Papafox's Daily TSLA Trading Charts

[Papafox]

Today the combination of yesterday's concerns about Model 3 production (including saboteurs) plus today's bad macros, plus news of a heightening trade war by China with negative implications for Tesla and GM combined to give TSLA a bad day. Considering how fast and how high TSLA has run in this rally so far, I think a correction such as today is not such a terrible thing. For all we can see, Tesla is still on track to hit 5K M3s/wk by month's end.

Two elements of the day's trading look like they were engineered by shorts: the deep dip a bit before 11am (with immediate recovery) and the dip into close after 3pm. With such a low percentage of selling by shorts today, though, this is about all the shorts could have likely pulled back, and with more than 300K shares trading in the first minute of market trading and over 100K shares in the final minute of market trading, we see evidence of short covering still. The lack of substantial short-selling suggests that shorts were more interested today in exit strategies than manipulations. The after-hours trading shows a slightly negative trend, so perhaps we have another day of turbulence ahead.For those of you wishing to increase your holdings prior to Elon's big surprise in 3 weeks, this dip is an excellent opportunity.

Conditions:
* Dow down 287 (1.15%)
* NASDAQ down 21 (0.28.%)
* TSLA 352.55, down 18.28 (4.93%)
* TSLA volume 12.5M shares
* Oil 65.09, up 0.19 (0.29%)
* Percentage of TSLA selling by shorts: 39.2%

 

[Papafox]

On a day with good NASDAQ macros, TSLA regained more than half the value it lost yesterday. Except for a rise and dip between 10am and 10:30am, there was little correlation between TSLA chart and that of the NASDAQ. As I said, this is a tough time to play dips unless you are glued to a computer screen during market hours.The big news today was the suit filed by Tesla against Martin Tripp, a former employee who admits to hacking into various computers and sharing sensitive information with the media. The timing of this behavior is especially relevant here, because it suggests a last-ditch effort by enemies of Tesla to derail the progress being made with recovering the SP to previous ATH trading and thereby enhance Tesla's access to capital. I'm sure that Tesla's primary goal is to put enough pressure on Tripp and use the legal system to gather information in a hope that Tripp's puppetmaster can be identified and the sordid business of sabotaging Tesla's recovery can be unveiled.

Note that only 27% of TSLA selling was done by shorts today, a huge decline from the recent days when 60% of trading was the norm. Without the assistance of the creative short-selling (also known as manipulation), TSLA could not be held back and showed splendid strength in afternoon trading.

The pertinent point of reviewing the tech chart is the behavior of the upper bollinger band as TSLA recovers from yesterday's dip. The stock is now nearly $20 below the upper bb, which sets it up for a nice run upwards should news and sentiment warrant. Also, note the climbing 50 day moving average line (blue), which will cross the 200 day moving average (red) in the not too distant future, setting up TSLA for a golden cross and generating additional enthusiasm in technically-oriented investors.

Meanwhile, Tesla moves forward with completing some Model 3s in its tent-like structure to reach its production goal before the end of month, while FUDsters, scruples-challened journalists , and Tesla's sundry enemies work at tripping up the company. Never a dull moment.

Conditions:
* Dow down 42 (0.17%)
* NASDAQ up 56 (0.72%)
* TSLA 362.22, up 9.67 (2.74%)
* TSLA volume 9.67M shares
* Oil 65.34, up 0.44 (0.68%)
* Percent of TSLA selling by shorts: 27%

 

[EinSV]

View attachment 311259
* Percent of TSLA selling by shorts: 27%

@Papafox, I am struck by the unusually low percentage of trading by shorts for the past three days, especially since it coincides with some indicia of covering and a SP increase of more than 100 pts from recent lows. Manipulative shorts running out of powder (or conviction), perhaps?

Any thoughts/speculation about what may be happening?

 

[pz1975]

@Papafox, I am struck by the unusually low percentage of trading by shorts for the past three days, especially since it coincides with some indicia of covering and a SP increase of more than 100 pts from recent lows. Manipulative shorts running out of powder (or conviction), perhaps?

Any thoughts/speculation about what may be happening?


View attachment 311330

Great graph EInSV - that would be great to keep maintained.

My worry is that shorts are biding their time waiting to make a coordinated strike when they think the sentiment has changed. Or maybe I am just paranoid after all these years...

 

[EinSV]

Great graph EInSV - that would be great to keep maintained.

My worry is that shorts are biding their time waiting to make a coordinated strike when they think the sentiment has changed. Or maybe I am just paranoid after all these years...

True -- the rope-a-dope is also a possibility. But this was such an aberration I thought it was worth flagging ....

 

[Papafox]

Great graph EInSV - that would be great to keep maintained.

My worry is that shorts are biding their time waiting to make a coordinated strike when they think the sentiment has changed. Or maybe I am just paranoid after all these years...

Yeah, that is a better graph than the shortvolume.com bar graph. I think I'll switch over. Thanks for the suggestion!

 

[Papafox]

@Papafox, I am struck by the unusually low percentage of trading by shorts for the past three days, especially since it coincides with some indicia of covering and a SP increase of more than 100 pts from recent lows. Manipulative shorts running out of powder (or conviction), perhaps?

Any thoughts/speculation about what may be happening?


View attachment 311330

@EinSV and all, there is indeed a story behind the recent plummet in short-selling of TSLA. Consider that there are really two reasons for TSLA short-selling: making money and a much more nefarious motivation, which is trying to deprive Tesla of the working capital it needs to survive.

Regarding the depriving capital motivation, Jesselivenomore has created a marvelous thread here called Elon Musk vs. Short Sellers in which he describes how short-sellers in the past worked to bring down financial and insurance companies through attacking the share prices, insinuations, and other methods so that at some point the customers and financial community become spooked and an otherwise viable company implodes.I see a number of you have already commented on that thread, but if you haven't visited it yet, you really owe it to yourself to do so. One of the strange phenomenons that Jesse noticed about TSLA is that short interest is typically the highest as the stock price is low and low when the stock price is high. From a simple "sell high and buy low" standpoint, what these shorts are doing is the opposite of what makes sense from a money-making standpoint. Looking at the history of how shorts have been selling low and then buying (covering) high, there's a lot of evidence to support this view. He reasoned that what is really going on is that a large number of shorts are similar to Jim Chanos and are motivated by a desire to terminate Tesla when it shows weakness. He points out how low stock prices undermine the financial community's confidence in the company and how FUD and negative reporting of TSLA influenced the Moody's downgrade of Tesla's debt, which in turn made borrowing more expensive for the company and played an important part in a recent dip of the SP. Now that TSLA has recovered into the high 300s, there's little likelihood of breaking this company at the moment, but of course this type of short would likely return if a serious calamity developed at Tesla.

Jesse believes that Solar City was especially vulnerable to a severe short attack because the company was primarily a financial company (borrowing money to install rooftop solar and then receiving a higher return for the electricity sold to the rooftop property owners). When the shorts went after Solar City and began to compromise its ability to borrow money at attractive rates while simultaneously eroding customer confidence, Solar City's business model was in jeopardy. Tesla pretty much had to acquire Solar City to keep the shorts from prevailing. Remember how Chanos was urging Tesla shareholders to vote no because he said Solar City would bring Tesla down? Chanos was actually trying to get a no vote so that he and other big shorts could kill Solar City and make a small fortune. Anyway, Tesla itself is similar to financial institutions and Solar City because until it is able to support its operation through internally-generated funds, Tesla is dependent upon external funding until it becomes cash flow positive. With Tesla potentially within a couple weeks of becoming both a profitable and cash-flow positive company, some of these nefarious shorts have covered. I'm guessing that Tesla's short interest has fallen from over 40 million shares to about 34 million now. Of course they will come back if Tesla stumbles badly with the ramping up of Model 3.

The second type of short is the profit-oriented short. These are the ones who believe that Tesla is overvalued and they'll make money as Wall Street wakes up to the realities of the company. I would say that the manipulative shorts are a combination of both these profit-oriented shorts and the kill-Tesla shorts. Two requirements of successfully manipulating TSLA are a source of dread in the longs so that they will second guess why the selling is taking place and a sufficient quantity of shorts to sufficiently control the trajectory of the stock. Dread was especially high among TSLA longs during the approach to the November 2016 Solar City vote, and the shorts had a field day. Dread is rather light with longs right now because of the prospects of 5K/wk M3 production soon, plus Elons Q3 and Q4 profit predictions and his recent three weeks until the short position explodes. The other requirement is sufficient number of shorts joining in the manipulations so that shorts prevail that trading day. The problem recently is that on many days we've seen shorts manipulating with a mandatory morning dip (such as today) with capping, and dips on steroids, the whole gamut of mischief, and losing control and watching the SP run upwards. On these days, the manipulative shorts lose money. String too many losing days in a row and you don't want to play the game anymore, or at least until the situation changes. So, we've had a rather noticeable decline in short percentage of selling as Tesla has run upward. It makes sense for shorts to sit out a day when TSLA is rising with so much authority that it is a virtual steamroller for shorts, but today was a day that shorts probably could have made a big difference with the SP, but it was evident that by 2:00pm they had no authority to hold the longs back as TSLA regained lost territory. Anyway, with about a 20% decline in shares sold short from recent weeks and with a lot of manipulative shorts licking their wounds not only from their core short positions getting whacked but also losing money on the daily manipulation attempts, and with lots of shorts being hit with margin calls recently, few shorts have the desire to jump in and thus a declining percentage of selling by shorts. Without a critical mass of manipulative shorts playing the game, the chances of success are significantly reduced.

There's really a third type of short, which is the sell-and-hold chumps who get lured into shorting Tesla by the biased media reporting and by comments from short-sellers themselves. These types are typically not very educated about what is happening at Tesla and they regularly lose a ton of money.

Will the significant shorting go away or is this just a momentary lull? Once Tesla is convincingly profitable and cash-flow positive for the long term, the kill-Tesla shorts will go away, but the profit-oriented shorts will still pop up when the situation looks attractive. In the short term, any significant perceived weakness by Tesla could draw shorts back into play again. One possible scenario that would look attractive to profit-oriented shorts would be TSLA rising well above the previous ATH prior to significant confirmation that Model 3 has ramped up well. Most of us strongly suspect that TSLA will run well above the previous ATH with Model 3 ramp confirmed but until there's confirmation of the ramp a run too high could leave longs vulnerable to a short-induced correction to bring the SP back down below the previous ATH. Let's hope we keep shorts at bay until the good news of Model 3 ramp starts coming our way. I'm hoping we still have 30+ milion shorts in tow should Elon's 3 week prediction come true, because adding the short covering to enthusiastic long buying would create a rise like many here have never before seen.

 

[UnknownSoldier]

I really wonder if the shorts suddenly going quiet implies that one of them was responsible for planting Martin Tripp. There is also a non-zero possibility that a state actor like Russia is responsible for this. It's interesting that Tripp had a story planned out for why he was doing this and that he's been coached to say things like he was a whistle blower. If it was really Russia or another state actor, we're going to have a Tom Clancy novel class of intrigue before the story of Tesla is done.

Another possibility is that Chanos et al. aren't even the real sizable shorts and that state actors like Russia hold substantial short positions. If this is the case then they will never cover no matter how high the share price might go.

The last possibility is that they are just waiting for another attack opportunity and are going quiet so they can allow a reserve of available shares to borrow to build up before they launch another bear raid. There is probably more than one mole embedded inside Tesla and they will activate the next sleeper agent when the time is right.

 

[neroden]

My worry is that shorts are biding their time waiting to make a coordinated strike when they think the sentiment has changed. Or maybe I am just paranoid after all these years...

I also expect that they were caught off guard and are regrouping to make another coordinated strike. That's OK.

 

[AlMc]

Great graph EInSV - that would be great to keep maintained.

My worry is that shorts are biding their time waiting to make a coordinated strike when they think the sentiment has changed. Or maybe I am just paranoid after all these years...

I also expect that they were caught off guard and are regrouping to make another coordinated strike. That's OK.

Agreed. My feeling is that they will coordinate around delivery number release. They will need to decide whether to go in right before those numbers are released thinking the numbers won't be good OR right after if the SP gets a pop hoping to then ride the SP down going into the Q2ER.

 

[bdy0627]

Great graph EInSV - that would be great to keep maintained.

My worry is that shorts are biding their time waiting to make a coordinated strike when they think the sentiment has changed. Or maybe I am just paranoid after all these years...

I'm paranoid, so this is my hunch as well. Short percent of trading won't stay down for long. It never does.

 

[neroden]

I'm quite sure Tesla doesn't need to issue stock until 2019, so in some sense any stock manipulation shenanigans before December are an irrelevancy. If I didn't have so much downtime when I'm waiting for things, I'd probably just ignore the stock price for the next 5 months.

 

[Papafox]

Trade fears caused the broader markets to retreat today, which was the primary reason for TSLA's poor showing today. Between now and the release of M3 production data in early July, the stock will be volatile. Tesla looked to be holding up well until about 1:15pm, but then the NASDAQ began dipping and TSLA followed the NASDAQ down over the same time span. The chart doesn't show substantial mischief by shorts, which makes sense when you see that shorts were only responsible for 32% of TSLA selling today, an unusually small number but a bit higher than yesterday. I believe we're seeing an overall trend toward reduced short-selling of the manipulative type as shorts lose the backing of other shorts to really take control of the SP any more, but of course we will see profit-oriented shorts jumping in for day-trading when they see it stands a chance of being profitable, and today was such a day. All bets are off if Tesla makes a major stumble because then the long-term trend would reverse.

Exacerbating the problem at TSLA today was the noise from the lawsuit Tesla filed against Mr. Tripp, a disgruntled former employee. Longs are likely wondering just what has been unearthed by Tripp, but so far the stories he has shared are rather benign, including the story of excessive scrap being produced on the property. So far, Mr. Tripp has produced no information that would allow his claim of "whistleblower" to be a valid defense.

Positive developments today includes indication that Tesla is building LOTS of cars right now, and a video of the Tesla lot showed about 10 car-carriers loading up, which is indeed indicative of high production numbers. One TMC member suggested in the market action thread today that he heard outside a Tesla store that 5K M3/wk was in the bag and Elon is sleeping in the Fremont factory now trying to bring the numbers higher (maybe by quite a bit). Interesting times. This is the second time I've heard this rumor and I'm hoping it is true because the broader world of investors and analysts is not talking about such a feat and the SP would roar upwards as Tesla overdelivers on its promise, if true.

Despite the meager increase in percentage of selling by shorts today, Dusaniwsky says shorts picked up over $100 million in shares today, which works out to be something around 300,000 shares. Adding 30 10,000/minute selling moments to TSLA's trading today would indeed negatively affect the SP. On the positive side, we want over 30 million shares sold short if/when TSLA lifts off like a Falcon 9, so days like today slow down and even reverse the exodus of shorts from this stock.

Conditions:
* Dow down 196 (0.80%)
* NASDAQ down 69 (0.88%)
* TSLA 347.51, down 14.71 (4.06%)
* TSLA volume 7.8M shares
* Oil 65.84, up 0.30 (0.46%)
* Percent of TSLA selling by shorts: 31.9%

 

[Papafox]

So, here's my thought on days such as today this week when TSLA loses substantial amounts with no news or heavy short-selling to justify it. We saw activities such as you'd expect from shorts today, namely sticky dips where TSLA follows the NASDAQ down and then remains down while the broader index rises. Someone knowledgeable is working the stock, doing a large amount of selling this week, and numbers strongly suggest it's not the shorts. It is likely some weak long who would rather take nice gains now than chance holding through the Q2 delivery report (and Model 3 production report). It is likely an institutional investor, with the most likely candidate being the Fidelity fund that has a new manager and has been shedding TSLA.

Here's the good news. If there's a weak long with lots of shares, isn't it best for them to sell those shares now to people buying in the mid-300s rather than carry those shares into the post 5K/wk M3 run-up? I'd hate to see the shorts find a ready supply of shares to cover with just as things get interesting. Once the selling is done, the SP will turn upward again and those shares will be held by a much stronger bull with a buy-in at a recent price. Further, once Tesla starts producing Model 3 at 5K/wk and above, TSLA is going to a new ATH, where the stock is 333 or 370 this week. I don't the downside of this week's selling hurting us for long.

I have to say that the lack of short-selling is eerie these days. Both yesterday and today were classic days for shorts to jump on board and manipulate the "sugar" out of TSLA, but we didn't see any of it. Perhaps Elon's three weeks until your position explodes comment is having an effect. Perhaps it is pain of margin calls through Monday, and perhaps it has to do with the Mr. Tripp, the sabateur, investigation where shorts want to look clean as various entities try to understand the connections of Mr. Tripp and the big picture.

For the week, TSLA closed at 333.63 down 24.54 from last Friday's 358.17. It was a wild week, with TSLA hitting a high of 370.83 on Monday, then slid downhill on all other days except Wednesday. Photos of the Fremont parking lot show LOTS of new Teslas. Looking forward to getting out of the downdraft and climbing again. Have a good weekend.

Conditions:
* Dow up 119 (0.49%)
* NASDAQ down 20 (0.26%)
* TSLA 333.63, down 13.88 (3.99%)
* TSLA volume 9.9M shares
* Oil 65.58, up 3.04 (4.64%)
* Percent of TSLA selling by shorts: 27.8%

 

[Stormy]

Hey guys. I've been following this thread for months now and finally decided to make an account, so I can ask you all some burning questions that've been bugging me for a while.

First off, I have to start by saying a big thank you to @Papafox for your analyses. I look forward to reading it every day.

So the reason for my post: A few pages ago we got into a deep discussion on the meaning of the short percentage numbers from shortvolume. The conclusion to that discussion was that the % is only sell-to-open trades (weighted by # of shares). The size of that percentage doesn't make mathematical sense to me, unless the shorts are (or were) wildly increasing their position on those trading days with over 50% short activity.

Let me illustrate with an example:
If the total trading for the day was 5 million shares, and shortvolume.com said 60% was sell-to open, that means 3mill shares were newly shorted. Even if shorts covered during all the remaining trading for the day, thats only 40% (or 2mill shares). That leaves a net increase of 1mill shares to the total short position and we weren't seeing that. What we were seeing was the short position staying roughly constant while they sold-to-open more than 50% of the day's trading pretty much every day. What am I missing?

As I said, this has been bugging me for a while, so I've had a few theories, and I feel like the answer is something pretty basic about the nature of trades involving two parties, and shorts are somehow shorting and covering in the same transaction, but if that was the case, then how does that affect the share price. I mean, if you could trade with yourself and still move the SP then... what stops them from defining the price at whatever they want? This is sounding more and more like a stupid question, but I'm throwing darts in the dark right now. Any insight would be appreciated.

Follow up question: did you see Galileo Russell's recent Hyperchange video on the possibility of a short squeeze? What are your thoughts on that? It seems quite reasonable to me that we're not lined up for the same 5 times price increase that happened years ago. The crux of his argument, though, was based on regular trading volume being able to cover the short position in a few days. But if all that volume is actually shorts just selling and covering (even 30% seems crazy high to me), then his calculations need a lot of adjustment.

And here's a totally unrelated bonus question, I just have to ask: In your estimation, how risky are TSLA call options for August / September. I'm planning on selling some of my shares to buy the options in anticipation of the shorts being the guests of honour at Elon's next flamethrower party. Also, in terms of investment strategy, are you settting yourself a price target for this SP liftoff, or do you make those decisions on the fly?

Thanks again for publishing your insights.

 

[Waiting4M3]

Hey guys. I've been following this thread for months now and finally decided to make an account, so I can ask you all some burning questions that've been bugging me for a while.

First off, I have to start by saying a big thank you to @Papafox for your analyses. I look forward to reading it every day.

So the reason for my post: A few pages ago we got into a deep discussion on the meaning of the short percentage numbers from shortvolume. The conclusion to that discussion was that the % is only sell-to-open trades (weighted by # of shares). The size of that percentage doesn't make mathematical sense to me, unless the shorts are (or were) wildly increasing their position on those trading days with over 50% short activity.

Let me illustrate with an example:
If the total trading for the day was 5 million shares, and shortvolume.com said 60% was sell-to open, that means 3mill shares were newly shorted. Even if shorts covered during all the remaining trading for the day, thats only 40% (or 2mill shares). That leaves a net increase of 1mill shares to the total short position and we weren't seeing that. What we were seeing was the short position staying roughly constant while they sold-to-open more than 50% of the day's trading pretty much every day. What am I missing?

As I said, this has been bugging me for a while, so I've had a few theories, and I feel like the answer is something pretty basic about the nature of trades involving two parties, and shorts are somehow shorting and covering in the same transaction, but if that was the case, then how does that affect the share price. I mean, if you could trade with yourself and still move the SP then... what stops them from defining the price at whatever they want? This is sounding more and more like a stupid question, but I'm throwing darts in the dark right now. Any insight would be appreciated.

Follow up question: did you see Galileo Russell's recent Hyperchange video on the possibility of a short squeeze? What are your thoughts on that? It seems quite reasonable to me that we're not lined up for the same 5 times price increase that happened years ago. The crux of his argument, though, was based on regular trading volume being able to cover the short position in a few days. But if all that volume is actually shorts just selling and covering (even 30% seems crazy high to me), then his calculations need a lot of adjustment.

And here's a totally unrelated bonus question, I just have to ask: In your estimation, how risky are TSLA call options for August / September. I'm planning on selling some of my shares to buy the options in anticipation of the shorts being the guests of honour at Elon's next flamethrower party. Also, in terms of investment strategy, are you settting yourself a price target for this SP liftoff, or do you make those decisions on the fly?

Thanks again for publishing your insights.

Could be a new short selling shares to open a new short position, to an old short who is covering, and the transaction is done at the bid, so the price goes down, and overall short interest stays the same.

I'm not expecting a short squeeze, but a along continuous run up.

What strike price options are you looking at Aug/Sep, do you plan to hold through expiration or just trade for gains?

I don't have a concrete selling target for my long term investment, if the shares hit $1500 next week I might consider selling a few to put in a reservation for a Roadster 2.

My trading strategy involves converting some August and J19 calls to J20 calls when the price close in on ATH again. Depend on the timing I might sell the August calls at a lower price, I don't want to hold them too close to expiration. I only have <1% of my total acct in those, just for playing/learning, so not too concerned with how those work out.

 

[Zhelko Dimic]

And here's a totally unrelated bonus question, I just have to ask: In your estimation, how risky are TSLA call options for August / September. I'm planning on selling some of my shares to buy the options in anticipation of the shorts being the guests of honour at Elon's next flamethrower party. Also, in terms of investment strategy, are you settting yourself a price target for this SP liftoff, or do you make those decisions on the fly?

Thanks again for publishing your insights.

Super uber risky if you ever need that money again.
If you're new to options game though, one of the best thing that can happen to you is to get hurt really bad early on, while amounts are small.
I had few great years and that gave me false confidence that almost killed me later on, so not joking. If you are interested, check history of my posts, that story should be in the last 20-30 of my posts...
To conclude: options can create magical results, but are never, ever safe (unless you're the one selling them, and know what you're doing)

 

[Papafox]

Hey guys. I've been following this thread for months now and finally decided to make an account, so I can ask you all some burning questions that've been bugging me for a while.

First off, I have to start by saying a big thank you to @Papafox for your analyses. I look forward to reading it every day.

So the reason for my post: A few pages ago we got into a deep discussion on the meaning of the short percentage numbers from shortvolume. The conclusion to that discussion was that the % is only sell-to-open trades (weighted by # of shares). The size of that percentage doesn't make mathematical sense to me, unless the shorts are (or were) wildly increasing their position on those trading days with over 50% short activity.

Let me illustrate with an example:
If the total trading for the day was 5 million shares, and shortvolume.com said 60% was sell-to open, that means 3mill shares were newly shorted. Even if shorts covered during all the remaining trading for the day, thats only 40% (or 2mill shares). That leaves a net increase of 1mill shares to the total short position and we weren't seeing that. What we were seeing was the short position staying roughly constant while they sold-to-open more than 50% of the day's trading pretty much every day. What am I missing?

As I said, this has been bugging me for a while, so I've had a few theories, and I feel like the answer is something pretty basic about the nature of trades involving two parties, and shorts are somehow shorting and covering in the same transaction, but if that was the case, then how does that affect the share price. I mean, if you could trade with yourself and still move the SP then... what stops them from defining the price at whatever they want? This is sounding more and more like a stupid question, but I'm throwing darts in the dark right now. Any insight would be appreciated.

Follow up question: did you see Galileo Russell's recent Hyperchange video on the possibility of a short squeeze? What are your thoughts on that? It seems quite reasonable to me that we're not lined up for the same 5 times price increase that happened years ago. The crux of his argument, though, was based on regular trading volume being able to cover the short position in a few days. But if all that volume is actually shorts just selling and covering (even 30% seems crazy high to me), then his calculations need a lot of adjustment.

And here's a totally unrelated bonus question, I just have to ask: In your estimation, how risky are TSLA call options for August / September. I'm planning on selling some of my shares to buy the options in anticipation of the shorts being the guests of honour at Elon's next flamethrower party. Also, in terms of investment strategy, are you settting yourself a price target for this SP liftoff, or do you make those decisions on the fly?

Thanks again for publishing your insights.

@Stormy, let me address your questions here because other visitors to this thread can benefit from the discussion.
Percentage of selling by shorts
To clarify whether the numbers that shortbot and shortvolume use, I called FINRA and talked to a specialist there. I asked the very specific question, "Does this percentage specifically tell us the percentage of sell-to-open shares vs. other selling?" The answer confirmed that this number is only related to selling and not to buying (or covering), and I was told that only the selling transactions that go on the ticker that are marked as "short" are included in the number.
How can this short number be so high (i.e. 60%)
You are correct that on days with 10 million TSLA shares traded and 60% as the percentage of selling assigned to shorts, it is unreasonable to believe that short interest grew by 6 million that day. What's missing is, of course, the short buying (covering). It is my belief that the shorts who regularly manipulated TSLA did so by selling and then covering as often as several times a day. This is why when shares became hard to borrow, we saw a dip in short percentage of trading. Think of manipulations as commonly consisting of huge sell orders in a minute's time to stop a rise or start a dip and then gradual covering to close that position. Manipulators make money by mandatory morning dips (they often lose here too) that start a downtrend in TSLA for the day, and they cover slowly to make up for their initial short-selling. Unfortunately for the shorts, lately the MMDs have been rejected by the market and a climb occurs before the SP even reaches the red/green line. A more reliable short-selling strategy for making a profit is to cap the SP by short-selling when it looks like it has reached a vulnerable price and then covering slowly after the SP has descended. There is selling in the afternoon (when volume is low) and then covering in the final minute of the day or during the next day during high-volume periods. I would not be surprised to see some active short-sellers selling and covering multiple times during the day. Thus, 60% short-selling does not tell us whether short interest climbed that day. It only tells us that the short manipulators were busy. Keep in mind, too, that the kind of short percentage of selling we've seen this last week (between 25% and 35%) is in the normal range when brokerage houses and similar institutions are shorting temporarily to balance their risk because of options activity. There are so many reasons for shorting, including hedging by bond holders. It is complicated, to say the least.
Short squeeze
Yes, I watched Galileo's video. We may or may not see a true short squeeze at TSLA, and I think we're less likely to see one than see one. It all depends upon the reason for TSLA rising. If in the Q2 delivery and production report Elon says that Tesla is producing 6K M3/wk heading quickly toward 8K/wk, has a sugar-daddy offering billions in money for CapX, and that Tesla is already profitable and will easily turn a profit for the whole year 2018, then it's off to the races and a short squeeze would likely happen. More likely, though, the good news will come in small enough chunks that we'll see a more spread-out rise of the SP, rather than a panic squeeze. Prepare yourself for either eventuality, however.
Aug/Sep Options
Zhelko speaks the truth. If you regularly bet your money on options with just enough time to give the desired result, you will inevitably get burned because trying to time rises in TSLA can be extremely difficult. Rule #1 in trading TSLA is "sugar" happens. What I suggest instead is to keep money in stocks and leaps that can be continually rolled forward and use only "money I can lose" for the shorter-term bets. I have broken my own rule and actually boiught a few Jul27 calls, but I did so understanding that they could become worthless. This is why they're only done with speculative money, not with core positions. The Aug/Sep options could well prove to be fabulous returns, but I suggest keeping your investment in them small enough so that when TSLA finally runs to Mars you are making a huge return and have not lost the ability by betting on too short a time period in your calls. On the other hand, I am presently leveraged in my TSLA investment because I think the probability is high that "the big one" is coming. I just want to be sure I don't miss it by buying calls that expire too soon.

 

[bdy0627]

I don't have the experience that papafox and zhelko have with options, but I wanted to point something out regarding options expiring in the next few months. You don't have to go high risk OTM with those to do very well if the stock goes up moderately. Sometimes, you may not want to pay for the extra time value of a LEAP when TSLA is dipping pretty hard and you are expecting a reverse and climb fairly soon. TSLA tends to do that when it dips. IMO, an excellent time to buy options expiring in 2-3 months is when the stock has dipped 20%+. This happens not infrequently with TSLA, so if you are patient, you are often offered this opportunity a few times per year. Buying ATM/ITM calls on dips tends to reward very well when the rest of the market is trying to get rid of them. For example, I recently priced some different calls and here is what I found:

If the stock hits $380 by August 10th:
AUG17 $320 call would yield 60%
SEP21 $350 call would yield 54%
J19 $350 would yield 46%
J20 $400 34%

If the stock manages $400 by Aug. 10th:
AUG17 $320 call would yield 110%
SEP21 $350 call would yield 106%
J19 $350 would yield 78%
J20 $400 55%

You do have to keep an eye on the time decay with the calls expiring in a few weeks. The reality though is that TSLA rarely stagnates. It's typically up and down 10%+ in a matter of a few trading days or at most a couple of weeks. Be particularly cautious with shorter term options when TSLA has run up 20%+. They are much higher risk in that situation. That's been my experience. Keep in mind you don't hang onto these calls for months, usually just a few weeks. LEAPs are different.

 

[Henchman]

I buy options when I want to gamble.
Its "Vegas " money.
I have about $1000 in 3xterme August 3rd calls at $425.

But then, I made $800 in the last 2 weeks buying and and selling August 17th calls at $425.
Bought at $8, sold at $12.
However, I have finally, also started buying stock itself.
I down plan on selling it until 10 years from now. And I'll be adding regularly to it for at least the next 5 years.