Papafox's Daily TSLA Trading Charts

[Papafox]

Today the broader markets turned green and TSLA had a chance to run. Unfortunately, the NASDAQ entered a downtrend not long after opening, and shorts used a good deal of ammo turning the dip into a dip on steroids by selling as the macros descended, so as to exaggerate the dip. Notice how the NASDAQ bottomed out mid-day with still a fair amount of green but TSLA touched the red/green line. Shortly after 2:00pm, shorts tried for another dip towards the red, but the market wouldn't allow it and TSLA climbed with the NASDAQ for the remainder of the afternoon. If the shorts had succeeded, it would have been a sticky dip on steroids.

For a tech stock, you'd expect about double the gain as the NASDAQ, and most big tech stocks gained 4%+ today. I suspect it was gaming by the shorts that held TSLA's gains to not much more than the NASDAQ's. Here's why. When TSLA was descending in the morning, this was a profitable short manipulation because shorts were selling in high and then covering lower. Once the stock started a serious climb after 2:30pm or so, there was no money to be made with the manipulations. The second reason I suspect the shorts were working a dip on steroids is if you look at the percentage of TSLA selling chart below. Normally, percentage of selling by shorts on green days decreases because it is unprofitable, but with a long morning slow dip, shorts could manipulate on the way down and still make a buck.

I had considered picking up a couple leaps today. Waiting until after 10:30am allowed me to see the downtrend developing, and I didn't have time to watch the ticker to catch at the bottom. Hope some of you did.

The NASDAQ gained 2.29% today, with a dip mid-day that greatly affected TSLA trading

Percent of TSLA selling by shorts was up a few percentage points from yesterday, to 59.18%

Looking at our alternate tech chart until the old chart comes back up again, you can see that TSLA is not far above the lower bollinger band (bottom of blue) and has a long way to run to reach the upper bb, which currently stands at 325.61.

What can we expect for next week? The negative is that the shorts are remaining ferociously involved with the trading, believing they'll be able to control the SP through FUD and manipulations as TSLA starts a climb toward the 3Q ER that should be in early November. I believe the shorts also think they can neutralize good news by claiming Q3 (and maybe Q4) will be one-hit-wonders and not sustainable. I think the market and the shorts will be surprised by hundreds of millions of dollars of positive cash flow in Q3, and so I remain heavily invested. The manipulations of the shorts are only particularly powerful when there's a dread held by the longs and I see the dread issues disappearing. Check out these developments:

* Q4 production began with impressive numbers, if you believe this electrek.co article. With less than 2 weeks into the new quarter, Tesla has already produced over 11,500 vehicles, according to their source. Over 7,000 were Model 3s. Think about how significant it is that Tesla is producing Model 3s at over 5K/wk rate without any significant dip in production like we saw at the beginning of Q3. Further, a production of over 4,000 S&X this early in the month suggests a rate well in excess of what we've ever seen before. Q4 is looking good so far.

* Elon Musk and the SEC submitted their joint letter this week to the judge. Since the entire letter is three and a half pages long, you would expect a response from the judge approving the settlement to come fairly soon. That approval will be a positive catalyst for the stock. Elon's Twitter behavior has been restrained. As Elon shows consistently good judgment and Twitter restraint over time, the SP will respond favorably.

* Demand is looking good if you realize that Tesla is producing Model S and Model X in record numbers to get ready for the final quarter of full tax credits. Further, Tesla employees today were calling Tesla owners and reminding them that Oct 15 is the last day to get in a Tesla order and guarantee delivery this quarter. I think at some point later this month Tesla will announce that they have sold out the entire Q4 production already, and that will be a catalyst. There will still be inventory cars for sale, but they too should sell briskly as end of quarter approaches.

This week TSLA closed at 258.78, down 3.17 from last Friday's 261.95. The big difference between the two weeks is that we ended last week with a 19 point drop and a question mark about many issues. This week was one of the toughest macro environments of the year and we ended on a 6 point climb day with positive developments regarding demand, production, and both the SEC suit and Elon's Twitter behaviors. Have a good weekend.

Conditions:
* Dow up 287 (1.15%)
* NASDAQ up 168 (2.29%)
* TSLA 258.78, up 6.55 (2.60%)
* TSLA volume 7.0M shares
* Oil 71.34, up 0.37 (0.52%)

 

[Papafox]

Over the weekend, Tesla stories started appearing, trying to take the spotlight for Monday morning's opening. Linette Lopez was at it again, trying to recycle old FUD for Business Insider and mix with a recent quote from a departed TSLA VP to give the false impression that he was expressing concern for the current TSLA position. Mostly, though, she was running with the erroneous story that people on Wall Street have no idea where Tesla is going to come up with an extra billion dollars to pay the March 2019 obligations (Even though Tesla has clearly explained how the cash will be generated internally). It was a shameful effort, but balancing that effort was word in the Tesla community that autopilot V9, which is now being released in large quantities, is a breakthrough product.

In the near future, positive catalysts for TSLA are likely to include:
* Judge signs off on SEC-Musk settlement letter
* Tesla announces that custom-built Model 3s are sold out through end of Q4 (today is last day for getting a guaranteed delivery date in Q4 in order to receive full $7500 tax credit in U.S.).
* The recent market selloff may be very close to over. See this story about Goldman suggesting it's about time to get back into growth stocks

The NASDAQ lost 0.88% today. Popular tech stocks were down 1.5-4.5% today, making TSLA's positive performance stand out.

Looking at the NASDAQ chart above, you can see that TSLA was battling negative macros today but at times was out of sync with the NASDAQ. The double MMDs of the morning plus the spike above 262 were not in time with macros but the 3pm high and then fade into close were in sych with the NASDAQ.

Shorts did 56.58% of selling of TSLA today

I would like to offer that it still makes sense to do your buying after 10:30am in order to allow the trend to develop for the day. When TSLA spiked early in the morning, the day-trader type of shorts went to work because neither shorts nor longs have the conviction right now to dominate the trading but either can take control for short stretches. Thus, the shorts who started selling-in at 262 could push TSLA below 256 and then cover for a gain, which they did. However, once TSLA broke through into the green at 2pm, the shorts lacked the horsepower to hold TSLA back and it ran back up above 262. When the NASDAQ turned around after 3pm and started heading down, it was a perfect opportunity for shorts to sell into the close and make money again. This is why you saw 180,000 shares trade hands in the final minute of trading. I think the buying was primarily shorts closing their day positions.

I think the moral of the story is that until news allows longs to take control of TSLA's SP, shorts will continue to sell weak TSLA rises, particularly ones that occur early in the day.

Overall, though, TSLA would probably have lost about 2% today if it was just swimming with the NASDAQ influence, and so I consider TSLA still showing some strength and suggesting a slow rise until more news comes forward.

Meanwhile, I tweeted Ihor Dusaniwsky, trying to get more information on how much actual short-selling is taking place on a day when FINRA shows 60% of trading done by shorts. He lacks the tools to get a realistic number and so I am not holding my breath that anyone can give us a realistic number of what percentage of selling is truly by shorts on such a day. I tried, though.

Conditions:
* Dow down 89 (0.35%)
* NASDAQ down 66 (0.88%)
* TSLA 259.59, up 0.81 (0.31%)
* TSLA volume 6.1M shares
* Oil 71.68, up 0.34 (0.48%)

 

[Papafox]

Congratulations, longs, 1.5 of 3 possible short-term catalysts I mentioned yesterday fell into place today and it was off to the races. First, the judge approved the SEC/Musk settlement. That's one. Secondly, with the Goldman note yesterday about the macro correction appearing to be near an end and with today's big macro climb backing up that prediction, we received half a prediction come true (we'll have to wait and see if it really happens in long run) and there you have it.

Notable in the climb today were the many mini-dips as reality checks, and TSLA passed all of them. The macros were also pretty non-stop climb, and so they didn't allow any of the mini-dips to gain traction. With such relentless climbing, backed up by the macro climb, the shorts didn't have a chance of stopping TSLA today, and as you can see from the chart below, they backed off a bit on selling because any attempt to stand in front of the bulldozer today would be met with disappointing results.

The one big move the shorts made, IMO, was to push TSLA downward between 10am and 10:30am. That type of dip is right on time for them and not present in the macros. Because TSLA recovered and ran far uphill after that move, I would think there are plenty of day-shorts that took a big hit today.

In weighting the value of the macro climb vs. the judge's decision, I note that tech stocks I watch were up 2.5%-4.5%, so let's give TSLA 3.5% up for macros and 3.0% up for judge's decision, with no percentages deducted for short-selling influence (caution: do not stand in front of the bulldozer!).

Shorts did 51.67% of TSLA selling today

Dusaniwsky shows mild short covering today

Please notice the uptrend continued in after-hours trading as TSLA added 2.41 after the bell. Such after-hours trading suggests that this rally should have some legs tomorrow, too. Now, let's get a decent price going into the 3Q ER and then see over $500 million in cash flow light the second stage rocket engine for the next leg of the climb.

I'm looking for a decent charting source to replace the previous one, which is presently unavailable. I need to plot bollinger bands plus 50DMA and 200DMA. Suggestions appreciated.

Possible catalyst for tomorrow includes huge beat by Netflix, which will elevate NASDAQ. Also, Nevada Senator Heller's bill to extend EV tax credit could do some good later if it gains traction in the Senate. It's a minor blip for now, as is the Wyoming politician's bill to remove EV tax credits.

Conditions:
* Dow up 548 (2.17%)
* NASDAQ up 215 (2.89%)
* TSLA 276.59, up 17.00 (6.55%)
* TSLA volume 9.3M shares
* Oil 72.19, up 0.27 (0.38%)
* Percent of TSLA selling by shorts: 51.67%

 

[TrendTrader007]

View attachment 344519
Congratulations, longs, 1.5 of 3 possible short-term catalysts I mentioned yesterday fell into place today and it was off to the races. First, the judge approved the SEC/Musk settlement. That's one. Secondly, with the Goldman note yesterday about the macro correction appearing to be near an end and with today's big macro climb backing up that prediction, we received half a prediction come true (we'll have to wait and see if it really happens in long run) and there you have it.

Notable in the climb today were the many mini-dips as reality checks, and TSLA passed all of them. The macros were also pretty non-stop climb, and so they didn't allow any of the mini-dips to gain traction. With such relentless climbing, backed up by the macro climb, the shorts didn't have a chance of stopping TSLA today, and as you can see from the chart below, they backed off a bit on selling because any attempt to stand in front of the bulldozer today would be met with disappointing results.

In weighting the value of the macro climb vs. the judge's decision, I note that tech stocks I watch were up 2.5%-4.5%, so let's give TSLA 3.5% up for macros and 3.0% up for judge's decision, with no percentages deducted for short-selling influence (caution: do not stand in front of the bulldozer!).

View attachment 344476
Shorts did 51.67% of TSLA selling today

View attachment 344527
Dusaniwsky shows mild short covering today

Please notice the uptrend continued in after-hours trading as TSLA added 2.41 after the bell. Such after-hours trading suggests that this rally should have some legs tomorrow, too. Now, let's get a decent price going into the 3Q ER and then see over $500 million in cash flow light the second stage rocket engine for the next leg of the climb.

I'm looking for a decent charting source to replace the previous one, which is presently unavailable. I need to plot bollinger bands plus 50DMA and 200DMA. Suggestions appreciated.

Possible catalyst for tomorrow includes huge beat by Netflix, which will elevate NASDAQ. Also, Nevada Senator Heller's bill to extend EV tax credit could do some good later if it gains traction in the Senate. It's a minor blip for now, as is the Wyoming politician's bill to remove EV tax credits.

Conditions:
* Dow up 548 (2.17%)
* NASDAQ up 215 (2.89%)
* TSLA 276.59, up 17.00 (6.55%)
* TSLA volume 9.3M shares
* Oil 72.19, up 0.27 (0.38%)
* Percent of TSLA selling by shorts: 51.67%

Stockcharts.com and Bigcharts.com are two decent charting sites
Former requires a modest membership fee but well worth it and latter is totally free
However, the former does allow some free charting on daily and weekly timeframes with 50 and 200 sma available
I love the stockcharts.com membership because it allows me to play with all kinds of indicators and 100 year timeframe
I also love Marketsmith but that is more expensive and I allowed my subscription to lapse because all I do is trade $TSLA no matter what so what’s the point of paying $1200 a year just to study EPS and Revenue growth when my trading will be confined exclusively to Tsla for next several years

 

[Papafox]

Thanks much, TT007, The stockcharts.com chart looks the best and I'll stick with it for now.

Looking at the tech chart (the gorgeous tech chart with volume visible on the bottom), we can see TSLA is approaching the mid-bollinger band so it should begin pulling the BBs upward as the climb continues. With the upper-bb at 324.58, TSLA has lots of room to run in the near future. Most likely, it's heading for a price point that is reasonable to wait out the Q3 ER, and with the excellent production and delivery numbers, that point is well north of where TSLA has been trading last week.
* Green line is 50 day moving average
* Red line is 200 day moving average

 

[moe.salih]

The stockcharts.com chart looks the best and I'll stick with it for now.

My stockcharts.com proxy that you used previously was fixed and moved to https://tesla.moesalih.com/stocks to be part of the Tesla Investor Dashboard.

 

[Papafox]

My stockcharts.com proxy that you used previously was fixed and moved to https://tesla.moesalih.com/stocks to be part of the Tesla Investor Dashboard.

A huge thank-you for doing this, @moe.salih . I'll check it out now. It's really an excellent presentation.

 

[Papafox]

I expected today to be a green day for TSLA. Here's what I think happened.
* The NASDAQ opened green (like TSLA) but ran downhill until about 10:30am.Unlike the NASDAQ, which recovered, TSLA stayed down and descended even more with the now-familiar icicle formations of short-selling. Thus, we saw a sticky dip today that required additional turnover between short-selling and covering and an increase of short-related selling to 57.01% today.
* The green start today included good news for TSLA:
- Musk will spend $20 million to buy this amount of stock directly from Tesla and thereby reduce effect on cash of SEC fine on Tesla
- Tesla has purchased the factory site in Shanghai for the next gigafactory (batteries plus vehicles)
* The ever-present negative media introduced stories today to take TSLA down a few notches:
- Boomberg cherry-picked negative statement from Sandy Munro's teardown of a Tesla Model 3 and emphasized the one area in which Tesla's vehicle is behind the BMW i3 and Chevy Bolt: body. The overall Munro impression of Model 3 has been very positive and suggests Tesla should be able to make a nice gross margin with the vehicle, but this story emphasized the negatives. The likely reason for the story was that UBS of Switzerland looks like the firm that paid Munro for the teardown, didn't like the positive things it said about the Model 3, slapped a gag order on him, but allowed this negative piece to be put together because it better matched UBS's needs.
- Reuters reports that Tesla VP of Manufacturing Gilbert Passin has left the company. I hear that he really left in June, so this is really old news.
* With a descending NASDAQ in the morning and with TSLA at a high but vulnerable because of a lack of short-term good news that day, shorts helped the stock descend through 10:30am, capped, and then put in multiple efforts to get TSLA running further downhill. Ultimately, their efforts were mostly in vain because TSLA recovered much of its losses by close. Nonetheless, catching TSLA with a high opening and vulnerability is a normally profitable equation for the short manipulators, and so they piled in.
* Looking at the first and last minutes of trading today you can see about 380,000 shares changing hands in those 2 minutes, which suggests shorts were working hard to manipulate and then cover. Overall, yesterday's Ihor Dusaniwsky post shows a slight covering trend the past week.

Shorts did 57.01% of TSLA selling today in order to cap the 10:30am dip and then try to push lower

Between 2016 and today, TSLA has had losses of about $2 billion, thus making the losses of TSLA shorts about twice as large as all the money TSLA has lost during the time while it has been gearing up its production lines to turn profitable in the second half of 2018.

A big tip of the hat to moe.salih for steering us towards the URL of his excellent TSLA technical charts. Here's today's to put the trading into perspective.

Finally, to top off your day, ARK investing put together an excellent report about why Tesla is likely to be the next Apple in terms of incredible appreciation of value. Check it out here. The graphs are truly mind-bending.

Here's one:

Conditions:
* Dow down 92 (0.36%)
* NASDAQ down 3 (0.04%)
* TSLA 271.78, down 4.81 (1.74%)
* TSLA volume 8.5M shares
* Oil 69.96, up 0.21 (0.30%)
* Percent of TSLA selling by shorts: 57.01%

 

[N5329K]

Between 2016 and today, TSLA has had losses of about $2 billion, thus making the losses of TSLA shorts about twice as large as all the money TSLA has lost during the time while it has been gearing up its production lines to turn profitable in the second half of 2018.

Really interesting contrast. Money being burned to build something, and money being burned to achieve nothing.
Robin

 

[Papafox]

Today was all about macro woes, with trouble in Turkey compounding concerns about China trade war and spooking investors somewhat.

The NASDAQ lost 2.06% vs. TSLA's 2.90% loss today

Looking at the trading chart for TSLA above, you can see shorts tried two attempted MMDs but both were rejected by the market. Alas, as the NASDAQ fell TSLA followed down. Both hit lows a little before 2pm. TSLA should have climbed a bit more in the afternoon, but you can see what appears to be mischief by the shorts pushing TSLA down in the final half hour just because it can be done.

The good news is that volume today was a meager 4.5m shares. TSLA shareholders are waiting out the storm at the moment. This too shall pass.

Today's Tech chart

Conditions:
* Dow down 327 (1.27%)
* NASDAQ down 158 (2.06%)
* TSLA 263.91, down 7.87 (2.90%)
* TSLA volume 4.5M shares
* Oil 68.65, down 1.10 (1.58%)

 

[Papafox]

Shorts did 58.96% of selling today, getting very close to 60% and suggesting plenty of manipulation underway

The big news of the day was Tesla's introducing a mid-range battery for Model 3. It consists of the original Model 3 battery, but with fewer cells installed. Here's what Electrek has to say. Other details include:
* LR battery M3 only comes in AWD now
* MR battery M3 only comes in RWD
* AWD cost has been reduced to 5K again
* Black and white interior available in all combos
Translation: Vehicle mixes are kept to a minimum, allowing continued practice of building cars and then matching with buyers after the fact

My thoughts? I think it's a great move because Tesla likely has some bottlenecks that will be addressed immediately, rather than over the course of Q4. Fremont will be able to produce over 5K/wk M3 regularly now, which is great.
* Drive units have been a recent bottleneck and reaching 10K/wk limits total M3 production to 5K/wk if all are AWD. When people buy the LR battery, they usually pop for AWD too. The bottleneck is broken when there are lots of M3 MR battery RWD orders waiting. Result? More than 5K/wk M3 production.
* Panasonic Cells have been a recent bottleneck. Until lines 11,12, and 13 are up and running later this quarter, Tesla is restricted to about 4400 M3/wk output due to cell availability. MR battery will allow 5K/wk Fremont production soon after introduction.

How will this change affect demand?
* Tesla minimizes downgrading by:
1) locking in LR battery configurations of many buyers by Oct 15 deadline already past
2) lowering price of AWD to 5K will help retain AWD LR buyers. 6K for AWD was a temporary measure put in to move more buyers to RWD because of possible drive unit bottleneck. 5K for AWD makes the AWD+LR battery combination more attractive again.
3) only offering RWD for the MR battery will prevent much downgrading from LR battery (since most LR buyers want AWD).
4) lowering price of M3 by 4K will encourage many of those M3 buyers waiting for SR M3 to upgrade to MR battery in order to get better U.S. federal tax credit. If MR choice is 10K more than SR choice but brings full $7500 fed tax credit, there is plenty of incentive to more sooner rather than later.

 

[Papafox]

We live in interesting times. On the one hand, yesterday's announcement about the medium-range (MR) Model 3 was problematic with some longs and a red-flag to shorts. If Tesla had described the reason for introducing the MR version of M3 as a decision to deliver as many U.S. Model 3s as possible (25% more can be delivered because of fewer cells) because at present factory capacity is constrained while Tesla waits for Panasonic to add more cell lines this quarter, then I think things would have been different. The talk would be about progress at Fremont and delivering the max M3s possible given available cells, rather than the demand issue that shorts embrace and the media runs with. Similarly, the autopilot's full self driving (FSD) function is no longer on the main design menu for Tesla, but the feature is still available elsewhere for owners. If Tesla had explained that they're deemphasizing FSD until the new boards are going into vehicles this spring, we would have been okay, but we had some journalists speculating that FSD was dropped because it is so far from being reality and then Bonnie tweeted to let everyone know that FSD is still available by clicking elsewhere. It was not good communicating by Tesla, and some of today's 9.1 million shares sold were longs who were concerned about the message delivered.

It's a shame to see any longs sell because the news this week has been basically good. Electrek.co published this story today, suggesting that Tesla is reliably producing 1000 vehicles a day now and the weekly rate for Model 3 is close to 5K. That's great news, particularly since it comes before the Panasonic cell lines have likely been added.

The NASDAQ peaked about 10am and then descended slightly into the red in afternoon

Comparing the TSLA chart to the NASDAQ's you can see that TSLA actually exceeded 267.50 this morning before the NASDAQ started its dip and the shorts started selling to turn the dip into a dip on steroids. The whole plan of the shorts started to unravel after 2:20pm as TSLA began a recovery that was unrelated to NASDAQ trading action. About 3:30pm the shorts were able to hault the recovery with capping (notice how horizontally the stock was trading until close). With all this manipulation, lots of shorts wanted out prior to the weekend, and so the number of buyers in the final minute of market trading (when we normally don't see substantial changes in the SP) hit 650,000, the highest per minute trading I've seen in a long, long time, and there weren't enough sellers to accommodate all the buyers, and so the SP took a noticeable jump up.

Shorts sold 58.52% of TSLA today, reinforcing the idea that lots of downward pressure was placed on TSLA from shorts today and they sought an exit during the final minute of market trading.

Looking at Dusaniwsky's chart, the shorts were encouraged enough by recent events to increase their stake at near rock-bottom prices for TSLA. Not a smart move, selling low and later buying high.

For the week, TSLA closed at 260.00, up 1.22 from last Friday's 258.78. The week's real news shows that Tesla continues to make progress in producing more vehicles, despite current bottlenecks, suggesting that Q4 will indeed be strong. A note today from Adam Jonas suggests that Q4 average sale prices for Model 3s could be quite high. The media firestorm will be overpowered by the reality of a company producing lots of profitable vehicles in good time. Have a great weekend.

Conditions:
* Dow up 65 (0.26%)
* NASDAQ down 36 (0.48%)
* TSLA 260.00, down 3.91 (1.48%)
* TSLA volume 9.1M shares
* Oil 69.28, up 0.57 (0.83%)

 

[Papafox]

I have revised my theory of trading on Friday. If interested, please take a look at:
TSLA Market Action: 2018 Investor Roundtable

Also, here's an electric.co story that makes the point about medium-range Model 3 that I wished Tesla would have emphasized more:
Tesla’s new Model 3 is not just a demand booster, it’s also a production ramp enabler

 

[srius]

View attachment 345365
... yesterday's announcement about the medium-range (MR) Model 3 was problematic with some longs and a red-flag to shorts. If Tesla had described the reason for introducing the MR version of M3 as a decision to deliver as many U.S. Model 3s as possible (25% more can be delivered because of fewer cells) because at present factory capacity is constrained while Tesla waits for Panasonic to add more cell lines this quarter, then I think things would have been different. The talk would be about progress at Fremont and delivering the max M3s possible given available cells, rather than the demand issue that shorts embrace and the media runs with. ...

Good points on how to frame the messages on medium-range Model 3. It's odd to announce the unexpected MR with a few words on twitter and leave the media to define the purpose.
I wish there is a way that the board could collectively, such as though a curated entry, pass good ideas and feedback to Tesla.

 

[neroden]

Good points on how to frame the messages on medium-range Model 3. It's odd to announce the unexpected MR with a few words on twitter and leave the media to define the purpose.
I wish there is a way that the board could collectively, such as though a curated entry, pass good ideas and feedback to Tesla.

*cough* Those of us who use USB music have been wishing for that for years. There isn't.

 

[Papafox]

Another day, same old games. Today the macros were mixed with DOW down and NASDAQ up. The NASDAQ started off high, dipped into a valley between 10am and 10:30am, then recovered its gains by 11am. Looking at TSLA, you can see that we saw an initial mandatory morning dip on opening when the NASDAQ was well up, but as the NASDAQ began its descent, shorts used this opportunity to push TSLA down further and when the recovery came heading towards an 11am peak, efforts kept the TSLA SP in the red while the NASDAQ recovered well into the green. It's the old MMD+sticky dip on steroids trick. Notice the many well-defined icicles and shorts sold in large lots in order to maximize downward penetration.

The NASDAQ had a mildly positive day, up 0.26%

By afternoon, TSLA pretty much decoupled from the NASDAQ as buyers sought to take advantage of the artificially low prices for TSLA. We saw TSLA trade in a series of steep climbs and descents, bust through into the green twice before entering nearly an hour of constant "whack-the-mole" trading, then the longs took command and bid the SP up another dollar or so into the green before close.

Over the weekend, @Fact Checking did a great job of explaining how the short-sellers negatively influence TSLA stock. Check it out at:
TSLA Market Action: 2018 Investor Roundtable

Another recent development in the war between supporters and detractors of Tesla was this comment by Maye Musk and Elon's response.
Elon Musk on Twitter

The bottom line is that Elon and his mom are both noticing that the level of FUD being produced by some players is changing. I attribute that change to a combination of @ZachShahan and his crew at CleanTechnica's keeping tabs of significantly negative media performances with TSLA through their #Pravduh efforts, some of us getting the word out that TSLA investors are now submitting tips to the SEC, asking for investigations in an effort to make the trading of TSLA more fair, and supporters of Tesla monitoring the media and twitterverse and calling out the FUD, biases, and outright lies. Good to see that some change is already happening! I encourage as many of you as possible who believe you have a reasonable complaint to file it with the SEC using this process show on a TMC thread with that purpose.

FINRA data suggests that short percentage of TSLA selling was down to 48.25% today. I distrust this number as a look at the daily trading chart suggests higher than normal, rather than lower than normal short manipulations today. I suspect that on some days the shorts move shorting to one or more of the non-FINRA-monitored exchanges so as to escape detection. On low volume days such as today, that's entirely doable.

Taking a broader look at the technical chart, you can see that the not-so-distant dip to 247.77 is in line with two other dips this year. What's interesting about this dip, though, is that the short efforts to keep the SP down have been so intense this time around that the delayed recovery (compared to the year's other two) is causing the whole tech indications to slowly descend. We see bollinger bands, 50 DMA, and 200 DMA all descending, which adds difficulty to the upward movement of the stock. With good enough news at the time of the Q3 ER, TSLA can and would shoot above the upper bb with sufficiently good news, but the low technical indicators would make it then easier for the shorts to work away at these gains. For this reason, a nice climb back into the mid 270s or higher this week would be very helpful to TSLA's future movements.

Conditions:
* Dow down 127 (0.50%)
* NASDAQ up 20 (0.26%)
* TSLA 260.95, up 0.95 (0.37%)
* TSLA volume 5.5M shares
* Oil 69.52, up 0.24 (0.35%)

 

[Utahken]

This is big news. The quarterly report is Wednesday.

Tesla Announces Date for Third Quarter 2018 Financial Results and Webcast | Tesla, Inc.

 

[Papafox]

This is big news. The quarterly report is Wednesday.

Tesla Announces Date for Third Quarter 2018 Financial Results and Webcast | Tesla, Inc.

This is HUGE news. The early ER date plus the 2 days notice suggests it is good news. TSLA will be trading quickly tomorrow and Wednesday. Expect to see shorts launch FUD attack in an attempt to keep the stock price from running up into the ER. Probably won't work.

 

[neroden]

This is big news. The quarterly report is Wednesday.

Tesla Announces Date for Third Quarter 2018 Financial Results and Webcast | Tesla, Inc.

Updated (change of time)

UPDATE - Tesla Announces Date for Third Quarter 2018 Financial Results and Webcast | Tesla, Inc.

UPDATE: At the request of a number of analysts, we are moving the call by one hour to 3:30pm Pacific Time (6:30pm Eastern Time).

Tesla will post its financial results for the third quarter of 2018 after market close on Wednesday, October 24, 2018. At that time, Tesla will issue a brief advisory containing a link to the Q3 2018 Update Letter, which will be available on Tesla’s Investor Relations website. Tesla will hold a live question and answer webcast that day at 3:30pm Pacific Time (6:30pm Eastern Time) to discuss the Company’s financial and business results and outlook.

It has been surmised that they want to get it well out of the way of the election news cycle so it won't get buried.

 

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For this reason, a nice climb back into the mid 270s or higher this week would be very helpful to TSLA's future movements.