In a nutshell, today was a particularly low volume day for TSLA in which the NASDAQ traded down by over 1.5%, shorts did their best at manipulating but even with the bad macros lost control of the SP.
The day began with a spirited MMD, courtesy of you know who. When the MMD was defeated, TSLA climbed into the green to celebrate, but bad things can happen to the SP when it is high in the morning of a weak macro or news day, and shorts managed another dip below 348 about 2:00pm during the normally low trading volume hours before the stock price recovered and oh so briefly touched green before closing slightly in the red.
Looking at the sharpness of the dips and recoveries, you can pretty much tell that short manipulators were indeed working the stock today, and volumebot.com confirms that fully 58.81% of FINRA reported selling was tagged short.
The story for the end of the day belongs to the TSLA Options Volume chart above. You can see that LOTS of puts and calls with strike 350 expired on Friday, and even more 352.5 calls expired, as well. The best small move for market makers and other sellers of the options in the final minutes of trading would be a pin at 350, but anywhere between 350 and below 352.5 would be good too. Our close at 350.51 is consistent with a little price nudging by the option sellers right before close.
This week, Ihor Dusaniwsky stated that the shorting going on at TSLA doesn't much affect the pricing of the stock. I couldn't disagree more strongly. The manipulations are well documented here. Further, the deep dips this stock takes on no news of significance is often caused by short-sellers buying in as TSLA is decreasing or nearing a low. Selling to establish a position when the stock price is low and then buying back at a high price when margin calls come is not only a formula for losing money but also for destabilizing the stock, both on the way down and on the way up. Not many of my friends can stomach the volatility of owning TSLA, and much of that volatility is caused by the techniques used by the shorts. Trust me, if investors are continually giving up on trading this stock, that will indeed affect the price. Certainly there are wounds inflicted by Elon, too, but those are hopefully behind us now. Fortunately, the last dip is far enough in the rear-view mirror so that TSLA will attract new investors in the coming week.
Looking at the technical chart, you can see lots of headroom for TSLA to climb once a catalyst propels it.
How has TSLA done since bottoming out on October 8, compared to the NASDAQ? Well, the NASDAQ is down 4.2% since then, and TSLA is up 40%. I would say that relative to the market, TSLA continues to show great strength, particularly after already climbing this much.
For the week, TSLA closed at 350.51, up 4.10 from last Friday's 346.41.We conquered 348 this week in brutal fighting, and I'm not going to accept it being behind us until we get a bit more breathing room. Notice how many times during the past 10 days TSLA touched or approached 348 at some point during the trading. The past three weeks have included climbs of 70.90 , 15.51 , and 4.10. Obviously, the pace of climbing has reduced, but that's still 90.51 in three weeks. We've been running up on the Q3 ER data. At some point after we cross the mid-point of the quarter this week, indications of a good 4Q ER will focus their tractor beam on the stock and start lifting us higher. Can't wait!
Conditions:
* Dow down 202 (0.77%)
* NASDAQ down 124 (1.65%)
* TSLA 350.51, down 0.89 (0.25%)
* TSLA volume 5.1M shares
* Oil 60.73, up 0.54 (0.90%)
* Percent of TSLA selling by shorts: 58.81%