Papafox's Daily TSLA Trading Charts

[Papafox]

Today was a surprise to me. With yesterday's after-hours trading, I suspected the market was ready to bid TSLA up today, not down. Looking at today's pre-market trading, you can see a willingness to push TSLA higher, but there was no strong buying going on and shorts were able to turn a meager green open into a dip in short order. Judging from the clear icicle patterns, I suspect the shorts threw lots of resources at TSLA today. As for the short percentage of TSLA selling, I have a really hard time believing it was a mere 51% when looking at the shape of the trading chart. Just look at all those icicles. The aim of the shorts is clear: to establish a downtrend and throw whatever resources into the endeavor as necessary. Judging from the end of market trading today, however, it looks like they are having a hard time holding onto their dip. Also, looking at after-hours trading, you can see what appears to be an attempt shortly after after-hours begins to suggest that the rise into close was an oddity, but after-hours was turbulent and finally closed at almost exactly market close. Macros were very good today, which also suggests there was more shorting today than the volumebot.com chart suggests.

Shorts did 50.92% of TSLA selling today according to volumebot.com, but personally I believe they did a relatively higher percentage and used non-FINRA exchanges to hide their significant efforts.

Looking at the technical chart, you can see we're still above the mid bollinger-band, and so the upper-bb continues to rise, which is good.

By now, I had expected bullish analysts to begin talking about the very substantial positive cash flow that will be generated in Q3 from these production and delivery numbers. No such report has surfaced yet, which suggests a partial explanation for why the stock price hasn't yet turned around. I'm just grateful that Elon settled with the SEC because there is no outstanding reason for a dread felt by longs and the downward movement should be broken soon enough. I cringe when I think of what the shorts would have had in mind if the SEC settlement was not in place, however. Better days lay ahead.

Conditions:
* Dow up 54 (0.20%)
* NASDAQ up 26 (0.32%)
* TSLA 294.80, down 6.22 (2.07%)
* TSLA volume 7.9M shares
* Oil 76.18, down 0.23 (0.30%)

 

[generalenthu]

This actually reinforces my belief that it's not the shorts, but all the short FUD keeping the potential longs away.

The narrative in the analyst community has to change. I feel until fresh money comes in, we're not going to move, and I don't see fresh cash coming in.

 

[Papafox]

This actually reinforces my belief that it's not the shorts, but all the short FUD keeping the potential longs away.

The narrative in the analyst community has to change. I feel until fresh money comes in, we're not going to move, and I don't see fresh cash coming in.

There'll be fresh cash if the 3QER shows 700 million improvement in Tesla's cash position over the quarter. I'm really surprised that the analysts are not sharing their expectations. Perhaps they're sharing with their preferred clients and hoping for a dip and another chance to buy prior to the ER.

Keep in mind, though, the differences in TSLA behavior on days when the uptick rule is in effect compared to days such as today. It is night and day, which suggests to me that the manipulations really do have a substantial effect most days.

 

[oneday]

View attachment 340536used non-FINRA exchanges to hide their significant efforts.

How much volume goes through non-FINRA exchanges. Is this tracked anywhere that you know of?

This actually reinforces my belief that it's not the shorts, but all the short FUD keeping the potential longs away.

The narrative in the analyst community has to change. I feel until fresh money comes in, we're not going to move, and I don't see fresh cash coming in.

Every single article on my Apple stock app on Tesla was negative today. Every single one. And it’s like this almost every day. It’s quite impressive in a really sad, make me really mad, feeling really bad for Tesla employees kind of way.

If I was an outsider, I don’t see anyway I would be able to pull the trigger on a TSLA investment with the current media sh!tstorm.

 

[generalenthu]

There'll be fresh cash if the 3QER shows 700 million improvement in Tesla's cash position over the quarter. I'm really surprised that the analysts are not sharing their expectations. Perhaps they're sharing with their preferred clients and hoping for a dip and another chance to buy prior to the ER.

Keep in mind, though, the differences in TSLA behavior on days when the uptick rule is in effect compared to days such as today. It is night and day, which suggests to me that the manipulations really do have a substantial effect most days.

The narrative will be it's a one time thing. Or it will be a scratch because payables also went up.

I think, a couple of gaap profitable quarters are needed to shut up the naysayers.

A more simplistic theory is Tesla and TSLA fans are getting out of TSLA to get into their Tesla. So Tesla should slow down deliveries. Nah.. Just kidding.

 

[srius]

Analysts might not be so confident on a large positive cash flow from the delivery numbers alone. The best possible short-term catalyst is an earnings pre-announcement. Turning cash flow positive and being profitable are significant enough for a pre-announcement.
It's puzzling why Tesla needs to detail China related difficulties in the production statement. It would have been a very positive news just saying Tesla is accelerating construction of the Shanghai GF. If there is such a need for a leading set-up, China's accelerated EV adoption would be sufficient. It's an invitation for attacks to list all sort of difficulties and a solution that won't come until 2~3 years later. Then again, it wouldn't be Tesla if it doesn't find a way to shoot itself in the foot,

 

[EarlyAdopter]

Analysts might not be so confident on a large positive cash flow from the delivery numbers alone. The best possible short-term catalyst is an earnings pre-announcement. Turning cash flow positive and being profitable are significant enough for a pre-announcement.

If I recall correctly, the last two times Tesla had a profitable quarter, they preannounced, but it was several days after the end of the quarter. It takes a few days longer to close the books than count the cars. I suspect we're in for a treat in just another day or two. Tick tock.. tick tock...

 

[Fact Checking]

If I recall correctly, the last two times Tesla had a profitable quarter, they preannounced, but it was several days after the end of the quarter. It takes a few days longer to close the books than count the cars. I suspect we're in for a treat in just another day or two. Tick tock.. tick tock...

That's interesting, in what form did they preannounce profitability, press release also filed as an 8-K?

 

[Waiting4M3]

Q1 2013, Tesla guided GAAP and non-GAAP profit on 3/31/2013 in 8K
http://ir.tesla.com/static-files/4d58cf5c-d10d-4b96-80bb-ed2af411cb10

I don't remember seeing them guiding Q3 2016 profit.

 

[mongo]

Q1 2013, Tesla guided GAAP and non-GAAP profit on 3/31/2013 in 8K
http://ir.tesla.com/static-files/4d58cf5c-d10d-4b96-80bb-ed2af411cb10

I don't remember seeing them guiding Q3 2016 profit.

Agreed, not relevant 8-K fillings in September of 2016.

Only predictor was the pie-in-face memo...
Elon Musk wants to ‘throw a pie in the face of all naysayers on Wall Street’, aims for positive cash flow in Q3

Which is similar to the recent note:
Tesla is 'very close' to profitability, says Musk: 'If we go all out, we will achieve an epic victory'

 

[EarlyAdopter]

That's interesting, in what form did they preannounce profitability, press release also filed as an 8-K?

Ok, doing my due diligence here.

The first time around, in 2013, it was a press release amending guidance for the quarter, a tweet a day later referring to the press release, and a call with press and analysts a day after that, on April 2, 2013.

Though, the timing that first time around was really tight, right at the end of the quarter to two days after. Then again, their finances were much simpler back then.

The second time around, October 2016, there was no preannouncement or mention in the delivery report. It was a surprise in the earnings release on October 26, 2016.

This time around, digging back through the Q3 2018 delivery report, there is a line I hadn't seen reported on stating that "Our net income and cash flow results will be announced along with the rest of our financial performance when we announce Q3 earnings."

Parse that as you will, but I think they meant "when we release Q3 earnings." So, no preannouncement this time. :-/ Going to have to wait it out a few more weeks.

 

[neroden]

This actually reinforces my belief that it's not the shorts, but all the short FUD keeping the potential longs away.

The narrative in the analyst community has to change. I feel until fresh money comes in, we're not going to move, and I don't see fresh cash coming in.

Oh, there'll be fresh cash coming in. When? At the latest, when Tesla is added to the S&P 500, which will most likely happen after Q1 financials come out; at the latest after Q2 financials come out.

If I were to guess, I'd guess Tesla will be added to the S&P 500 next May.

 

[Papafox]

Today was a big negative macro day and TSLA followed the NASDAQ down in typical multiplied fashion. Adding to the troubles during the day was a tweet from Foxnews's Gasparino about another SEC investigation which is still ongoing and a ConsumerReports verdict that Cadillac's self-driving is best on the road at the moment (they haven't seen V9 yet, though).. The SEC's second investigation wasn't that big a threat, in my opinion, but it led to more trouble in after-hours trading. I was once again encouraged by the upswing going into close, but with this type of a a deep dip, we weren't out of the woods yet.

The NASDAQ led TSLA and other tech stocks down today NASDAQ was off 1.81%

Percent of selling by TSLA shorts jumped up to 59.6% today

With the stock still falling, it's important to keep an eye on the lower bollinger band, which stands at 267.18. Let's hope we don't spend more than a day below that level if the downtrend continues.

The reason the downtrend has more punch left in it is the usual reason why TSLA takes a big dip these days, which is an Elon tweet. Not only is it a really bad idea to taunt the SEC (no matter what you think of them), but Elon's tweet demonstrates that Tesla's board has yet to put in place a mechanism for vetting Elon tweets that have to do with Tesla. Keep the seatbelt snug for tomorrow. We know Q3 ER is going to be good. Looking forward to bottoming out so that we can position for that event and then get back to building great cars and talking about them. Excuse me now, I'm searching the sofa for fallen change. The buying opportunity at the bottom is going to be just too good to pass up.

Conditions:
* Dow down 201 (0.75%)
* NASDAQ down 146 (1.81%)
* TSLA 281.83, down 12.97 (4.40%)
* TSLA volume 9.2M shares
* Oil 74.75, up 0.42 (0.57%)
* Percent of TSLA selling by shorts: 59.6%

 

[Gifford 3]

The short burn of the century in turn is burning on weak longs.

 

[Stormy]

Man, that tweet made me so happy.

I was so incredibly disappointed when Elon took that settlement -- despite the SP upside -- and now it seems like he's still fighting. =D
The settlement doesn't make any sense to me. Either you're right and you fight for it, or you're wrong and you settle. Honour would demand Elon fight. His reputation demands it too. Those are the principles that I see him making decisions based on. The only reason I could come up with was that he did it to remove the wet blanket from the coming good news. But that would only be necessary if Tesla needs to raise capital. He wouldn't do it for short-term shareholder value; he doesn't think short term.

So now I'm trying to figure out what 'still fighting' means... assuming he has a plan. My first thought is he's hoping the agreement is rejected so he can take the SEC on in court. I'm sure he can make that happen with this joint letter.
My next thought was further out there - maybe he's got some kind of play to still go private. That would both be vindication from the SEC charges and take care of the short problem.
Finally, there's a crazy idea of actually suing some spreaders of misinformation, but that seems unlikely, since he's been lamenting shortsellers for ages, and this doesnt sound any different.

In any case, his tweets make it sound like he has a plan. ("Hang in there, it will be fine.") And I'm super excited to see what it is. I can't see him losing anything but time in court. Fraud with intent seems really challenging to prove here. And going private would be the best thing for Tesla right now, even if not for some of us.

The next few days will be a rollercoaster. The media will be brutal as ever. But I can only see fireworks at the end of the ride.

Disclaimer: My couch is barren. I have no money left to invest on this coming dip, and was forced into booking an unfortunate loss last Friday, so there is no financial benefit here for me... only short term paper loss. But I'm still really looking forward to this party.

As the Koreans would cheer: Elon Fighting!!!

 

[Fact Checking]

Ok, doing my due diligence here.

The first time around, in 2013, it was a press release amending guidance for the quarter, a tweet a day later referring to the press release, and a call with press and analysts a day after that, on April 2, 2013.

Though, the timing that first time around was really tight, right at the end of the quarter to two days after. Then again, their finances were much simpler back then.

The second time around, October 2016, there was no preannouncement or mention in the delivery report. It was a surprise in the earnings release on October 26, 2016.

This time around, digging back through the Q3 2018 delivery report, there is a line I hadn't seen reported on stating that "Our net income and cash flow results will be announced along with the rest of our financial performance when we announce Q3 earnings."

Parse that as you will, but I think they meant "when we release Q3 earnings." So, no preannouncement this time. :-/ Going to have to wait it out a few more weeks.

Thanks for the dates and the links, based on that I reviewed both the 2013 and the 2016 historic price action around these events.

2013:

• 
  
• 2013 March 28: the trading day before the surprise March 31 announcement: low volume with less than 1M shares traded, range of $37-$38.
• 2013 Apr 1: first trading day after the announcement: +20% spike up to $46, closing price $44. Considering the very high volume of around 20M shares, either shorts or investors were selling big time.
• 2013 Apr 3: within two days the price was pushed back to $40 intraday low
• 2013 Apr 9: after more than a week it was still trading with $40 intraday lows.
• 2013 Apr 10 - May 7: almost a month of steadily rising price with occasional spikes due to shorts covering (I presume), high of $62, peaking 60% above the March levels.
• 2013 May 8: Earnings Release day, aftermarket rise on high volume to $73
• 2013 May 9: First full trading day after ER: very heavy volume (20M+ shares) but not much of a rise. Either "sell on the news", or investors cashing out, or last attempt by shorts.
  
• 2013 May-October: several months of rolling waves of rising price, on constant investor buying and probably several generations of shorts first trying their luck at the 'bubble', and then being squeezed within about a month by another wave of rising price. Final peak price on Oct 1 is $194, 510% of the March levels.
• 2013 October-December: post-squeeze consolidation, with a low of $116 - still 300% of the March levels.
• 2014 January: new price episode with new highs begins.

The takeaway: I don't think it was just the initial shorts getting squeezed in 2013, but several waves of new shorts tried their luck with fading the 'obvious bubble' and all failed except the final one who faded the $194 top.

2016:

Here's the 2016 historic price action, which is probably more representative of the current environment than 2013:

• 2016 Oct 26 early day: low $200 prices, medium volume, until the 16h surprise announcement after market close
  
• 2016 Oct 26 late day: peak to $216, +8%, relatively small spike considering the surprise factor.
• 2016 Oct 27: after an early morning peak to $215 the news and rise in price was nullified in the rest of the day with high volume: down to $200 again.
• 2016 Oct 28 - Nov 14: several waves of high volume selling over the next couple of weeks. Price got pushed down to $178 (!).
• 2016 Nov 14 - December: slow rise, it breaches $200 again on December 13.
• 2017 Jan 3: the next Delivery Report was released 4:25pm, which was nullified in after-market trading with a low of $207
  
• 2017 Jan 4: in early trading the report was still nullified, but at 9:00am on very heavy volume the price spiked up to $228.
• 2017 Jan 5 - Feb 21: several weeks of buying and (presumably) short covering, with a high of $285 on February 14.
• at which point a new earnings release and a new price episode begins.

(Note that there could be typos in the above, I haven't double checked it - so if in doubt about any detail, doubt what I wrote and please point out any errors.)

The takeaway: very fishy counter-intuitive price action with a lot of selling pressure, I presume from shorts - but with the eventual expected outcome in the end. Profitability was nullified after the ER, possibly due to the ZEV-FUD and the marginal nature of the profit. The next delivery report then falsified the short thesis of the day and made it clear that Tesla isn't going away.

So I knew most of this already, but still, looking at it in context shows that price action after the upcoming Q3/2018 ER might not be as clear-cut as I originally thought. Opponents of TSLA have considerable price setting power which defies even positive quarterly financials.

But maybe the huge increase in Q3 revenue and the probable robustly positive cash flow will change the market reaction this time - but maybe Q4 results are required for it to truly sink in.

 

[bdy0627]

Thanks for the dates and the links, based on that I reviewed both the 2013 and the 2016 historic price action around these events.

2013:

• 
  
• 2013 March 28: the trading day before the surprise March 31 announcement: low volume with less than 1M shares traded, range of $37-$38.
• 2013 Apr 1: first trading day after the announcement: +20% spike up to $46, closing price $44. Considering the very high volume of around 20M shares, either shorts or investors were selling big time.
• 2013 Apr 3: within two days the price was pushed back to $40 intraday low
• 2013 Apr 9: after more than a week it was still trading with $40 intraday lows.
• 2013 Apr 10 - May 7: almost a month of steadily rising price with occasional spikes due to shorts covering (I presume), high of $62, peaking 60% above the March levels.
• 2013 May 8: Earnings Release day, aftermarket rise on high volume to $73
• 2013 May 9: First full trading day after ER: very heavy volume (20M+ shares) but not much of a rise. Either "sell on the news", or investors cashing out, or last attempt by shorts.
  
• 2013 May-October: several months of rolling waves of rising price, on constant investor buying and probably several generations of shorts first trying their luck at the 'bubble', and then being squeezed within about a month by another wave of rising price. Final peak price on Oct 1 is $194, 510% of the March levels.
• 2013 October-December: post-squeeze consolidation, with a low of $116 - still 300% of the March levels.
• 2014 January: new price episode with new highs begins.

The takeaway: I don't think it was just the initial shorts getting squeezed in 2013, but several waves of new shorts tried their luck with fading the 'obvious bubble' and all failed except the final one who faded the $194 top.

2016:

Here's the 2016 historic price action, which is probably more representative of the current environment than 2013:

• 2016 Oct 26 early day: low $200 prices, medium volume, until the 16h surprise announcement after market close
  
• 2016 Oct 26 late day: peak to $216, +8%, relatively small spike considering the surprise factor.
• 2016 Oct 27: after an early morning peak to $215 the news and rise in price was nullified in the rest of the day with high volume: down to $200 again.
• 2016 Oct 28 - Nov 14: several waves of high volume selling over the next couple of weeks. Price got pushed down to $178 (!).
• 2016 Nov 14 - December: slow rise, it breaches $200 again on December 13.
• 2017 Jan 3: the next Delivery Report was released 4:25pm, which was nullified in after-market trading with a low of $207
  
• 2017 Jan 4: in early trading the report was still nullified, but at 9:00am on very heavy volume the price spiked up to $228.
• 2017 Jan 5 - Feb 21: several weeks of buying and (presumably) short covering, with a high of $285 on February 14.
• at which point a new earnings release and a new price episode begins.

(Note that there could be typos in the above, I haven't double checked it - so if in doubt about any detail, doubt what I wrote and please point out any errors.)

The takeaway: very fishy counter-intuitive price action with a lot of selling pressure, I presume from shorts - but with the eventual expected outcome in the end. Profitability was nullified after the ER, possibly due to the ZEV-FUD and the marginal nature of the profit. The next delivery report then falsified the short thesis of the day and made it clear that Tesla isn't going away.

So I knew most of this already, but still, looking at it in context shows that price action after the upcoming Q3/2018 ER might not be as clear-cut as I originally thought. Opponents of TSLA have considerable price setting power which defies even positive quarterly financials.

But maybe the huge increase in Q3 revenue and the probable robustly positive cash flow will change the market reaction this time - but maybe Q4 results are required for it to truly sink in.

Thanks for the details surrounding those events. It illustrates why it is generally unwise to try to time TSLA events. Often, the share price moves unexpectedly directly following the events before ultimately responding in the expected fashion, sometimes even weeks later. Shorts will undoubtedly try to steer the share price immediately following the Q3 ER to create a sell the news effect. I think that is extremely likely this time because there have been several predictions from Elon of profits for Q3. It's not entirely unexpected even though analysts are generally not predicting it. Should the shorts succeed in leading the market into a sell the news response, the bottom of that dip will likely provide a nice opportunity. The media will undoubtedly choose a narrative that focuses on negative speculation from the ER. Bearish analysts will likely do the same. It's impossible to predict, but I think it may take a week or two for the dust to settle from all of the negative narratives for the share price to react positively. What would truly surprise me is if the media and bearish analysts change their perspectives and turn positive toward Tesla. I would be totally shocked by that. That's just not at all likely to happen following the Q3 ER; maybe after Q4 or Q1 19.

 

[Papafox]

Thanks for the dates and the links, based on that I reviewed both the 2013 and the 2016 historic price action around these events.

2013:

• 
  
• 2013 March 28: the trading day before the surprise March 31 announcement: low volume with less than 1M shares traded, range of $37-$38.
• 2013 Apr 1: first trading day after the announcement: +20% spike up to $46, closing price $44. Considering the very high volume of around 20M shares, either shorts or investors were selling big time.
• 2013 Apr 3: within two days the price was pushed back to $40 intraday low
• 2013 Apr 9: after more than a week it was still trading with $40 intraday lows.
• 2013 Apr 10 - May 7: almost a month of steadily rising price with occasional spikes due to shorts covering (I presume), high of $62, peaking 60% above the March levels.
• 2013 May 8: Earnings Release day, aftermarket rise on high volume to $73
• 2013 May 9: First full trading day after ER: very heavy volume (20M+ shares) but not much of a rise. Either "sell on the news", or investors cashing out, or last attempt by shorts.
  
• 2013 May-October: several months of rolling waves of rising price, on constant investor buying and probably several generations of shorts first trying their luck at the 'bubble', and then being squeezed within about a month by another wave of rising price. Final peak price on Oct 1 is $194, 510% of the March levels.
• 2013 October-December: post-squeeze consolidation, with a low of $116 - still 300% of the March levels.
• 2014 January: new price episode with new highs begins.

The takeaway: I don't think it was just the initial shorts getting squeezed in 2013, but several waves of new shorts tried their luck with fading the 'obvious bubble' and all failed except the final one who faded the $194 top.

2016:

Here's the 2016 historic price action, which is probably more representative of the current environment than 2013:

• 2016 Oct 26 early day: low $200 prices, medium volume, until the 16h surprise announcement after market close
  
• 2016 Oct 26 late day: peak to $216, +8%, relatively small spike considering the surprise factor.
• 2016 Oct 27: after an early morning peak to $215 the news and rise in price was nullified in the rest of the day with high volume: down to $200 again.
• 2016 Oct 28 - Nov 14: several waves of high volume selling over the next couple of weeks. Price got pushed down to $178 (!).
• 2016 Nov 14 - December: slow rise, it breaches $200 again on December 13.
• 2017 Jan 3: the next Delivery Report was released 4:25pm, which was nullified in after-market trading with a low of $207
  
• 2017 Jan 4: in early trading the report was still nullified, but at 9:00am on very heavy volume the price spiked up to $228.
• 2017 Jan 5 - Feb 21: several weeks of buying and (presumably) short covering, with a high of $285 on February 14.
• at which point a new earnings release and a new price episode begins.

(Note that there could be typos in the above, I haven't double checked it - so if in doubt about any detail, doubt what I wrote and please point out any errors.)

The takeaway: very fishy counter-intuitive price action with a lot of selling pressure, I presume from shorts - but with the eventual expected outcome in the end. Profitability was nullified after the ER, possibly due to the ZEV-FUD and the marginal nature of the profit. The next delivery report then falsified the short thesis of the day and made it clear that Tesla isn't going away.

So I knew most of this already, but still, looking at it in context shows that price action after the upcoming Q3/2018 ER might not be as clear-cut as I originally thought. Opponents of TSLA have considerable price setting power which defies even positive quarterly financials.

But maybe the huge increase in Q3 revenue and the probable robustly positive cash flow will change the market reaction this time - but maybe Q4 results are required for it to truly sink in.

Fact Checking, thanks for the detailed timeline. One event that needs to be considered in the 2016 timeline is the SolarCity vote in November of 2016. This vote came out solidly for the acquisition, which removed doubt. The hyped (by shorts) carnage that would happen to TSLA after the acquisition never happened. Instead, longs became OK with the idea and TSLA ran up quite a bit after November. This was the ultimate example of remove the dread in longs and the short-sellers lose most of the power of their manipulations.

Presently, I see two types of dread in longs: dread of the early 2019 debt payments and dread of Musk getting into a pissing contest with the SEC. The debt dread should be greatly diffused after the 3Q ER as Tesla shows half a billion or more in cash flow positive performance. Q4 ER will likely be needed to completely erase that dread and prove that Tesla is now solidly cash flow positive and profitable. As for the dread about Elon's behavior, we may not know until after Oct10 if his recent tweets are a last hurrah before Tesla completing the letter with the SEC for the judge's review, or whether Elon plans to give the SEC the middle finger and move into a full-fledged pissing contest with them. The latter development would be extremely detrimental to TSLA in the short to mid-term. I really want to buy this dip but I am holding off until I get a reading on whether Tesla and the SEC are going to cooperate with writing the letter. So far, Elon's tweets have been provocative, but not irrational. He wants to point out that short-selling is hurting not only Tesla but investors in general and the SEC is way too tolerant of short-seller behavior. Fair point, but holding breath that we don't get into a pissing contest with bureaucrats who have the ability to inflict lots of pain.

 

[Papafox]

Presently, the lower bollinger band is at 267.14 and the SP is at 263.07. The macros are showing some recovery, and if the recovery continues or at least stabilizes TSLA may well rise above the lower bb before end of trading today.

 

[Fact Checking]

Presently, I see two types of dread in longs: dread of the early 2019 debt payments and dread of Musk getting into a pissing contest with the SEC. The debt dread should be greatly diffused after the 3Q ER as Tesla shows half a billion or more in cash flow positive performance. Q4 ER will likely be needed to completely erase that dread and prove that Tesla is now solidly cash flow positive and profitable.

Yeah. Also note that Q4 ER will provide an outlook for how Q1 cash flow is going to look like. Here's the prospectus of the March 2019 notes:

424B5​

"The 2019 notes will mature on March 1, 2019"
​

I.e. Tesla will have the benefit of at least 50% of the cash flow of Q1 2019, plus the cash flows of Q3 and Q4 2018.

If we take @luvb2b's projections as a rough (conservative) baseline for Q4, not counting much expansion over Q3:

q2-q4 2018 financial projections​

Then Q3 cash flow is +$632m, Q4 cash flow is +$541m, but that is burdened by a -$400m debt repayment outflow. So the real cash flow in Q4 would be more like in the $900m range, which would be projected onto Q1. So even if Q1/2019 has the same performance as Q4, 50% of that cash flow (January/February are the slowest months of the year) is still +$450m.

That adds up to real money: $632m+$541m+$450 = +$1,623m surplus cash by March 1 2019, which should be more than enough to cover $920m debt repayments...

There's a number of headwinds and a number of tailwinds possible, but I don't think it should be tight in any way.

It's all gated on the Q3 cash flow characteristics though, so that's going to be a very interesting read!