Papafox's Daily TSLA Trading Charts

[hobbes]

@SPadival thanks much for the clarification. The reality is still a bit confusing all the same, so let's see if I have it right.. UBS, rather than tearing the car down themselves paid Monroe to share information about their Model 3 teardown. Monroe and Associates said the vehicle could generate up to 30% profits according to this Electrek article but UBS said a typically optioned M3 SR would sell for $42,000 and generate only $620 profit. So, it looks like UBS distorted the data they received from Monroe and tried to get the world to believe they conducted their own independent teardown. When Monroe released the numbers from his teardown, UBS didn't like Monroe making the real numbers public and threatened to sue Monroe. Yes, this will go into my book. Any additional info you can send in a PM would be appreciated.

The name is somewhat unusual, but this guy is called Munro .
Sandy Munro - Speaker, Advisor, Author, CEO

 

[PaulusdB]

... my book ...

 

[Papafox]

Looking forward to Monday's trading. Macro futures are up and Tesla news have been favorable (if you know how to read it) all weekend.
* Troy's updated delivery numbers (again!) are now 91,3xx for Q2, and Troy tends to be conservative
* Many media sources and analysts who are perennial Tesla naysayers have been posting messages or notes this weekend saying that high delivery numbers in Q2 don't mean anything and you need to worry about X, Y, or Z. Translation: delivery numbers are going to be good
* In Friday's after-hours trading, some entity purchased 1.3 million shares of TSLA. Why such a big purchase on Friday?
* Information I'm hearing about various delivery centers is that Teslas are selling fast this quarter and it's hard to keep inventory.

All these reasons suggest that Tesla will probably beat their record from 4Q18. Add to this good news a low stock price, historically high numbers of shares sold short, good news from China about both no new tariffs and an extension of sale tax benefits for China-produced EVs including Teslas, and it's a nice setup for a climb. Normally I'm cautious about the amateur hour on Monday mornings, but perhaps with this setup we may not see a dip after the first hour and instead see more serious buying pressure. Keep an eye on volume to try and see if any big dogs are jumping in.

 

[MSDadMich]

My buy finger is feeling twitchy... may need to purchase more shares.

 

[Papafox]

Today was indeed one of high anticipation as multiple positives lined up for Tesla. Unfortunately, much of the excitement was over soon after market open as the NASDAQ began a slow downward movement and no stories came forward to strongly reinforce views that Q2 P&D will be quite positive. Volume was rather light today at 8 million shares, suggesting that neither the shorts nor the longs were changing their positions much and no big players were adding shares. What is encouraging, however, was the big near vertical run upwards around 10am and the two upward spikes in after-hours trading. I see there being continued fear of missing the big run upwards (both by shorts and longs) and when some good news arrives (P&D report, anyone?) this week, I think there will be an immediate positive response to the news.

Although the NASDAQ lost ground for most of the day, it still closed up 1.06%.

Here's your roundup of today's news:
* Jeff Osborne, research analyst at Cowen explains to CNBC why he has given Tesla the lowest price target on the street
* Phil LeBeau on CNBC says why Colin Langan of UBS has a $160 price target (because 2nd half of 2019 will be harder with fewer tax credits and a depleted delivery queue). Listening to LeBeau's language is interesting because he said the street now expects Tesla to hit its 90,000 - 100,000 delivery target (thereby suggesting a higher delivery number within the range is no big deal).
* Lucid Motors has hired former Tesla production chief Peter Hochholdinger
* JMP Securities analyst Joseph Osha reiterated a Market Outperform rating and $347.00 price target on Tesla. It was hard to find even an article on JMP Securities on the internet today, much yet seeing him appear on CNBC.
* Luvb2b's Q2 financial estimates are posted on TMC and is looking for a small non-GAAP loss from Q2. No doubt Luvb2b will update the spreadsheet when the actual Q2 delivery numbers and mix are known.

* Perhaps the most interesting story is this one on Yahoo that suggests what the stock price will do with different delivery numbers.

In a nutshell, the mainstream media was very busy today reminding investors that a Tesla executive left and putting the spotlight on analysts who speculate that the second half of 2019 will not go well for Tesla. Meanwhile, they're all but assuming that Tesla will hit its 90,000 - 100,000 vehicles delivery goal for Q2 (but not giving the company much credit for this feat). Notice too how the wording is changing. It's not about reaching 90,000 any more. The media is suggesting that falling anywhere within the 90K to 100K guidance is pretty ho hum because of greater problems ahead. It's the old game of move the goalposts as Tesla seems poised to achieve a very important goal. Moreover, none of the analysts take notice of a rather large factory being built in Shanghai that will be spitting out Tesla Model 3s at an ever increasing rate come early 2020 other than mentioning there's debt associated with that factory.

As a courtesy, let me remind you of a few reasons why 2nd half of 2019 looks pretty good for Tesla
* Seasonality: Q3 and Q4 are historically good months for EV sales. Q1 is always the slowest
* Costs: Every month Tesla finds ways to produce cars less expensively. This trend will continue.
* Battery cells: We should see GF1 grow from 24GWh of battery cells per year to 35GWh. This expansion will not only lower the cost of batteries but will also enable greater revenues as LR M3s are not constrained in numbers and Tesla Energy finds sufficient cells available to start chipping away at some of that backlog in orders
* Ravens: Model S and X deliveries should increase because their battery cells are not restricted and because Q3 will be the first full quarter when the Raven upgrades of these two vehicles are available for the full quarter.
* Demand: More Model 3s in driveways yields more test drives, which equates to more orders. Further, when customers visit a Tesla store to drive a Model 3, they'll be checking out Models S and X as well. I've been in a few stores lately and have watched how the customers come for a Model 3 but spend a good amount of time wondering if they can pull off an S or X. We now have enough Model 3s in the wild to rev up organic demand.
* Nice margin increase when full feature set of full autonomy software is released some time in Q4. Expect to see a nice increase in orders for full autonomous driving software when the feature set is available, not because the vehicle is capable of driving itself without intervention (it won't be) but because the convenience of using these features will become too attractive for many owners to pass up. Adding software to hardware-enabled vehicles is normally nearly 100% gross margin, but remember that the computer board will need to be upgraded in order to realize the 20X increase in computation speeds. Analysts should start giving Tesla some credit for its self-driving program by then. Personally, I very much anticipate this day.

Why aren't analysts and the mainstream media seeing these advantages to the 2nd half of 2019? The short answer is that they don't spend enough time studying Tesla to understand what's happening (although a few analysts and media outlets clearly have a bias against the company), and many rely too heavily on TSLAQ shorts for their story ideas and views of the company.

Shorts were tagged with 34% of TSLA selling today. Yep, it's best not to stand in front of a steamroller

Looking at Dusaniwsky's updated graph, you can see that a large part of the downward pressure on the stock price in the final 10 days of May was from rapidly-growing short interest (the blue line on graph). We've seen a small unwinding of the short interest in June so far, but with every run higher in the stock price, we see additional canopies blossoming as shorts bail from their positions.

Looking at the tech chart, you can see that today's trading pulled TSLA above the near-horizontal consolidation line and gives the stock some opportunity to begin the march up in price. Also notice that even though the mid-bollinger band continues to bend upward, the upper and lower BBs are angling inward, due to the relatively small daily changes in stock price.

We should see Tesla release the Q2 Production and Delivery report either Tuesday or Wednesday. Wednesday will be a short trading day. I expect a nice climb when the production and delivery numbers are announced. It gets complicated after that. Friday, July 5, is the most likely day for manipulations since the big dog investors are still in the Hamptons for the 4 day weekend. Record delivery numbers don't necessarily mean the financials will be great in Q2, however, primarily because of fewer higher-margin S and X deliveries. What would really light the fuse would be any mention of profits in the P&D report. It's been done once before to my knowledge, but don't hold your breath.

Conditions:
* Dow up 117 (0.44%)
* NASDAQ up 85 (1.06%)
* TSLA 227.17, up 3.71 (1.66%)
* TSLA volume 8.0M shares
* Oil 58.63
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 34%

 

[Boomer19]

Mod: I left this one in place because of the excellent advice; the rest of the posts I moved. --ggr

the place to go is investors thread:

Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the 2019 Investors' Roundtable

from there you’ll find many perspectives on just about any investment thesis...

this thread is papa-specific commentary

 

[Papafox]

Congratulations longs, Tesla delivered an excellent Production and Delivery report today with 95,200 vehicle deliveries accounted for. Further, Tesla's report said, "Orders generated during the quarter exceeded our deliveries, thus we are entering Q3 with an increase in our order backlog." In other words, it's time to kill the chatter about no demand because even with this great delivery report, the company couldn't keep up with demand and now has a bigger order backlog than when entering the quarter.

I include two daily charts today because the second one, which include the results of the P&D report, caused the volume spikes to be less visible, and we need to consider them as well as the icicles. Looking at the chart above, you can see small investors bid TSLA up to 230 in the pre-market trading but of course the shorts/hedge funds were not going to let such enthusiasm go unchecked on this 4th of July week, and so they pushed TSLA down shortly after opening with multiple selling sprees that sometimes exceeded 30K shares/minute. That selling barrage at 1:18pm reached 32K shares in one minute. Mercy!

The NASDAQ closed up 0.22% for the day after a big run in the final minutes

Comparing TSLA to the NASDAQ, you can see the NASDAQ began a climb from the red (dashed line is red/green line on chart) at about 12:40pm and worked its way into the green little more than half an hour before close. After TSLA bottomed out at 1:18pm with that big selling barrage, the SP also started recovering. Look, though, at the capping that took place around 224 as shorts/hedge funds worked to limit TSLA's recovery in the afternoon. Note, too the lack of a last minute rally of Tesla as the NASDAQ ran for high altitude.

To back up the manipulations today, the FUDsters pulled out the stops. The most creative effort was this steaming piece of sugar by Jim Chanos's Yale cohort Jeffrey Sonnenfeld appearing on CNBC saying that Elon Musk is a fraud and all this talk about deliveries is just a shell game to take your attention away the real problems. Let me quote:

Musk often points to new product ventures — such as autonomous taxis or submarines — to keep attention away from Tesla’s “demand saga, departure issues ” and “debt issues, ” said Sonnenfeld, a senior associate dean at the Yale School of Management.

Jeffrey, you probably don't read my daily chart posts, but on the odd chance you glance at this one let me explain something that a management school dean at Yale really should know. Robust deliveries annihilate the FUD about no demand. Robust deliveries are the steak, not the sizzle that disproves claims of no demand. Just who is playing the shell game here? It's not Elon. Departure issues? Gene Munster explained this one today when he basically said that Tesla is a high pressure company right now and you can expect lots of executive turnovers until the company has proven itself and financial security is assured. Debt issues? Compared to the rest of the auto industry, Tesla's debt is pretty tame, especially for a company that is currently doubling revenue year over year. By the way, Jeffrey, every time CNBC puts you on the air and doesn't mention that you are a close associate of short-seller Jim Chanos (and you don't mention the fact either), you are a party in a deception because viewers lack the context to judge your motives for saying what you do. Understand?

Anyway, CNBC put on a full-court press of negativity today with slingers of negativity taking a number and getting in line for a chance to trash Tesla. Shameful.

Not long after 4:00pm, Tesla released the Production and Delivery report. The quick dip into the red after the after-hours high of day is likely a delayed print from earlier in market trading. Both production and deliveries set new records. The results are:

..........Production Deliveries
Model S/X.14,517.....17,650
Model 3...72,531.....77,550
Total.....87,048.....95,200

Notice that deliveries exceeded production by some 8,000 vehicles. The significance of this relationship is that cash-flow will be significantly helped by taking 8K vehicles from in transit and inventory and selling them. If the average Tesla (S3&X) sells for $60K, that's about an extra $480 million in cash flow compared to only delivering the number produced this quarter. Let's give our spreadsheet gurus time to work the numbers and give us a better idea what to expect.

Short-sellers were tagged with a robust 49.5% of TSLA selling today. No wonder we saw icicles in the daily chart!

Expect a flurry of activities from the shorts and hedge funds as they try to minimize the damage this week. The fun is just beginning.

Conditions:
* Dow up 69 (0.26%)
* NASDAQ up 18 (0.22%)
* TSLA 224.55, down 2.62 (1.15%)
* TSLA volume 7.0M shares
* Oil 56.56
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 49.5%

 

[JeffreyY]

Papafox thanks for the great analysis as always!

 

[JeffreyY]

Happy day for Tesla longs!

 

[Papafox]

Ah yes,. the joys of July 4th week. We're seeing plenty of mischief this week, but it is defense rather than offense this time around. Today, TSLA ended up 4.61% higher than closing yesterday. Might 95K+ deliveries in Q2 and the evaporation of the demand monster be worth quite a bit more than 4.61%? Of course, but first we have to get through July 4th week before some sanity can return to the market. No doubt some creative selling has influenced today's lackluster performance. Add to that the Jonas prediction of up then down for the stock price and you have a willingness of some longs to accept the rather disappointing price action today because they're worried about the down part of his prediction. Unfortunately, Friday is still ahead of us this week, so the games might not be over yet. The good news is that we typically see recovery after the July 4th week.

Today was a short trading day, and you can see by the NASDAQ chart below (which opened positively and then climbed almost for the entire day) that TSLA should have had tailwinds instead of headwinds. No news of substance came forward after the P&D report.

The NASDAQ climbed for almost the whole day and finished up 0.75%

Wondering why TSLA didn't perform better on Monday and Tuesday? Look no further than this post from Ihor Dusaniwsky which shows that shorts increased their shares by 1.4 million so far during the week.

Shorts were tagged with 41.5% of TSLA selling today. I suspect the actual number was higher but some of the shorting was done from non-FINRA sources to hide the quantity of shorting.

Not all the shenanigans can be blamed on the shorts, however. Hedge funds which sold calls that expire this week are likely involved as well. The Opricot chart below shows option open interest for expiration on July 5. Notice the very large quantity of calls between 230 and 250 that will be expiring? If hedge funds were not delta-hedging these sales of calls, they have a big incentive to keep TSLA below 235 through Friday (pushing lower to 230 probably isn't possible).

There's additional incentive for both shorts and hedge funds to keep TSLA under 235. Check out the expanded tech chart below. I've tried as best I could to draw in the descending wedge with magenta color. Notice that after TSLA descended below the wedge in May and June it has now rallied to be pushing the upper edges of the wedge.Such a breakout, added to the likely 5 weeks in a row of positive trading could bring some big institutional investors back into the game, and I suspect that's plenty of incentive for the various parties to do what they can to keep TSLA below 235. They have a good chance of succeeding this week, but when the regular traders return from their vacations on Monday and we start to see some upgrades by analysts, they'll have a hard time holding TSLA back.

Chances are that TSLA will not make enough profit in Q2 to qualify for S&P500 inclusion after the ER. There still is a threat of that happening, however, if various external sources of profits (ZEV, FCA payments, etc.) are unusually high this quarter, and consequently there might be enough fear of such an event that you might see some short covering over the coming weeks.

I've posted an expanded tech chart today because you really need to see the implications of this big move upwards. The descending wedge is depicted in magenta color. Notice how close TSLA is to the upper bb? Normally, big news such as 95K+ deliveries is enough to propel TSLA well above the upper bb, but this is 4th of July week, and unusual things happen this week every year.

For those of you in the U.S., have a great July 4 and we'll see you back here on Friday for a continuation of the fireworks show.

Conditions:
* Dow up 173 (0.67%)
* NASDAQ up 61 (0.75%)
* TSLA 234.90, up 10.35 (4.61%)
* TSLA volume 14.1M shares
* Oil 57.39
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts:41.75%

 

[DontBetAgtsEln]

Thanks Papafox!

 

[neroden]

July 5th looked to me like repeated bear raid attempts, along with an aggressive market-maker push to keep the stock below $235, mostly countered by buying pressure.

Mod: corrected date. --ggr.

 

[Papafox]

Today was the final day of the July 4 week and enough shenanigans took place today to catch our attention. Volume was less than 7 million shares and although the NASDAQ opened down it recovered to green an hour before close, before settling a bit.

Comparing the TSLA chart to the NASDAQ chart, you can see the NASDAQ took a dip that bottomed out about 10:40am, and that's about the bottom of the TSLA dip as well. The TSLA dip was indeed a dip on steroids, with a bit of help on the way down. Once the NASDAQ started recovering, though, TSLA ran up to the green, where of course we saw a game of whack the mole brought into play until the stock price returned comfortably into the red. Throughout the day there was much near-horizontal trading, which strikes me as a form of capping.

My best guess is that hedge funds that sold TSLA calls were doing the manipulating. With 4K 235-strike TSLA calls expiring, it was worth the effort for the bigger sellers of these calls to manipulate the stock to a sub-235 close.

The NASDAQ opened low but climbed for most the day and closed down only 0.10%

The open interest chart changed noticeably from Wednesday, with a big increase in TSLA 225 and 227.50 strike PUTS. I mention the puts because whoever bought those puts showed no ability to manipulate down to a price where they had value.

Shorts were tagged with selling 38% of TSLA today

For the week, TSLA close at 233.10, up 9.64 from last week's 223.46. That makes 5 green weeks in a row, which is powerful evidence the downtrend has been vanquished. My friends, we are now through the dreaded July 4 week and although there was plenty of mischief, few of us got scalped.

What to expect next week? No doubt the foes of TSLA will work towards coming up with a new twist in the FUD, so don't be surprised. On the other hand, journalists such as Dana Hull shifted gears after the delivery numbers came out and were more favorable in their Tesla coverage this week. I wouldn't expect any change in WSJ, LA Times on NYT, though. We should see the first upgrades to TSLA price targets come out soon, which will help the stock price. If you haven't seen the @Fact Checking post in the main investment forum comparing Tesla with Amazon, I would highly recommend seeing it. High growth companies such as Tesla and Amazon don't show big GAAP profits, due to R&D expenses, overstatement of depreciation, stock-based compensation, etc. Nonetheless, a growth stock can deliver significant positive cash flow from operations, and this is what Tesla and its supporters need to emphasize. Enjoy your weekend.

Conditions:
* Dow down 44 (0.16%)
* NASDAQ down 8 (0.10%)
* TSLA 233.10, down 1.80 (0.77%)
* TSLA volume 7.0M shares
* Oil 57.51
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 38%

 

[AudubonB]

5 green weeks in a row.
5 weeks that yer favorite Mod was Off Duty.

Coincidence? Correlation? Co-alignment of the astral spheres? You be the judge.

Truth?
Well, in fact I’ve been gone for something closer to eight weeks. But Facts and Good Stories make for boring Venn Diagrams.

 

[Papafox]

Today the macros opened down and stayed down on too much good news (fears the good jobs report might adversely affect the Fed's Jul 31 chances of cutting a quarter percent off the interest rate). Consequently, TSLA was down in pre-market trading in anticipation of the down macros, and when the opening bell rang, the manipulators started selling with a vengeance, trying to get as much progress as possible. By 9:33am over 80K shares traded hands in one minute and within 10 minutes of open TSLA bottomed out of this mandatory morning dip at a little under 229.

The clearly-visible icicles in the daily trading chart attest to the manipulative character of today's trading, but some of the abruptness of the moves owes to the fact that the distance from high to low was not very much today and so everything looks rather exaggerated.

The NASDAQ opened down and stayed down today, with a rise after 2:30pm. In contrast, TSLA sank after 3:15pm on no significant news and likely as a manipulative closing move.

In news today, Adam Jonas wins the prize for the most creative FUD of the day, suggesting that his lowball Tesla annual delivery numbers will not change because Q2 simply borrowed sales from Q3 and Q4. Sigh.

Looking at the put option bets in the two graphs below, you can see plenty of disbelievers out there. The present worry is no longer so much demand as it is margins. Tesla has already bottomed out from the Q1 delivery numbers and is heading up. Now it needs a quarter where it bottoms out in margin numbers and starts heading up. As efficiencies from higher production and improvements to the factories materialize, Tesla will indeed realize better numbers in time, but in Q2 the introduction of the SR+ M3s puts pressure on the margins, and so Q2 may not be the bottoming out quarter. For this reason, shorts still see hope and many will likely not budge until they see margins growing at Tesla. Thus, the bear vs. bull battle will rage on for a while longer.

Taking a look at this Friday's max pain charts and next Friday's, you can see some big differences between the two weeks. This week, we will see 240, 245, and 250 call options expiring and the hedge funds will do their best to keep TSLA below 240. If you look at Puts, there's an unusually high number at 222.5, but with a bump at 230 as well. If TSLA drifts up but stays below 240 we can blame the hedge funds for the manipulations, but if there's an enormous push and we end up below 222.5, then we blame the shorts.

Looking at the graphs for July 19, a week from Friday, notice two things compared to this Friday's Max pain chart. First, there are many times more 240 and 250 calls expiring on July 19, so perhaps hedge funds are trying to hold TSLA down a bit because of this week but moreso because of the following Friday. Also, notice that the majority of the money invested this week is in puts, but next Friday it is in calls. Because of both the number of call options expiring this Friday and next Friday, I wouldn't be surprised to see lots of manipulation from the hedge funds.

Volume was a very low 5.9M shares today, however. Longs aren't in a selling mood, and at some point when macros are having a positive day, this stock could surprise the manipulators and get away from them, particularly if Elon announces an early ER in July, which would be an indication of positive results.

Shorts were tagged with 41% of TSLA selling today

Conditions:
* Dow down 116 (0.43%)
* NASDAQ down 63 (0.78%)
* TSLA 230.34, down 2.76 (1.18%)
* TSLA volume 5.9M shares
* Oil 57.43
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 41%

 

[Papafox]

Welcome to another low volume day with lots of manipulations, likely by the hedge funds who sold the out of the market calls that expire on Friday. As with yesterday, we saw some ferocious selling in spurts to facilitate the MMD and the secondary MMD today. Whenever TSLA dipped below 230, buyers materialized and the stock climbed back to the red/green line where it was held all afternoon in a game of whack-the-mole.

The amazing thing is that TSLA is now trading where it was before the excellent Q2 P&D report came out. The big institutional buyers aren't ready to jump in until TSLA has cleared the descending wedge and demonstrated both positive performance in demand and margins. Until that good news arrives (hopefully during Q2 ER), the stock is susceptible to the type of manipulations we see here today. Personally, I think the battery and powertrain event that Tesla suggests might happen this summer will be a catalyst for drawing in a wider range of buyers.

The NASDAQ rose all day and closed up 0.54%

In news:
* AutoExpress named Model 3 the Car of the Year for 2019
* This MarketWatch story says that Elon Musk is unhappy with autopilot team, with 11 departures, but this Electrek story suggests that the MarketWatch story was mostly old news that is being rehashed with some fresh details
* This Electrek story expands upon an Elon tweet that no substantial interior refresh for S or X is coming anytime soon
Of all the stories, I would say that the no interior refresh anytime soon story is the story most likely to affect the market. The good news is that the Osborning of S&X sales in the near term is ended with the tweet, the bad news is that an increase in S & X orders is not going to be propelled by news of a much better S or X any time soon.

* The breaking story is this one by Bloomberg that says Tesla has emailed the staff that an increase in production is coming to Fremont. I suspect such information will have a positive effect on trading tomorrow.

Looking at the tech chart, you can see that the very narrow movements in stock price has caused the upper and lower bollinger bands to squeeze in toward the mid-bb. The continued rising of the mid-bb will help bring the other bands higher, but mostly we need more volatility of the stock price to widen the bands. Let's see what tomorrow can do to widen those bands as good news surfaces.

Conditions:
* Dow down 23 (0.08%)
* NASDAQ up 43 (0.54%)
* TSLA 230.06, down 0.28 (0.12%)
* TSLA volume 6.1M shares
* Oil 58.54
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts:41.5%

 

[Papafox]

Here's a link to the updated Bloomberg article about increased production.

Additional text includes:

Tesla has said it plans to produce “significantly” more than the 360,000 to 400,000 vehicles the company expects to deliver in 2019. Production may reach 500,000 vehicles globally this year -- if Tesla’s factory near Shanghai can reach “volume production” early in the fourth quarter, the company said in its most recent quarterly letter to shareholders.

According to Guillen’s email, many parts of the assembly line in China are already in place.

“The Stamping, Body, Paint, and General Assembly lines in China are well underway and hitting records in both line design and fabrication,” the memo said.

Tomorrow's trading could be lively. Looking forward to it.

 

[Papafox]

To nobody's big surprise, TSLA ran higher today on leaked news that Fremont production will be expanding and with significant progress setting up the Shanghai factory for production, we could see substantial numbers of Model 3s rolling off the assembly line as early as Q4 of 2019. Sweet.

Of course Adam Jonas of Morgan Stanley had to issue a note poo-pooing the email's contents because he knows better than Tesla about demand. Yawn.

Looks like the manipulators were initially trying to cap 237 today but when the SP ran through that number they moved the cap to 238. That number too fell in the final half hour of trading as buyers disregarded the noise and picked up shares on the very positive news announced yesterday evening.

The NASDAQ closed up 0.75% today with a dip around 11:20am.

Meanwhile, Ihor Dusaniwsky showed us that nearly 42 million shares are still shorted, with is a rather amazing number when you consider the 2Q P&D report plus the 2nd half of 2019 production jump leak. Slight short covering this week suggests that shorts are starting to worry about the future and the tailwind is light now but will slowly grow stronger as TSLA climbs higher.

Looking at this closeup view of Dusaniwsky's TSLA graph, you can see that the big jump in July for shares shorted happened on July 2, the day of the P&D report and one day before the stock price jumped up. We already knew that there was substantial shorting during market hours on July 2 because percent of selling by shorts jumped to nearly 50% that day. Now, looking at the graph above, you can see that nearly a million shares were shorted on July 2, and I suspect a fair number of those shares shorted took place in after market hours as the manipulators succeeded in capping TSLA's run high so that it closed under 240 that day (far too little a climb when you consider the significance of the news).

Shorts were tagged with 44% of selling today. This upturn in percent of selling suggests that manipulators who use shorting as a tool were busy today trying to minimize the damage from yesterday evening's leaked news. It was an expensive effort because virtually all manipulators who closed their shorts today to end their manipulations had to do so at a loss. Days where TSLA climbs right into the close have that effect.

Looking at the tech chart, you can see that TSLA has once again popped through the top of the bollinger band, which is bullish. Also notice that TSLA close above the descending wedge, which is also a positive development. Time to say bye bye to the wedge.

With volume of 8.8 million shares, it's pretty clear the big dog institutional buyers are still sitting on the sidelines. When they join in the buying, though, you'll notice not only an upturn in volume but also a nice help with the stock price. Can't wait.

Conditions:
* Dow up 77 (0.29%)
* NASDAQ up 61 (0.75%)
* TSLA 238.92, up 8.86 (3.85%)
* TSLA volume 8.8M shares
* Oil 60.80
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts:44%

 

[Papafox]

Welcome to the manipulations olympics. The positive catalysts for Tesla just keep rolling in. To all of the automobile of the year awards and car of the decade awards to Teslas in past week and to the perfect 5 star safety scores of U.S. and European authorities for Model 3, we can add the leak earlier this week about big production increases at Fremont coming and amazing progress that should get GF3 in Shanghai producing seriously in Q4. Now we've learned that a supplier of relay parts to Tesla has had its order doubled. Today the NASDAQ was neutral but the Dow was way up. Why, then, did TSLA close down a smidgen today?

The answer, of course, is that someone with big dollars to wield in the stock market has sold a sugarload of 240, 242.50, and 250 calls that expire on Friday and didn't likely delta-hedge. Consequently, to save their bacon they're doing everything possible to convince the market that nothing special is happening at Tesla. Fortunately for them, the mainstream media is remaining mostly silent on all this good news and allowing the manipulations to take place.

Looking at the TSLA daily chart above, you can see our friends created a mandatory morning dip shortly after open, it bounced back, they pushed own again, and again, and again, and finally by late morning TSLA broke into the green and topped 241. Alas, such a climb is unacceptable to an organization that must keep TSLA below 240, and so a game of whack-the-mole ensued for the remainder of the day.

Good news is coming and likely soon. Tesla has scheduled the Q2 ER for July 24. The good news is that early ERs generally mean good news. The bad news is that in the current trading environment the foes of Tesla are prepared to exploit any perceived weakness. Let's hope that gross margins are reasonable, for they'll be under scrutiny. Additional good news is that guidance for the 2nd half of 2019 and early 2020 should be extraordinary.

The NASDAQ closed mostly neutral, down 0.08%

Taking a look at the Open Interest for options expiring on July 12, you can see a strange trend with the biggest Put being 222.50 and the biggest Call being 242.50. I think the reason for these odd bets is that the market understands that the stock is being manipulated right now and some of the people buying these calls and puts may be buying odd strike prices in order to avoid the fairly reliable manipulations on the more common strike prices.

I wouldn't put any bets on calls for this Friday because I think the game is rigged. Next Friday may be the same story, but it's probably costing a pretty penny to hold TSLA down right now and as we get closer to the ER date, we'll likely see some climbing, as we did just prior to the P&D report, and at some point the stock may just move up regardless of the manipulations.

Really hoping for a good ER so that we can get the big dog institutional investors back in the game and get enough volume going to shake off these troublesome manipulations.

Conditions:
* Dow up 228 (0.85%)
* NASDAQ up 6 (0.08%)
* TSLA 238.60, down 0.32 (0.13%)
* TSLA volume 7.5M shares
* Oil 60.53
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 42.5%

 

[Papafox]

Congratulations longs on week 6 in a row of positive TSLA trading. TSLA was down on Monday and Tuesday of this week on negative macros and manipulations, but Jerome posted an extremely positive email to employees after close on Tuesday, and Wednesday was our strongest trading day of the week. The significance of Friday's trading is that we saw likely hedge fund manipulations fail twice and these failures drew in the traders with heavy volume in the final minutes.

This week's options open interest saw lots of expiring call options at 240, 242.50, and 250, giving the sellers of those options ample incentive to keep TSLA from exceeding these numbers. Shortly after open, TSLA shot up to nearly 244 and the 240 options were likely to be exercised. If the manipulators could hold TSLA near 244, though, they could demonstrate their control of the stock price and then do a push down into close to get the SP below 242.50. If you look at the 244 line in the sand, you can see that it was successfully capped right up until 3:43pm, when volume exploded and TSLA did a Falcon 9 climb. The buying begat more buying and by 3:59pm we saw nearly 75,000 shares trade hands in a minute. As I pointed out in the main investors' forum on TMC, once it became apparent that TSLA was running up rather than down into the close, the manipulators' second goal of the day, protecting 242.50 had fallen, and such a nice climb into close on a Friday often portends that Monday trading will be favorable. Thus, lots of traders piled in to take advantage of the combination of manipulators being overruled by the market and a real possibility the rally will continue into Monday morning (FUD and macros willing).

The NASDAQ had a great day and with the exception of a 10:40am-ish dip, it climbed throughout the day and closed up 0.59% The Down closed up 0.90%.

If I were a betting man, I would not have held my breath that 240 and 242.50 could have been taken on Friday. Clearly, there were forces at work trying to prevent that. Still, the call strike-prices to be defended gave us an idea of where Friday's battle would be fought. Now, take a look at open interest and options volume for next Friday, 7/12. Clearly, 250 is the price which the sellers of these calls would want to defend with the greatest effort. A close just below 250 would be a likely outcome for the week, and a close above 250 would be a surprise beat. Let's see what happens as investors position themselves for the Q2 ER and traders focus on the 6 weeks in a row of positive trading.

Notice that the big put bets continue to expire as worthless, further supporting the contention that the sellers of the calls are the current manipulators, not the average shorts who have been buying the now-worthless puts.

Looking at Dusaniwsky's company, S3, you can see Mr. Unterman's graph of TSLA with the the blue line indicating recent covering. That covering would coincide with the big up day of the red line right before the end, Wednesday, July 10, when TSLA ran higher on word of Jerome's email. Thus, we see two positive signs that shorts and other manipulators are losing their hold on TSLA: net covering on Wednesday and the inability to prevent a climb through 242.50 on Friday.

To get a feel for how much manipulation through short-term shorting and covering is going on, the percentage of selling by shorts info suggests that we had moderate manipulations. Again, the manipulations by shorting on days when TSLA rises quickly into close are likely to be financial losers since there's really no way for a manipulator who has shorted the stock to cover same day at a lower price. Further, there's a likelihood that the SP will continue increasing after 6 weeks in a row of positive trading, and so the manipulators likely don't want to hold their TSLA short positions for multiple days.

Looking at the tech chart, you can see that TSLA closed above the upper bollinger band (after closing within the band the day before). Although TSLA for the most part has been constrained by the upper bb on most trading days, the importance of the news at hand is significant enough to justify a run above the upper bb. If we continue pushing the upper limits, the band will start curving steeper in an upward direction and remedy the situation.

For the week, TSLA closed at 245.08, up 11.98 from last Friday's 233.10. It's been a good week, enjoy your weekend.

Conditions:
* Dow up 244 (0.90%)
* NASDAQ up 48 (0.59%)
* TSLA 245.08, up 6.48 (2.72%)
* TSLA volume 9.2M shares
* Oil 60.21
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 41.5%