Papafox's Daily TSLA Trading Charts

[Sudre]

P

Now this just doesn't make sense to those of us who are more simple in our approach and is more of the confusion I asked about the other day. If yesterday the short selling was high and the stock price plummeted, but today the short selling is higher and the volume of shares traded was about half of yesterday, how does the price go up?

Percentage of selling is just that. Yesterday there was a VERY large number of shares traded. When the price was brought down to enough of an on-sale price the longs started buying shares hand over fist along with the shorts who were covering and making their fortunes for that day too. The shorts still maneuvered a LOT of shares to do that and they got lucky because the FUD worked so the price could easily drop because longs stood back for a while.

Today on the other hand longs thought about the FUD of yesterday and realized they were played for fools. The shorts figured this out and did not deploy that many dumps on the market.

For example:
If on a day like yesterday Tesla trades 20 million shares and 50% were shorts then the shorts moved 10 million shares. Quite a lot of money and a lot of shares. MORE shares than are typically bought by bulls on a normal day. Easy to drop the price.

On a normal trading day Tesla trades 8 million shares and if the shorts are at 60% then only 4.8 million shares are dumped. That's not really very much when longs are in a mood to buy 8+ million shares and most everyone else is holding tight.

It seems pretty clear to me.

 

[neroden]

There's nobody tracking the percentage of trades which are short covering. We have a somewhat inaccurate, but indicative, number tracking the percentage of trades which are sell-to-open (short opening position). We have NO tracking on percentage of trades which are buy-to-close.

 

[RABaby]

P

Percentage of selling is just that. Yesterday there was a VERY large number of shares traded. When the price was brought down to enough of an on-sale price the longs started buying shares hand over fist along with the shorts who were covering and making their fortunes for that day too. The shorts still maneuvered a LOT of shares to do that and they got lucky because the FUD worked so the price could easily drop because longs stood back for a while.

Today on the other hand longs thought about the FUD of yesterday and realized they were played for fools. The shorts figured this out and did not deploy that many dumps on the market.

For example:
If on a day like yesterday Tesla trades 20 million shares and 50% were shorts then the shorts moved 10 million shares. Quite a lot of money and a lot of shares. MORE shares than are typically bought by bulls on a normal day. Easy to drop the price.

On a normal trading day Tesla trades 8 million shares and if the shorts are at 60% then only 4.8 million shares are dumped. That's not really very much when longs are in a mood to buy 8+ million shares and most everyone else is holding tight.

It seems pretty clear to me.

It may seem clear to you, but your analysis is lacking.
The change in stock price compared to volumes of stock and reported shorting should have a logical relationship. The last two days does not and on the face of it, is in conflict with what has been reported along with the rationale, for some time. The fact that it is so glaringly in conflict makes it reasonable to call into question the analysis.

These are the last four days of trading:

Sep 14
Conditions:
* Dow up 9 (0.03%)
* NASDAQ down 4 (0.05%)
* TSLA 295.20, up 5.74 (1.98%)
* TSLA volume 6.8M shares
* Oil 68.99, up 0.40 (0.58%)
* Percent of TSLA selling by shorts: 54.88%

Sep 17
Conditions:
* Dow down 93 (0.35%)
* NASDAQ down 114 (1.43%)
* TSLA 294.84, down 0.36 (0.12%)
* TSLA volume 6.9M shares
* Oil 69.54, up 0.55 (0.80%)
* Percent of TSLA trading by shorts: 54.18%

Sept 18
Conditions:
* Dow up 185 (0.71%)
* NASDAQ up 60 (0.76%)
* TSLA 284.96, down 9.88 (3.35%)
* TSLA volume 16.0M shares
* Oil 69.54, up 0.55 (0.80%) note: this number was not updated from yesterday on oilprice.com
* Percent of TSLA selling by shorts: 61.91%

Sept 19
Conditions:
* Dow up 158 (0.61%)
* NASDAQ down 6 (0.08%)
* TSLA 299.02, up 14.06 (4.93%)
* TSLA volume 8.1M shares
* Oil 70.98, up 0.21 (0.30%)

Friday the trading was 6.8 million, the short selling was 54.88% and TSLA was up 1.98%
Monday the trading was 6.9 million, the short selling was 54.18% and TSLA was down 0.12%
Tuesday the trading was 16 million, the short selling was 61.91% and TSLA was down 3.35%
Today the trading was 8.1 million, the short selling was 63.15%, and TSLA was up 4.93%

Friday and Monday are essentially equal except for the change in stock price
If shorts drive the price down, then the higher short selling today should not have resulted in essentially an 8+% difference,

What your explanation offered was not reflective of the percentage of selling being more than half the volumes each day.
What papafox gets in data is only selling short but it is not a real number because each lot reported as short could have minimal shares actually sold sort but it is like how people who have a drop of Black blood are considered Black. If a number is going to represent shorting activity, the percentage matters. And to insist that the percentages reflect what is happening ignores reality.

Without knowing how many short sales were round trips or how many short positions were closed, the short activity being reported doesn't match up with the actual share price. Just look at the examples offered.

 

[mongo]

It may seem clear to you, but your analysis is lacking.
The change in stock price compared to volumes of stock and reported shorting should have a logical relationship. The last two days does not and on the face of it, is in conflict with what has been reported along with the rationale, for some time. The fact that it is so glaringly in conflict makes it reasonable to call into question the analysis.

These are the last four days of trading:

Sep 14
Conditions:
* Dow up 9 (0.03%)
* NASDAQ down 4 (0.05%)
* TSLA 295.20, up 5.74 (1.98%)
* TSLA volume 6.8M shares
* Oil 68.99, up 0.40 (0.58%)
* Percent of TSLA selling by shorts: 54.88%

Sep 17
Conditions:
* Dow down 93 (0.35%)
* NASDAQ down 114 (1.43%)
* TSLA 294.84, down 0.36 (0.12%)
* TSLA volume 6.9M shares
* Oil 69.54, up 0.55 (0.80%)
* Percent of TSLA trading by shorts: 54.18%

Sept 18
Conditions:
* Dow up 185 (0.71%)
* NASDAQ up 60 (0.76%)
* TSLA 284.96, down 9.88 (3.35%)
* TSLA volume 16.0M shares
* Oil 69.54, up 0.55 (0.80%) note: this number was not updated from yesterday on oilprice.com
* Percent of TSLA selling by shorts: 61.91%

Sept 19
Conditions:
* Dow up 158 (0.61%)
* NASDAQ down 6 (0.08%)
* TSLA 299.02, up 14.06 (4.93%)
* TSLA volume 8.1M shares
* Oil 70.98, up 0.21 (0.30%)

Friday the trading was 6.8 million, the short selling was 54.88% and TSLA was up 1.98%
Monday the trading was 6.9 million, the short selling was 54.18% and TSLA was down 0.12%
Tuesday the trading was 16 million, the short selling was 61.91% and TSLA was down 3.35%
Today the trading was 8.1 million, the short selling was 63.15%, and TSLA was up 4.93%

Friday and Monday are essentially equal except for the change in stock price
If shorts drive the price down, then the higher short selling today should not have resulted in essentially an 8+% difference,

What your explanation offered was not reflective of the percentage of selling being more than half the volumes each day.
What papafox gets in data is only selling short but it is not a real number because each lot reported as short could have minimal shares actually sold sort but it is like how people who have a drop of Black blood are considered Black. If a number is going to represent shorting activity, the percentage matters. And to insist that the percentages reflect what is happening ignores reality.

Without knowing how many short sales were round trips or how many short positions were closed, the short activity being reported doesn't match up with the actual share price. Just look at the examples offered.

The share price is the last transaction that occurred, not an average (weighted or otherwise). Shorts could sell 99% of the volume, but if the last 1% is longs driving the price up, it could be up for the day. Heck, if the last trade was up, the day is up, even if it was only one share. So % short trading doesn't correlate directly to overall daily movement direction.

Which is not to say shorts don't cause drips and drops during the day.

 

[RABaby]

The share price is the last transaction that occurred, not an average (weighted or otherwise). Shorts could sell 99% of the volume, but if the last 1% is longs driving the price up, it could be up for the day. Heck, if the last trade was up, the day is up, even if it was only one share. So % short trading doesn't correlate directly to overall daily movement direction.

Which is not to say shorts don't cause drips and drops during the day.

That is both obvious and ridiculous. When the share price is up or down by multiple percentage points at the end of the day in a heavily traded stock, and when you include the shorting activity, the share price is not changing significantly by just the last 1% of the trading activity.

Look at the references for the past four days. Look at the volumes and reported short selling.
Every explanation offered for the share price is an attempt to link specific events to the direction for the day.
Including the share percentage as some part of that explanation is the component of papafox's analysis that makes no sense at all. Everyone attempts to offer some silly explanation but there is no significant data that ties direction of the stock movement to the reported short selling. That is the point I am making. And if you look at your last statement, you have said as much. So challenging what I say when you are saying as much is what is ridiculous.

Exclude the shorting data that has no assurance of accuracy and we have no issue. Or, provide the accurate shorting data, and that would include the short shares that were covered. With that we have the data to make an accurate analysis. But of course that data is unavailable. So I say leave out the misleading shorting data now that we see it doesn't translate in accordance with the story told.

As presented, it is a speculative story that matches anything noticed by the storyteller who assigns a value to it in telling the story, whether it had anything to do with what transpired on the trading floor. When the shorting data is added and it doesn't add up, it seems the parts are altered to fit into position.

 

[mongo]

That is both obvious and ridiculous. When the share price is up or down by multiple percentage points at the end of the day in a heavily traded stock, and when you include the shorting activity, the share price is not changing significantly by just the last 1% of the trading activity.

Look at the references for the past four days. Look at the volumes and reported short selling.
Every explanation offered for the share price is an attempt to link specific events to the direction for the day.
Including the share percentage as some part of that explanation is the component of papafox's analysis that makes no sense at all. Everyone attempts to offer some silly explanation but there is no significant data that ties direction of the stock movement to the reported short selling. That is the point I am making. And if you look at your last statement, you have said as much. So challenging what I say when you are saying as much is what is ridiculous.

Exclude the shorting data that has no assurance of accuracy and we have no issue. Or, provide the accurate shorting data, and that would include the short shares that were covered. With that we have the data to make an accurate analysis. But of course that data is unavailable. So I say leave out the misleading shorting data now that we see it doesn't translate in accordance with the story told.

As presented, it is a speculative story that matches anything noticed by the storyteller who assigns a value to it in telling the story, whether it had anything to do with what transpired on the trading floor. When the shorting data is added and it doesn't add up, it seems the parts are altered to fit into position.

I'm not challenging you. I'm saying shorting percentage is loosely linked to stock price overal, and can sonetimes be tightly linked to specific fluctuations. As such, the shorting percentage is interesting as a qualitative indicator of behavior.

Yes, the last 1% of trading diesn't move SP ususlly, it was just an example. More typical: if a buyer puts in a large order at say 295, it takes a large amount of shorting to move the price below that point. If there is no large order, a small amount of shorting can drive the price down.

This thread is a narrative by @Papafox , not an exact forensic analysis.

 

[RABaby]

I'm not challenging you. I'm saying shorting percentage is loosely linked to stock price overal, and can sonetimes be tightly linked to specific fluctuations. As such, the shorting percentage is interesting as a qualitative indicator of behavior.

Yes, the last 1% of trading diesn't move SP ususlly, it was just an example. More typical: if a buyer puts in a large order at say 295, it takes a large amount of shorting to move the price below that point. If there is no large order, a small amount of shorting can drive the price down.

This thread is a narrative by @Papafox , not an exact forensic analysis.

Those who have responded seem to have missed my point. Papafox discovered that short percentages he reports turn out to not be real percentages. The numbers come from batches and if there are any short sales in the batch, they are counted as shorts. There is no consistency in the actual shorting percentages in each batch and collectively the shorting percentage is meaningless. If it were accurate, that would be something different and very useful. Still, even that data, if we assume for arguments sake that it is accurate, has no value in and by itself because we don't know how many short sales were covered.

If there are 60% short sales reported for the trading day, 59% could have been covered. Or 80% of transactions could have been he closing of short sales so that the end result is no new numbers added to the shorts but 20% of the trades were towards reducing the number. Without all the data it is all speculation.

The twice a month short sale reports are all we have to make sense of the activity for the previous period of time. The daily speculation about the effect of shorting is of little value. The numbers reported aren't real and therefore don't reveal anything. The more accurate daily data is reflected in charts that show volume and direction.

This discussion is not intended to create a rift in any way. It was a question I asked of papafox in an attempt to make sense of data offered that did not seem to logically fit into the story. This is his thread. When others inject their interpretation and it doesn't answer the basic question, it does not suffice as an explanation for what papafox thinks. I want to know what HE thinks. He answered once, but it didn't give me the clarity I sought and these last two trading days I felt illustrated the problem I had with the shorting data, so I want to know what he thinks about it. If he has a different explanation, it might make sense. Or not. Either way it is unlikely that it will change anything for anyone.

 

[jeewee3000]

Those who have responded seem to have missed my point. Papafox discovered that short percentages he reports turn out to not be real percentages. The numbers come from batches and if there are any short sales in the batch, they are counted as shorts. There is no consistency in the actual shorting percentages in each batch and collectively the shorting percentage is meaningless. If it were accurate, that would be something different and very useful. Still, even that data, if we assume for arguments sake that it is accurate, has no value in and by itself because we don't know how many short sales were covered.

If there are 60% short sales reported for the trading day, 59% could have been covered. Or 80% of transactions could have been he closing of short sales so that the end result is no new numbers added to the shorts but 20% of the trades were towards reducing the number. Without all the data it is all speculation.

The twice a month short sale reports are all we have to make sense of the activity for the previous period of time. The daily speculation about the effect of shorting is of little value. The numbers reported aren't real and therefore don't reveal anything. The more accurate daily data is reflected in charts that show volume and direction.

This discussion is not intended to create a rift in any way. It was a question I asked of papafox in an attempt to make sense of data offered that did not seem to logically fit into the story. This is his thread. When others inject their interpretation and it doesn't answer the basic question, it does not suffice as an explanation for what papafox thinks. I want to know what HE thinks. He answered once, but it didn't give me the clarity I sought and these last two trading days I felt illustrated the problem I had with the shorting data, so I want to know what he thinks about it. If he has a different explanation, it might make sense. Or not. Either way it is unlikely that it will change anything for anyone.

Your remarks regarding the short selling % data has been made before in this very same thread. The community agreed the data is not too reliable and should not be quoted but Papafox chose to leave the data in his posts, with support from the majority following this thread.

If you don't get any value out of that data, ignore it.

Now let's stop filling this thread with walls of text that everybody skips over just to find the most recent Papafox post.

Thank you.

 

[adiggs]

I am one of the people who have asked about the short sell % @RABaby in the past, and have also participated a little bit in the research, trying to figure out specifically what it means, what actually is reported, (by who), and when. From all of that I have 3 observations.

1) is that you clearly have interest - you need to do some or a lot of the reading of the primary sources. One thing you should have clearly figured out from the conversation so far, is that the real and simple answer is "nobody really knows". This is one of those subjects where you really have to dig in yourself. There will be links further back to some of the nether places you will visit trying to track this down. At least some of the stuff I found came from straightforward searches I did. (If I had any of the links or the places in those threads that had some of the useful info, I'd add those here to help you get started).

Not just for the obvious reason, but because:
2) at least for me, as I learned about short selling information, as somebody who works professionally as a data geek, it started feeling more and more like information that is intentionally delayed, obfuscated, and in some cases - not at all available until sometime in the last 5ish years. Or to extend the quote from above "nobody really knows, and that's by design".

3) As you learn about what's available, and the terminology that applies, you'll also start thinking of forms you might make short information available at minimum after market close, and maybe even real-time. I suspect real-time isn't possible due to some of the latency hidden away behind the scenes, and covered over by market makers to our benefit (and their's ).


One thing that has changed in the 5 years I've been following Tesla - when I first started following, the only short activity information we had was the 2x/month report on a 1/2 month delay, of the outstanding shares short. For some reason it includes Day to Cover, dividing short shares by avg daily volume -- as if there could possibly be a single day where every share purchased was used to cover a short share. That sounds to me like a metric the shorts like to have being shown.

So having ANY information on a daily basis about short activity that day is a miraculous jump forward, even if its presented in a way to make it meaningless to the other piece of short activity we have. Wouldn't want the two metrics to be related, now would we!

 

[Papafox]

Those who have responded seem to have missed my point. Papafox discovered that short percentages he reports turn out to not be real percentages. The numbers come from batches and if there are any short sales in the batch, they are counted as shorts. There is no consistency in the actual shorting percentages in each batch and collectively the shorting percentage is meaningless. If it were accurate, that would be something different and very useful. Still, even that data, if we assume for arguments sake that it is accurate, has no value in and by itself because we don't know how many short sales were covered.

If there are 60% short sales reported for the trading day, 59% could have been covered. Or 80% of transactions could have been he closing of short sales so that the end result is no new numbers added to the shorts but 20% of the trades were towards reducing the number. Without all the data it is all speculation.

The twice a month short sale reports are all we have to make sense of the activity for the previous period of time. The daily speculation about the effect of shorting is of little value. The numbers reported aren't real and therefore don't reveal anything. The more accurate daily data is reflected in charts that show volume and direction.

This discussion is not intended to create a rift in any way. It was a question I asked of papafox in an attempt to make sense of data offered that did not seem to logically fit into the story. This is his thread. When others inject their interpretation and it doesn't answer the basic question, it does not suffice as an explanation for what papafox thinks. I want to know what HE thinks. He answered once, but it didn't give me the clarity I sought and these last two trading days I felt illustrated the problem I had with the shorting data, so I want to know what he thinks about it. If he has a different explanation, it might make sense. Or not. Either way it is unlikely that it will change anything for anyone.

RABaby, let me try to address some of your points. First, let's differentiate between the effects of short interest and short volume.

Short interest: This is a percentage of the float that is controlled by shorts. When short interest increases, there is direct selling pressure on TSLA. The more selling (by longs or shorts), the quicker you exhaust the supply of buyers at each price point and the quicker the stock price falls. NASDAQ lists short interest twice a month, as you say, but there's one other source of reliable short interest and that's Ihor Dusaniwsky. He makes a living tracking the change in short interest in certain stocks like TSLA and he sells the data he creates. He also publishes graphs on Twitter which are extremely useful for detecting trends in whether the shorts are accumulating or covering.

Short percentage of selling. This is the percentage of selling that is tagged "short" on the ticker. If there's a batch of sales and one is short, the batch is tagged "short", so there is some exaggeration in the number. This exaggeration doesn't remove the value of the number to us, however. Those of us who study TSLA daily know that when the short percentage of selling is in high 50s and anywhere in the 60s, the manipulations of short-sellers are much easier to recognize and typically have a greater negative impact on the stock price. Conversely, when the short percentage of selling is in the 30s or low 40s, the manipulations by the shorts tend to be pretty benign. Consider a high percentage of selling by shorts to be a headwind to TSLA, an indirect rather than direct cause for the stock price to fall.

For the sake of argument, let's assume that short interest did not change on Sept 18 and Sept 19, but on both days the short-selling and short-covering was a wash. Does this mean that shorts played no part in influencing whether TSLA rose or fell? No. On both days we had short percentage of selling of over 60%, which tells me that there was a good amount of churning of the stock by shorts (selling and buying, selling and buying) to cause this number to be so high. One technique used by shorts is to unload lots of shares quickly to start a downtrend. Trust me, if you sell 20,000 shares in one minute at the right time of day, the market notices. Bots think there must be something bad that just happened and they start selling. Weak longs get nervous and start selling. Maybe the SP is low enough to trigger some stop-loss sales by longs. A lot can happen when the market sees lots of selling all of a sudden. By the time the SP has stabilized, the short who sold that 20,000 shares can start buying back (covering) at the lower price. He might buy 2,000 shares a minute for 10 minutes to cover, or he might buy 200 shares a minute for 100 minutes to cover. In the end, short interest has not changed, but by creative timing of selling and then covering, this short has simultaneously made some money and pushed the SP down. You might argue that his selling 20,000 shares and then buying back 20,000 shares is a wash and the SP should not be affected, but when he sold the 20,000 shares he cause another 15,000-30,000 shares to also be sold by others because of the messages his selling technique put out. The more of this creative selling and covering, the more indirect pressure is placed on the stock price. Note that when longs are feeling dread about the future, these techniques work well, and when longs are feeling strong and looking forward to the coming month, the techniques don't work very well.

On Sept 18, many longs were feeling dread because the whole Elon is in trouble mindset was reactivated by the Bloomberg article that exaggerated the gravity of what the DOJ was doing. It was a nice setup for short manipulations pushing the SP down even farther than it would naturally fall by just longs selling the news. We saw volume of about 16 million shares and lots of sharp downward thrusts followed by immediate near-recoveries that suggest shorts were pushing the SP down and the longs were pushing it back up with buying but not enough to make up for the downs. In time we learned from Tesla that the company was never subpoenaed by the DOJ, there were no interviews, there was just a request for documents that Tesla willingly turned over and there was a statement from a Tesla spokesman that they thought this matter could be cleared up quickly. Before the day was through, TSLA recovered about half of what it lost shortly after the Bloomberg article was released.

On Sept 19, the longs were in a different mindset and the stock was being offered at a sale price (compared to the previous morning).Once a nice climb into the green began after 10:30am or so, traders figured the market had overreacted yesterday and buyers materialized the whole day to push TSLA higher. If volume was about 8 million shares, why didn't the shorts just do the same level of manipulative selling and covering as the day before and really punish the stock? The answer is that the only way for shorts to churn shares and avoid increasing the short interest (assume they themselves do not wish to get in any deeper with long-term shorting of TSLA) the only way you can buy shares to cover and not increase short interest is to buy those shares from a long. Thus, there's a practical maximum percentage of selling by shorts. I think I remember seeing 67% one day, but that's about as high as it goes.

What I do on this thread is an inexact science. I cannot tell you the exact percentage of shorts doing the selling when FINRA says 60% of selling is by shorts, but I can tell you that TSLA is flying into a headwind that day because the shorts are trading in a fashion to reduce the size of rallies and exaggerate the troughs. On a day such as Sept 19 when I see the SP rising by 13 or more dollars, I expect the percentage of selling to be down for shorts because it is generally unprofitable to be short-selling and later covering when the SP is rising. I was rather amazed at the 63% selling by shorts figure. Those manipulators lost a ton of money today and I suspect they're about to cut their losses pretty soon and we'll see the percent of shorting number start to fall down into the 50s again. As the headwind lightens, the progress for us longs improves. If TSLA could rise this much on a day with 63% selling by shorts, what will it do on another day with only 53% of selling by shorts? Doing well on a day with high percentage of selling by shorts is bullish because soon the headwind will dissipate if history repeats itself. The actions of the shorts, whether it is direct downward pressure as they jump in and increase short interest or indirect pressure as they manipulate, is a prime reason this stock often dips to the lower bollinger band once it starts a downtrend. The tendency of this stock to run up to the upper bollinger band (and sometimes tow the upper-bb much higher) when it is in a rally, is also hugely affected by the shorts, who will either decrease percentage of selling (manipulations) on an established uptrend or cover and thereby directly influence the rise of the SP. My point in mentioning all these things in my daily summaries is to bring the influences of the shorts into the big picture for trading TSLA. Few stocks see such high concentrations of shorts, and fewer still see such flagrant manipulations. We're a bit in uncharted territory trading this stock and my thread is an attempt to understand what's going on so that you and I can trade better.

 

[Sudre]

It may seem clear to you, but your analysis is lacking.
The change in stock price compared to volumes of stock and reported shorting should have a logical relationship. The last two days does not and on the face of it, is in conflict with what has been reported along with the rationale, for some time. The fact that it is so glaringly in conflict makes it reasonable to call into question the analysis.

These are the last four days of trading:

Sep 14
Conditions:
* Dow up 9 (0.03%)
* NASDAQ down 4 (0.05%)
* TSLA 295.20, up 5.74 (1.98%)
* TSLA volume 6.8M shares
* Oil 68.99, up 0.40 (0.58%)
* Percent of TSLA selling by shorts: 54.88%

Sep 17
Conditions:
* Dow down 93 (0.35%)
* NASDAQ down 114 (1.43%)
* TSLA 294.84, down 0.36 (0.12%)
* TSLA volume 6.9M shares
* Oil 69.54, up 0.55 (0.80%)
* Percent of TSLA trading by shorts: 54.18%

Sept 18
Conditions:
* Dow up 185 (0.71%)
* NASDAQ up 60 (0.76%)
* TSLA 284.96, down 9.88 (3.35%)
* TSLA volume 16.0M shares
* Oil 69.54, up 0.55 (0.80%) note: this number was not updated from yesterday on oilprice.com
* Percent of TSLA selling by shorts: 61.91%

Sept 19
Conditions:
* Dow up 158 (0.61%)
* NASDAQ down 6 (0.08%)
* TSLA 299.02, up 14.06 (4.93%)
* TSLA volume 8.1M shares
* Oil 70.98, up 0.21 (0.30%)

Friday the trading was 6.8 million, the short selling was 54.88% and TSLA was up 1.98%
Monday the trading was 6.9 million, the short selling was 54.18% and TSLA was down 0.12%
Tuesday the trading was 16 million, the short selling was 61.91% and TSLA was down 3.35%
Today the trading was 8.1 million, the short selling was 63.15%, and TSLA was up 4.93%

Friday and Monday are essentially equal except for the change in stock price
If shorts drive the price down, then the higher short selling today should not have resulted in essentially an 8+% difference,

What your explanation offered was not reflective of the percentage of selling being more than half the volumes each day.
What papafox gets in data is only selling short but it is not a real number because each lot reported as short could have minimal shares actually sold sort but it is like how people who have a drop of Black blood are considered Black. If a number is going to represent shorting activity, the percentage matters. And to insist that the percentages reflect what is happening ignores reality.

Without knowing how many short sales were round trips or how many short positions were closed, the short activity being reported doesn't match up with the actual share price. Just look at the examples offered.

I would suggest you stop trading TSLA. You did not list ANY news of the day. How do you trade anything sucsesfully?No stock trades on air. TSLA is amplified by shorts not controlled.

 

[neroden]

Every explanation offered for the share price is an attempt to link specific events to the direction for the day.

I've said before, many times, that it usually doesn't make sense to claim that a specific event caused a day's stock price movement. It's often noise.

That said, Papafox has documented the "mandatory morning dip", and we have real evidence that it's generated by short-sellers every day.

The percentage of trades which are sell-to-open is a useful indicator, though not on a day-to-day basis, and not as an absolute value. I keep track of whether it's at a relative high or a relative low, and it has some use for seeing how much "real" selling activity there is.

 

[dmckinstry]

The share price is the last transaction that occurred, not an average (weighted or otherwise). Shorts could sell 99% of the volume, but if the last 1% is longs driving the price up, it could be up for the day. Heck, if the last trade was up, the day is up, even if it was only one share. So % short trading doesn't correlate directly to overall daily movement direction.

Which is not to say shorts don't cause drips and drops during the day.

So, if one could time it perfectly and put a buy limit of $500 at the last second it's
possible to drive the end of day price to $500, even if it's been trading below $300 all day.

 

[ggr]

So, if one could time it perfectly and put a buy limit of $500 at the last second it's
possible to drive the end of day price to $500, even if it's been trading below $300 all day.

Yes, if you're prepared to eat the instantaneous loss a few seconds later.

 

[mongo]

So, if one could time it perfectly and put a buy limit of $500 at the last second it's
possible to drive the end of day price to $500, even if it's been trading below $300 all day.

Yes, if you're prepared to eat the instantaneous loss a few seconds later.

And you can buy enough to burn though the ask list.
It works better for shorts since people set stop loss limit sell order ahead of time, so the large sell order gets magnified if it hits those triggers. Then they can buy back at the new lower price, sometimes.

 

[neroden]

And you can buy enough to burn though the ask list.
It works better for shorts since people set stop loss limit sell order ahead of time, so the large sell order gets magnified if it hits those triggers. Then they can buy back at the new lower price, sometimes.

Stop loss orders are invitations for trouble. They really are just an invitation for market manipulators to take your money. It's unfortunate that people still use them.

 

[Papafox]

Today was a day with positive news, with strong macro environment, and with strong manipulations. Volume was light to moderate. The moral of the story is don't bet your life savings on weeklies, because days like today will happen when certain forces have a very strong motivation to hold the stock price down for a few days.

We know that shorts wish to keep TSLA from rallying significantly prior to the Q3 production and delivery numbers. Another faction involved this week are the entities that sold a ton of $300 calls that expire on Friday. Between the two forces, there's incentive to hold the SP below $300 this week.

Notice one difference between today's trading and yesterday's was the rise and fall of the SP today that enabled the manipulators to make money. Those shorts who walked the SP down from 10am until 11am had a nice opportunity to exit with a profit and then make a profit again walking the SP down at 12:50pm and 3:15pm. A day that begins with TSLA way up and then ends with it lower is a great setup for the manipulators. This profitable manipulation opportunity today likely explains the ability of the shorts to manipulate the entire day without running out of ammo.

The day began with pre-market trading pushing $305, and much of this excitement was generated by the 5-star safety rating in every category that Model 3 just earned. Musk was tweeting that he is curious to see if Model 3 becomes the vehicle with the highest safety rating ever when additional stats are released on the testing. The significance of the safety ratings is that Tesla is beating the pants off the legacy car makers in virtually everything but purchase price.

Consider:
* Teslas makes the best vehicles on the market when it comes to crashworthiness
* Teslas have more electronic driving assist features than anyone else's vehicles that aid in additional safety and reduction in fatigue and stress
* With their handling and acceleration, Teslas are giving drivers the joys of high-end sport performance cars for a fraction of the cost
* With energy costs/mi that are 75-80% less than traditional ICE vehicles plus a lack of maintenance compared to ICE, Teslas have the best cost to operate once the initial purchase is completed, and declining battery costs will eventually bring 200 mile EVs to the same purchase cost point as ICE vehicles.
* Teslas are equipped with the hardware that enables owners to upgrade to features such as autopilot and full self driver later, if the owner desires.

The bottom line is that when you add the 5-star crashworthiness of Tesla's Model 3 to its already attractive attributes, you get a vehicle that will be easy to sell for many years coming.

Nonetheless, Tesla dipped well into the red a bit after 11am. Notice the icicle-shaped curves on the chart, which are a characteristic of short-selling manipulations. Longs were more than happy to buy these dips and TSLA kept recovering either to the red/green line or into the green throughout the day. Consider the afternoon one big whack-the-mole game. By 3pm, TSLA was climbing well, and this is about the time of day when shorts run out of ammo and the stock gets away from them. I think because of the $300 calls that need to be protected on Friday plus the profitability of manipulating a stock that begins the day high and ends the day lower, the shorts were willing to continue the battle until the closing bell.

Tomorrow we should see some additional speculation of good news on quantity of deliveries from InsideEV, and with so many preformance M3s being delivered, estimates of average selling price of M3 keep rising. Don't let the manipulations distract you from the really substantial news that is coming out. Word that Tesla VP of supply chain management Liam O'Connor has left Tesla came out in after-hours but made little difference so far in trading. Expect tomorrow to be a tug-of-war between the media's obsession with departing executives and Tesla's very strong showing with so many aspects of truly disrupting the automotive business.The two extremes are really at the heart of the Elon Musk as CEO debate. The media doesn't want to see too much emphasis on the remarkable achievements of Tesla right now because they undermine the seemingly-perpetual discussion of whether this latest development (the departure of a VP) means that Elon is unworthy for the job. It's a dirty business and I think the 3Q results in less than 2 weeks will substantially change the equation for the better.

Percentage of TSLA selling by shorts was 62.24% today. Ironically, the good news about 5-Star Safety for Model 3 elevated the stock early, which led to a desirable setup for manipulations

Conditions:
* Dow up 251 (0.95%)
* NASDAQ up 78 (0.98%)
* TSLA 298.33, down 0.69 (0.23%)
* TSLA volume 7.3M shares
* Oil 70.19, down 0.13 (0.18%)
* Percent of TSLA selling by shorts: 62.24%

 

[gora321]

This was Europe trading (Tradegate exchange) with dip approx 450k.
To calibrate time: 9:30AM (US)=15:30 (EU).
Sometimes I see a dip with no volume and I just need to find out on which stock exchange was volume executed. I'm thinking that EU volume/dip created also Nasdaq dip at 11:30.

 

[Papafox]

To sum up today's TSLA trading, it was an unusually low-volume day with both shorts and longs holding their positions. As I stated yesterday, someone had sold a sugar-load of 300 strike calls that expired today and they were determined to cap as necessary to keep the SP under 300. We can see from the opening and closing of market trading that buyers were out there and willing to pay $300 a share, but with two days in a row of $300 capping, there was no panic to buy this week. We once again had a day of whack-the-mole.

Notice that today as with most days in the past few weeks, purchasing TSLA before 10:30am has been a bad idea. The MMD usually bottoms out by 10:30am and that has typically been the time to buy. At some point next week we are likely to see upward pressure on the SP and the MMD could easily fail (and make buying earlier a reasonable endeavor) but while longs and shorts are in this stalemate in the vicinity of 300, the rule has proven useful. The other problem with the SP running too high too early in the day is that you have a setup such as yesterday's where pulling the SP down as the day progresses and as volume decreases is an attractive setup for short manipulators.

Shorts did 62.13% of TSLA selling today, very close to yesterday's
In order to keep TSLA under 300 today, the sellers of the 300 strike calls that expired today would prefer to cap the SP with churning of shares which does not increase their particular short positions but does limit the climb. Since it's really hard to bring the percent of selling by shorts too high into the 60s, I suspect that the sellers of the 300s that expired today would shift from churning to straight selling if need be. We saw about 450,000 shares traded in first and last minute of the day, which suggests lots of prep for and recovery from churning today. I'm hoping Ihor Dusaniwsky gives us a picture of net change in short interest for today someday soon so that we can ascertain if the capping was successful on churning alone. There was no real reason why shorts would be increasing short interest today, otherwise.

Next week will be the last full week of trading before the 3Q production and delivery report (likely to be on Tuesday, Oct 2) and so longs will be more impatient to get in (and some shorts ready to get out) prior to report week. The type of trading we saw on Thursday and Friday would likely not be possible next Thursday and Friday as volume and volatility will be picking up. I'm giving a WAG of 310 as the price leading into the Q3 production and delivery report, but that's only an approximate guess. If the numbers are good, we go up from there. If the numbers are really good, then the upper bollinger band would not be a constraint initially and we could instead see another rise where the upper-bb is playing catch-up with the SP.

The biggest piece of potentially negative news out there right now is that the Bloomberg Model 3 tracker is showing declining M3 production in recent weeks and 3434 as the current production rate. It's possible that there could be a supplier constraint at the moment, and so it pays to keep abreast of production estimates. This dip won't significantly hurt Q3 production and delivery numbers, though, since we're not much more than a week away from the Q3 numbers and there is no Q and A in the report. By the time we get to the Q3 ER, whatever dip in production might exist would likely be long gone. OTOH, if the production numbers were really bad, I suspect skabooshka would jump back into the reporting business, and that has not happened. Then there's this article from electrek.co today which says that Tesla achieved its highest daily M3 output to date and also about 4400 Model 3s/week last week but on Sunday production dipped. I translate these results into Tesla having the ability to output above the 6K/wk pace at the factory but there's some temporary bottleneck other than pure production issues that's currently preventing them from doing so on a regular basis. My guess would be a supplier constraint. In any event, the emphasis next week will likely be on speculation about Q3 numbers rather than looking too closely to current output.

Looking at the tech chart, you can see that the uptrend is still alive, though it has leveled momentarily during the Thursday and Friday capping below 300. I expect to see resumed climbing next week as positioning for the Q3 delivery and production numbers takes place in earnest.

For the week, TSLA closed at 299.10, up 4.90 from last Friday's 295.20. Enjoy your weekend, we're getting close to game time.

Conditions:
* Dow up 87 (0.32%)
* NASDAQ down 41 (0.51%)
* TSLA 299.10, up 0.77 (0.26%)
* TSLA volume 4.6M shares
* Oil 70.82, up 0.50 (0.71%)
* Percent of TSLA selling by shorts: 62.13%

 

[JeffreyY]

The supplier limitation may be a correct call given the article that the head of supply chain is departing.