Short-Term TSLA Price Movements - 2013

[Subhuman]

Me thinks we're in for another delivery surprise after Q3. On the Delivery Update thread, they are reporting VINs in 21,400 range for end of September delivery.

I think it is Elon's plan to annouce that they have delivered the yearly guidance of cars (21,000) in the first three quarters of the year. The entire 4th quarter will be money in the bank. It's a great strategy to under promise and over deliver but eventually the the market will grow to expect it and it could eventually ended up hurting Tesla if they don't always have a blowout quarter.

 

[callmesam]

I think it is Elon's plan to annouce that they have delivered the yearly guidance of cars (21,000) in the first three quarters of the year. The entire 4th quarter will be money in the bank. It's a great strategy to under promise and over deliver but eventually the the market will grow to expect it and it could eventually ended up hurting Tesla if they don't always have a blowout quarter.

So what is the solution? My guess is that every quarter for the next 8 quarters is going to be a blowout. EM works hard to minimize expectations and then pull the rug out from under the shorts. The shorts are like Linus and EM is like Lucy with her football. Linus never learns.

 

[gym7rjm]

I think it is Elon's plan to annouce that they have delivered the yearly guidance of cars (21,000) in the first three quarters of the year. The entire 4th quarter will be money in the bank. It's a great strategy to under promise and over deliver but eventually the the market will grow to expect it and it could eventually ended up hurting Tesla if they don't always have a blowout quarter.

That would be nice... but I highly doubt they could accomplish that. That would be 10,950 cars delivered in the quarter, or over 800 deliveries per week. Seems like we would have heard rumors of crazy run rates by now if this were to occur.

 

[Subhuman]

That would be nice... but I highly doubt they could accomplish that. That would be 10,950 cars delivered in the quarter, or over 800 deliveries per week. Seems like we would have heard rumors of crazy run rates by now if this were to occur.

True. I may have gotten a little ahead of myself. I always forget about the 2,500 ish delivered in 2012. It just seems so damn long ago!

 

[Convert2013]

First close above $170 today? Cool!

 

[Jonathan Hewitt]

First close above $170 today? Cool!

Yeah, I felt a little beat up today with it going as low as it did and then it ends at the highest close ever...that's TSLA for you. It's been overdue for a larger drop (~155 or so?) but it doesn't seem to want to...It's hard to do anything at times like this...I think Kevin's strat is the best, sell a few (relatively) calls and let time decay work for you.

 

[redharel]

First close above $170 today? Cool!

spot on
i've edged my short in the stock against a big rise that i expect for tomorow.
long call spread(170-175) for me this weekend

 

[DaveT]

Sure Dave. It is all about hedging, ie now that TSLA has come back to $170 level, this particular trade does not have the same gain when TSLA drops, my overall balance actually increased quite a lot due to my other long position. If TSLA continue to rise, my gain will be less but still the gain overall will be handsome.

As I stated earlier, my overall position is moderately long. So it is not a simple short.

It happens I like to catch these inexplicable daily Significant turn. Sometime it works in my favor sometime it doesn't. But doing short options gives me extra cushion because of the time vale decay.

Thanks, Kevin. So to clarify, your plan would be to just hold the Sep Week2 calls until expiry and if it's over the 170 strike price then you're okay with having your shared taken away. Is that accurate? Also, I'm assuming you also want to keep the option open of buying back the calls... do you have a price set for that or are you playing that by ear?

 

[justdoit]

Yeah, I felt a little beat up today with it going as low as it did and then it ends at the highest close ever...that's TSLA for you. It's been overdue for a larger drop (~155 or so?) but it doesn't seem to want to...It's hard to do anything at times like this...I think Kevin's strat is the best, sell a few (relatively) calls and let time decay work for you.

Haha. You mean the 200 calls Kevin sold isn't considered as "a few"?

You just have to be careful about selling short term calls unless you have it set up as a spread or else if TSLA jumps you risk your shares being taken from you or having to buy back at a much higher price. This is especially risky with the uncertainty going on right now.

I also think if you want to sell some shares at these all time highs, instead of just selling the shares it might be more profitable to sell short term at or in the money calls. This way you can lock in some time premium from the calls.

 

[anticitizen13.7]

Yeah, I felt a little beat up today with it going as low as it did and then it ends at the highest close ever...that's TSLA for you. It's been overdue for a larger drop (~155 or so?) but it doesn't seem to want to...It's hard to do anything at times like this...I think Kevin's strat is the best, sell a few (relatively) calls and let time decay work for you.

A fickle day to be sure, and new closing high was a surprise for me as well.

 

[kevin99]

Thanks, Kevin. So to clarify, your plan would be to just hold the Sep Week2 calls until expiry and if it's over the 170 strike price then you're okay with having your shared taken away. Is that accurate? Also, I'm assuming you also want to keep the option open of buying back the calls... do you have a price set for that or are you playing that by ear?

That is one but unlikely possibility. I would intervene the trade, either at a loss or a gain, depends(I know everyone hate that) on the situation before expiration. Here I have a real example how I close the short call at a paper loss and let the long leg run for 'expected' Q2 jump:

Short-Term TSLA Price Movements - Page 597

Yes it is a loss for that particular trade. However you need to take an overall view. And if you are trying to make money in every trade, you will only make small gain in those trade. It is ok to take loss as long as it is planned and well contained.

And obviously if I was wrong on Q2, I would've suffered double loss. Nothing beats a hard research and a correct read . Do I need to mention that?

For this particular trade, TSLA need to rise to 170+6.5 = $176.5 in the next 7 trading days for me to lose money. If it does, I won't cry as my other long position will do well. If I can accept the 'worse' scenario of this trade, the I can be less stressful thinking of other thing.

I hope to theorize on the exit/adjustment strategy. I think I can cover half of the scenarios and let the rest play by ear, subject to my emotion and mental stability at the time, or whether I have a fight with wife.

 

[Jonathan Hewitt]

Haha. You mean the 200 calls Kevin sold isn't considered as "a few"?

That's why I said relatively Crazy! Anyway, I only have L2 trading so am severely limited in how many calls I can sell (all must be covered by shares, not going long other calls).

 

[sleepyhead]

That's why I said relatively Crazy! Anyway, I only have L2 trading so am severely limited in how many calls I can sell (all must be covered by shares, not going long other calls).

Call your broker and tell him you need level 3. Not sure if it will work, but you can only lose money if you don't have highest level of clearance. What is highest anyway? I have level 3 with Schwab, I think that is highest correct?

 

[vfx]

...even if GS bankers will spend the rest of their life in alcatraz prison it still won't be enough punishment for their crimes

Considering that Alcatraz is a national Park now How great would it be to see the the GS bankers behind bars as part of the tour. Who would pay extra for that?

 

[mershaw2001]

I applied for level 4 today. Mainly they were concerned with my income listed, but after talking to a representative he said I could list my Tesla income and I hope that gets me over the threshold. Its retarded if you ask me, but if that's what they want...

 

[DaveT]

Call your broker and tell him you need level 3. Not sure if it will work, but you can only lose money if you don't have highest level of clearance. What is highest anyway? I have level 3 with Schwab, I think that is highest correct?

There's Level 5 with portfolio margin. I've been looking into it some.

For IRA's I was told the max was Level 2.

 

[redharel]

Considering that Alcatraz is a national Park now How great would it be to see the the GS bankers behind bars as part of the tour. Who would pay extra for that?

you can build the prison back again just by confiscating the cheated money they have.
anyway i should get a free life ticket for that tour as that will pay me back the pain they cause me those (beep)


BTW what is levels? my broker is IB and i know nothing about levels...

 

[TSLAopt]

you can build the prison back again just by confiscating the cheated money they have.
anyway i should get a free life ticket for that tour as that will pay me back the pain they cause me those (beep)


BTW what is levels? my broker is IB and i know nothing about levels...

Interactive Brokers is by far the best...if your account is over 110k then you can get portfolio margin and automatically get the highest 'level' of any broker options capability. Not only that, but the overall transaction costs with IB is far better than any other broker any of us could get access to(unless we are a billion dollar hedge fund). This means the same strategy being traded with IB vs. any other broker will result in a better return for you with IB vs. any other broker (in the event of of the trading strategy yielding a loss, the loss would be less at IB than any other broker). The more active you trade the more compounded this effect is over time (Einstein once said compound interest is the strongest force in the universe, one could say something similar about compound "transaction costs").

As an example, I've seen the difference myself in my TSLA options as my friend who is also in TSLA options with me has a TD acct...one morning this Spring (when TSLA stock was trading at 50ish) we both wanted to buy 75 Sept Call options and put in the same orders before the open to buy them 2.40...at the open I got filled on 40 of my 50 contracts with a price improved avg price of 2.15 while he got filled on only 10 of his contracts at 2.25. We didn't chase the market as the lowest offer after those opening executions was 2.50 and then the market ran away from us.

PM me if interested in trying out IB or learning more. I can help get you set up to test them out to see for yourself or explain more on why the above is true (primarily bc, unless you are a large institution such as a billion dollar hedge fund, IB is the only broker that sends your orders directly to the exchanges and doesn't sell your orderflow to someone else who makes money off of your orders by doing things similar to 'front-running' or other shady tactics costing you).

 

[redharel]

Interactive Brokers is by far the best...if your account is over 110k then you can get portfolio margin and automatically get the highest 'level' of any broker options capability. Not only that, but the overall transaction costs with IB is far better than any other broker any of us could get access to(unless we are a billion dollar hedge fund). This means the same strategy being traded with IB vs. any other broker will result in a better return for you with IB vs. any other broker (in the event of of the trading strategy yielding a loss, the loss would be less at IB than any other broker). The more active you trade the more compounded this effect is over time (Einstein once said compound interest is the strongest force in the universe, one could say something similar about compound "transaction costs").

As an example, I've seen the difference myself in my TSLA options as my friend who is also in TSLA options with me has a TD acct...one morning this Spring (when TSLA stock was trading at 50ish) we both wanted to buy 75 Sept Call options and put in the same orders before the open to buy them 2.40...at the open I got filled on 40 of my 50 contracts with a price improved avg price of 2.15 while he got filled on only 10 of his contracts at 2.25. We didn't chase the market as the lowest offer after those opening executions was 2.50 and then the market ran away from us.

PM me if interested in trying out IB or learning more. I can help get you set up to test them out to see for yourself or explain more on why the above is true (primarily bc, unless you are a large institution such as a billion dollar hedge fund, IB is the only broker that sends your orders directly to the exchanges and doesn't sell your orderflow to someone else who makes money off of your orders by doing things similar to 'front-running' or other shady tactics costing you).

thanks for the answer...

i have IB margin account with less then 110K, how come?

from my 6 months with them i have no complains at all though i wish that part of their service they could block dumb moves that i've done

i still don't get the level thing...

 

[Norse]

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/09/04/top-insiders-selling-tesla-shares-in-august.aspx

I know its old News, but might be some headlines on it today.