appearance of good Tesla news will overpower the FUD delivered in the upcoming three days. I'm ready for a green day! In the meantime, take a look at this post in TMC from luvb2b, one of the investment group's very best estimators of financial results to come. You can get a feel of just how positive Q3 and Q4 should be for cash on hand. Bottom line: the media is ignoring the 900 lb. gorilla in the room (Tesla is right now going non-GAAP profitable and significantly cash-flow positive) while they instead concentrate on analyzing the implications from Elon's tweets. Meanwhile, Elon is doing great work at Tesla, getting the factory in order. Crazy.

Today TSLA closed at 301.66, down 21.16 from last Friday's 322.82. MUCH better days lay ahead. Enjoy your weekend.

Conditions:
* Dow down 22 (0.09%)
* NASDAQ up 21 (0.26%)
* TSLA 301.66, down 1.49 (0.49%)
* TSLA volume 5.3M shares
* Oil 69.92, down 0.33 (0.47%)
* Percent of TSLA selling by shorts: 59.2%

 

[adiggs]

It'd be really slick if any of those short volume sites would break out the short (selling) volume by hour of the day. As a thought experiment, remember that every transaction has both a buyer and a seller. There's no transaction without both.

Therefore, from the pattern, I'd expect to see particularly high short selling % first thing in the morning (mandatory morning dip), but low short selling % in the closing minutes of the day (the short sellers are buy-to-close, which must mean that they're finding sell-to-close people to complete their transactions - if they're matching up with sell-to-open, then that would show up in the short sale %).

But what if at the end of the day, it's really a rotation from one batch of short sellers to a different batch. That would show up as a high short sell %.

How does that short selling % vary throughout the day? Do we see higher short selling % as the stock price rises to levels that seem important, and then fade as the price drops away?


Just a few questions I'd love to be able to answer, and all tie back to the idea - there isn't nearly enough market transparency around short sales. (IMO)