I am guessing shares tagged as short will still be above 45% of sales for today. Looking forward to Admiral Fox's take
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381 anyone? Yep, it's been a good day. Last Friday I suggested we'd be trading in the 360s this week, and it was a true statement, for all 17 minutes worth from market opening before TSLA moved to the 370s and later the 380s.
So, what happened? Over the weekend word spread about the possibility of a spending bill that might include a revision to the EV tax credit that would give Tesla buyers another 400K vehicles with the full $7K credit. You must realize that Wall Street for the most part hasn't done as much homework as us on likely Q1 results, and they're still looking for a weak Q1 because of some comments made by Elon regarding sequential growth of deliveries. The tax credit overhaul, however, would remove doubt about Tesla being able to reach a profitable Q1, and so they started sniffing S&P 500 inclusion. Many big firms need to load up with TSLA if it enters the S&P 500 because of index fund inclusion, and those firms would rather buy ahead of the rush at a discount, rather than wait for word of inclusion. Two otherwise bearish analysts gave some bullish comments about Tesla, too. Thus, we saw a day with lots of buying and 17.7 million shares trading hands.
Meanwhile, the shorts have been counting on a disappointing Q1 to revitalize their theories and holdings, and the tax credit would turn Q1 into a great quarter. Thus, part of the buying pressure today was from shorts losing faith because of the possible disappearance of the last remaining threat to Tesla.
What happens if the EV tax credit is not amended this week? The shorts get their courage back and jump into TSLA with both feet again, and we take a dip. If you have dry powder and have been waiting for a dip to buy, this would be your chance. Unfortunately for the shorts, evidence suggests that Q1 might be pretty good even if there's no change to the tax credit. China is producing what looks like hundreds of M3s per day, and Tesla has been busy expanding into new markets so that there's a reasonable chance that all Model 3s produced in Q1 can find homes. Thus, I'm playing no games in anticipation of a dip and am instead ready to ride one out because I see evidence that Q1 will be stronger than Wall Street expects. If we dip, my investment thesis is that we recover after Q4 results and guidance during the Q4 ER conference call. Long and strong is my TSLA investment thesis for the coming year.
The NASDAQ had a strong and stable day, closing up 0.91%
Today's 17.7 million shares of buying by both longs and shorts was a steamroller that the manipulators had no real chance of stopping. You can see possible manipulations in the level-offs in trading and momentary walk-downs during the first hour of trading, with capping around 380, and with two attempted push-downs in the afternoon. Not surprisingly, hungry shorts and longs engaged in a buying frenzy into close.
Looking at the tech chart, you can see that the second bowl's recovery has now departed significantly from the first's, and the big rise with volume today is hinting at breakout potential. In the short run, word on the tax credit bill will decide up or down from here. In the medium term, Q4 and guidance for Q1 will determine TSLA trajectory going forward. Notice that we blew through the upper bollinger band today. It typically takes a big piece of news to be the catalyst for such a disregard for the bollinger band, and the potential of the tax bill was that big piece of news.
And to celebrate this good day...
Iceman the 50-State Tesla dog and I drove our mainland Model S to the local ski resort today to celebrate 380+. He hung out happily in climate-controlled comfort in the back seat while I took a few runs.
Conditions:
* Dow up 101 (0.36%)
* NASDAQ up 79 (0.91%)
* TSLA 381.50, (6.45%)
* TSLA volume 17.7M shares
* Oil 60.20
* Percent of selling tagged to TSLA shorts: 56.5%
The plot thickens.
So, the plot thickens. The EV tax credit will not be amended and we saw a dip then recovery when some preliminary info came out yesterday afternoon and a dip today as the news became more widespread. So far the dip has not been very deep at all, and TSLA even climbed soon after open to above 385 before a short game of whack-the-mole followed by the icicles of push-down attempts devolved into a small dip today.
Here are the ingredients of today's trading:
* Some shorts received margin calls from yesterday's run-up, and so there was a bit of covering pressure this morning
* Some market-maker delta-hedging that was not completed from yesterday's run upwards could have added to today's buying pressure
* There wasn't much incentive to sell by longs. Volume was merely 8.3M shares
* With 61.5% of selling tagged to shorts today, the manipulators were working hard to get a dip started to relieve margin call pressure on short-sellers as well as to try salvaging some of Friday's sold call options. They weren't very successful
* The stock price opened above the upper bollinger-band, which had a constraining effect upon climbing today
* Although I believe the EV tax credit issue was a catalyst for supercharging the run upwards on Monday, it was the ingredient that allowed the stock price to run up to a price better reflecting the good news about Cybertruck, GF-3, and other major triumphs over the past couple of weeks. Thus, when the EV tax credit died, the stock price didn't just dip back to Monday's opening price. Instead, investors believe the stock is worth holding because Q4 and 2020 look very attractive. The EV tax credit would have been just icing on the cake.
All in all, I see strength today in the stock's ability to dip only 0.66% with a big manipulation push and the disappearance of Monday's catalyst.
The NASDAQ dipped into the red shortly after open but climb the rest of the day to close up 0.10%
Shorts were tagged with 61.5% of TSLA selling today, suggesting heavy manipulations
The good news is that the 20,2.0 bollinger band rose quite a bit today, up to 376.87. In the next couple days as the upper rises higher, it will clear the way for additional stock price increases. Typically, we see the stock price come back within the bollinger bands after about 2 trading days, and a small push-down plus a decent rise is setting Tesla up for such a move.
What to expect for Wednesday? I'd be mighty surprised if the manipulations slacken considerably. Instead, there should be more pressure put on the stock price again tomorrow. The big dips didn't materialize today because there was a ready supply of hungry shorts ready to scoop up shares to cover with when any substantial discount was offered. The same could be true for tomorrow. On the other hand, if a sizable Mandatory Morning DIp is soundly defeated tomorrow and the stock starts rising, the day could end green. Personally, I would be quite happy with a neutral performance tomorrow to give us another day for the upper bb to get positioned for future climbing. Shorts are trying to paint a picture of the stock price reaching the high end of the trading range and ready for a fall. Longs are seeing recent action as merely a setup for the Q4 P&D report, followed by ER and hopefully a breakout. As long as TSLA doesn't dip much over the next few days, the longs will likely remain steadfast, and that would be a big blow to the shorts as the end of the year is only about 2 weeks away.
Conditions:
* Dow up 31 (0.11%)
* NASDAQ up 9 (0.10%)
* TSLA 378.99, down 2.51 (0.66%)
* TSLA volume 8.3M shares
* Oil 60.50
* Percent of selling tagged to TSLA shorts: 61.5%
So, the plot thickens. The EV tax credit will not be amended and we saw a dip then recovery when some preliminary info came out yesterday afternoon and a dip today as the news became more widespread. So far the dip has not been very deep at all, and TSLA even climbed soon after open to above 385 before a short game of whack-the-mole followed by the icicles of push-down attempts devolved into a small dip today.
Here are the ingredients of today's trading:
* Some shorts received margin calls from yesterday's run-up, and so there was a bit of covering pressure this morning
* Some market-maker delta-hedging that was not completed from yesterday's run upwards could have added to today's buying pressure
* There wasn't much incentive to sell by longs. Volume was merely 8.3M shares
* With 61.5% of selling tagged to shorts today, the manipulators were working hard to get a dip started to relieve margin call pressure on short-sellers as well as to try salvaging some of Friday's sold call options. They weren't very successful
* The stock price opened above the upper bollinger-band, which had a constraining effect upon climbing today
* Although I believe the EV tax credit issue was a catalyst for supercharging the run upwards on Monday, it was the ingredient that allowed the stock price to run up to a price better reflecting the good news about Cybertruck, GF-3, and other major triumphs over the past couple of weeks. Thus, when the EV tax credit died, the stock price didn't just dip back to Monday's opening price. Instead, investors believe the stock is worth holding because Q4 and 2020 look very attractive. The EV tax credit would have been just icing on the cake.
All in all, I see strength today in the stock's ability to dip only 0.66% with a big manipulation push and the disappearance of Monday's catalyst.
The NASDAQ dipped into the red shortly after open but climb the rest of the day to close up 0.10%
Shorts were tagged with 61.5% of TSLA selling today, suggesting heavy manipulations
The good news is that the 20,2.0 bollinger band rose quite a bit today, up to 376.87. In the next couple days as the upper rises higher, it will clear the way for additional stock price increases. Typically, we see the stock price come back within the bollinger bands after about 2 trading days, and a small push-down plus a decent rise is setting Tesla up for such a move.
What to expect for Wednesday? I'd be mighty surprised if the manipulations slacken considerably. Instead, there should be more pressure put on the stock price again tomorrow. The big dips didn't materialize today because there was a ready supply of hungry shorts ready to scoop up shares to cover with when any substantial discount was offered. The same could be true for tomorrow. On the other hand, if a sizable Mandatory Morning DIp is soundly defeated tomorrow and the stock starts rising, the day could end green. Personally, I would be quite happy with a neutral performance tomorrow to give us another day for the upper bb to get positioned for future climbing. Shorts are trying to paint a picture of the stock price reaching the high end of the trading range and ready for a fall. Longs are seeing recent action as merely a setup for the Q4 P&D report, followed by ER and hopefully a breakout. As long as TSLA doesn't dip much over the next few days, the longs will likely remain steadfast, and that would be a big blow to the shorts as the end of the year is only about 2 weeks away.
Conditions:
* Dow up 31 (0.11%)
* NASDAQ up 9 (0.10%)
* TSLA 378.99, down 2.51 (0.66%)
* TSLA volume 8.3M shares
* Oil 60.50
* Percent of selling tagged to TSLA shorts: 61.5%
That's a lot of short selling for not a lot of impact!
Have to admit that I was very excited when it hit $385, I thought it might run away to ATH, but alas...
Still the more shorts in now, the more will have to cover, so it's all positive.
Have to admit that I was very excited when it hit $385, I thought it might run away to ATH, but alas...
Still the more shorts in now, the more will have to cover, so it's all positive.
How do you know it wasn't a lot of impact? Maybe it would have run up another $15 had they not been playing games...
Congratulations longs, we have new TSLA All Time Highs: 395.22 intra-day, 393.15 close
Going into today's trading, I really didn't know if shorts would be able to hold the line with a slight downward push like they did yesterday or whether the bulls would prevail. TSLA exceeding 387 within the first half hour of trading was a sign that something good was brewing, but until we made our way through the 10:30am regular dip time, I wasn't sure. Once the SP started a steady climb after 10:32am, however, it was game on. From about 2:55pm to 3:40pm the downward slope suggests a downward push by the shorts, but you can see that traders (or desperate shorts) bid the SP back up going into close. You really do have a situation of shorts fighting shorts at the moment as the manipulators hope to control the ascent and desperate shorts are covering to stop the pain or satisfy the most recent margin call. A massive 771K shares traded hands in one minute at 4pm.
Hopefully, if you had dry powder you got in yesterday during the mini-dip. This morning pre-market also offered opportunities, but once it looked likely that the ATH would fall, the prospects of such a move propelled the stock higher as traders sought to open their positions to take advantage of the likely bump upward when the world learns that TSLA is now trading at a new all time high. Again, with so much upward potential, this is a bad time to try and sell in anticipation of a dip. The opportunity costs of playing such a game are just too high.
The gyrations of the NASDAQ weren't nearly as big as they appear on this chart, with movement of about 2/10ths of 1% from high to low. The NASDAQ closed up 0.05%
Shorts were tagged with 60% of TSLA selling today, suggesting lots of effort went into influencing the stock price today
Looking at the tech chart, you can see that the second bowl's recovery is now way more extensive than the first bowl's recovery. The upper bollinger band is 384.48, about $7 below the current close. What we're seeing is news significant enough to cause the stock to run upward in spite of the upper bb. The news? It's the climb itself! Once you get longs buying to position for Q4 P&D and ER, you get short covering and delta-hedging by market makers adding continued fuel for continued climbing. Once word gets out about ATH having been reached, the news draws in technically-oriented traders. Once again, the upper bb is following the stock price like an obedient puppy, trying not to get too far behind.
Expect continued volatility. I continue to keep an eye on the long-term because despite the noise of short-term price fluctuations, I believe this stock has a good deal more climbing yet to go in my year-long time horizon. U.S. deliveries still look strong, and so I'm looking forward to the P&D report and ER.
Today we've had a fundamental change in the Teslasphere. With TSLA setting a new ATH two weeks before the likely-positive P&D Report, the old notion of TSLA being stuck in a trading range with 388 as the top is now dead. We're moving into a new trading range and this development ought to scare the stuffings out of the shorts. Expect more covering.
Conditions:
* Dow down 28 (0.10%)
* NASDAQ up 4 (0.05%)
* TSLA 393.15, up 14.16 (3.74%)
* TSLA volume 13.8M shares
* Oil 60.84
* Percent of selling tagged to TSLA shorts: 60%
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Sudre
Active Member
The bottom chart is options volume, and it is a reflection of what investors are putting their money into this week. If a particular call is bought and sold three times it shows up three times on the volume chart, so it's really not a good indication of quantity of open options that expire on Friday. The upper chart is what you need for that. Market makers will respond to the purchase of options by delta-hedging to stay close to neutral, so they're not really leading the options in one direction or another but responding to the changes.
One pertinent observation is that there are lots of 400-strike calls expiring on Friday. Mr. Hedge Fund will likely try to keep TSLA below 400 for Friday's close, but Mr. Hedge Fund has been very ineffective on Monday and today steering the stock price.
One pertinent observation is that there are lots of 400-strike calls expiring on Friday. Mr. Hedge Fund will likely try to keep TSLA below 400 for Friday's close, but Mr. Hedge Fund has been very ineffective on Monday and today steering the stock price.
The posted MaxPain is calculated from the options open interest at the previous market closing. It's not as though the market makers are proactively attempting to move it. It's based on how all TSLA options participants have been trading. The actual current MaxPain can vary throughout a trading day.
Anyone for 400+? Just after I've become adept at putting a "3" in front of 3-digit TSLA current prices after a few months of practice, the market changes the game and now I have to put a "4" there instead. It ain't easy being a TSLA shareholder.
With positive macros providing a light tailwind and about double the normal volume, TSLA started climbing right after open and maxed out at 406.83 at 11:04am. Shortly thereafter it began a descent which would partially be profit taking but (judging by the high percentage of selling by shorts number) also contained manipulative selling to get the stock below 400 again. Alas, from 12:30pm and another 3 minutes, TSLA traded a smidgen under 400 before returning to its climb and closing at 404.04.
Listening to Colin Rusch and other analysts recently, they have a focus on the rate at which Model 3s are being already produced at GF3 in Shanghai. Consequently, expectations are rising regarding the financial contributions of GF3 in 2020 quarters. These rising expectations no doubt are shared by other investors, and the higher volumes we've been seeing yesterday and today suggest that bigger investors are finally starting to pick up shares of TSLA in preparation for Q4 P&D report, ER, and a 2020 that looks strong for TSLA.
The NASDAQ opened in the green and climbed steadily to close up 0.67%
Looking at the above Opricot.com chart of max pain and option info, you can see that Friday is a big day for option expirations because it is a Triple Witching Day, which includes longer-term options expiring on Friday. Consequently you see the 50 puts (which have become so passe) and big bets at 300 and other pre-historic price points. Notice the 13K 400-strike call contracts expiring on Friday. These contracts will give the hedge funds a mighty inspiration to try and nudge TSLA below 400 for Friday's close. The problem for them is that yesterday and today were significant efforts to hold TSLA back, but to no avail. When volumes are high and longs are buying with confidence, TSLA becomes a tough stock to successfully manipulate.
Shorts are down over $2 billion in 2019 so far and there's still $10 billion of shares shorted remaining.
What the Dusaniwsky chart doesn't show you is that on Wednesday shorts increased short interest by more than a quarter million shares, and yet even with this significant net shorting, TSLA climbed to a new ATH. I suspect the shorting was done more as a manipulative selling that couldn't be covered same day than shorting expected to be profitable. When the SP is climbing the way it is right now, shorting into the climb is about as dangerous as a long trying to catch falling knives as the SP is in a cliffdive. My point is that shorts really were pulling out the stops yesterday to keep TSLA from reaching all time high, and they failed. Hedge funds working alone to nudge TSLA below 400 for Friday's close simply might be too little resources for too great a challenge.
TSLA shorts were tagged with 61% of the selling on Thursday, indicating lots of effort to keep the SP from climbing.
What's interesting about the tech chart is the climb being so steep that the upper bollinger band is falling behind in its efforts to catch the stock price. I see 394.54 as the current upper bb value, nearly $10 below the closing stock price.
Conditions:
* Dow up 138 (0.49%)
* NASDAQ up 59 (0.67%)
* TSLA 404.04, up 10.89 (2.77%)
* TSLA volume 17.7M shares
* Oil 61.1%
* Percent of selling tagged to TSLA shorts: 61%
Reminder: posts in this thread must be directly relevant to Papa's posts, otherwise they go into the main thread if there isn't already a special one. --ggr
adiggs
Well-Known Member
SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
I feel sorry for Papa but I'm still hoping for a quick movement to 5
A casual look at the trading and other charts tells today's story. Macros were up and steady, so volatility did not originate there. Nor was news a negative issue. Word from China is that Tesla sales were robust in November (according to this Teslarati article). Viewing the waiting for my Model 3 threads, a plethora of buyers are still waiting for their U.S. Model 3s ordered weeks and sometimes months ago, and this includes performance M3s. We know that European deliveries are well above the best quarter so far. Bottom line is that as long as production is doing well, the Q4 P&D Report as of today still looks like it will be a good one and should have no negative effect on the current stock price.
So, here's how the day played out. We opened with a great deal of pre-market enthusiasm that brought the stock price up to a high for the day of 413 (a new intra-day ATH). Mr. Hedge Fund had himself in a fix with so many calls he sold expiring in the money today (and some likely not delta-hedged), so he went to work after opening in a desperate attempt to push the stock price down. It almost made it to 400 at 11.11am, but the two hour game of whack-the-mole could not be sustained, and the stock price rose above 405, where it was capped for another couple of hours. In the final hour of trading, shorts made three push-downs into the red, but the traders showed up in the final 15 minutes to bid TSLA back up above 405 so that they could have shares with which to play Monday morning's buyer exuberance. Several pre-arranged trades occurred in after-hours trading with the largest at 41K in size. The Close of 405.59 sets a new closing ATH as well.
With volume of 14.8 million shares today, the hedge funds lacked the horsepower to reach and hold 400 today. They did, however, exert enough of a push to prevent TSLA from holding or rising above the 413 near-opening price that TSLA reached today.
The NASDAQ opened up and stayed up throughout the day in stable trading to close up 0.42%
Shorts were tagged with 59% of selling today, continuing the full-court press they've been engaged in this week
Dusaniwsky used the word "squeeze" in a general fashion, but the point is still made. The departure of shorts from TSLA continues to put upward pressure on the stock price. Keep in mind, though, that the big gains we saw this week when short interest increased by a quarter-million shares in one day suggest that short covering is just one of many forces pushing this stock higher. Also note that the value of short interest remains curiously close to the $10 billion that we've seen almost continuously this year.
Any time you wonder if you're on the wrong side of the TSLA trading, consider how the shorts have done since 2016.
Looking at the tech chart, the slower climb today allowed the upper bollinger band (403.24) to nearly catch up with the stock price. As long as the upper bb continues to climb with the stock price in this significant rally, it should not be much of a constraint. Looking at the rise from 330, there just aren't many red days along the way, and those that exist were very mild dips. That's a 75 point rise with hardly a sniffle. For this reason I'm thinking of putting a sign on the monitor of my trading computer saying "Sit on your hands" in order to keep from trying to make a clever play. So far "hold long and strong" has been a good trading strategy with Q4 likely results looking so positive and with so many positive developments coming in 2020. The next two trading weeks offer holidays that give opportunities to the shorts, but we have a balancing force with the early January P&D report not far behind.
For the week, TSLA closed at 405.59, up 46.20 from last Friday's 359.39. This is on top of the previous week's 22.50 climb, for a two week total gain of 68.70. Not bad. Have a great weekend!
Conditions:
* Dow up 78 (0.28%)
* NASDAQ up 38 (0.42%)
* TSLA 405.59, up 1.56 (0.38%)
* TSLA volume 14.8M shares
* Oil 60.44
* Percent of selling tagged to TSLA shorts: 59%
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SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
I'd like to read a semi-quant argument explaining the notion that Mr. Hedge fund is shorting Tesla to lessen the pain of option calls. I understand the general argument but hear me out a moment ...
If Mr. HF did not have calls, I'll presume he would not short the stock today
So for every call he is liable for at $400, how many short purchases are rational ?
Is the attributable to the calls shorting within the realm of reasonable ?
If Mr. HF did not have calls, I'll presume he would not short the stock today
So for every call he is liable for at $400, how many short purchases are rational ?
Is the attributable to the calls shorting within the realm of reasonable ?
Market-makers will typically delta-hedge their sold options and no doubt many hedge funds do too. It's only a guess how many of the 13,000 400-strike options that expired on Friday (1.3 million shares worth) were not delta-hedged. Today's alleged manipulations could have possibly prevented $10 or more in stock price movement, so that max exposure of those 400-strike options might by $10x1.3mil= $13 million. Of course other strike prices such as 405 were in play today too. The hedge funds aren't simply shorting this stock deeper and deeper, however. I suspect they're running algos that sell when there's an opportunity to push the stock price down, they sell when it is needed to cap a certain price, and then presumably the algos are slowly buying to end the day without increasing one's short holdings. Sometimes they can't cover by day's end, and I believe that's why you see the big pre-arranged trades in after-hours. Also, the net increase in short interest two days ago was likely a battle to prevent a new ATH that left the manipulators net short for the day and without any willing trade partner for an after-hours arranged trade. How expensive is running an algo to push the stock price down? It is actually profitable if it begins at a high price and then proceeds towards a lower price. For example, the shorting that took place in the first hour of trading and then covered later in the day was likely profitable. On the other hand, pushdowns such as the 11am efforts to reach 400 were likely unprofitable because there was no way to cover afterwards at the same or lower price.
Getting back to your original question about reasonable costs, I would say that with successful downward pushes being profitable to the manipulator and trying to stop a freight train when TSLA is rising quickly being clearly unprofitable, the answer lies with how successful the effort is to lower the stock price and also lies with the quantity of short positions held by the hedge funds involved with the manipulations. Presumably, on days like today when the manipulation effort succeeds in dipping the stock price from when the effort begins (not the previous close price) the manipulation might actually be profitable, but it most likely was inexpensive enough to justify the effects on the stock price on an options-close Friday. Keep in mind the higher volume during the push-down portion of the day, the morning hours. If you can make money pushing the stock price down in the morning when volume is high but you lose money in the afternoon hours when volume is lower, the net effort can be profitable.
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obviously anything less than the closing price was in the money. That's the definition.Hi Papafox!
I was very curious about today's close... If I understand correctly: both 400, 402,5 and 405 were in the money today?
Just trying to learn
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