capster, I think you quoted the wrong poster in your response. That or you're WAY out in left field.
What I was telling Wicket is that the amount of shares that retail investors (and traders) move around in TSLA stock is miniscule (billionaire buying 5 million shares being the exception) and isn't enough to affect the gyrations of the stock price. ESPECIALLY because most of TMCers are in the buy-n-hold camp (even the option traders!!). This statement, I think is pretty well accepted, right?
The amount of options moved around by these very same retail investors, however, seem to approach a pretty significant fraction of the options traded weekly (if not daily) - especially with the selling of covered calls. Thus my claim that retail options traders might be the ones responsible for lower premiums for those call options (and thus the lower IV).
Nope. I meant to quote you: I take issue with your use of the word "powerless" in your post when referring to TSLA retail investors that simply hold.
Indeed, I would argue that retail longs are
more powerful wrt Tesla than almost any other company.
As I and others have observed in past years, the gyrations of Tesla’s share prices have led to high conviction retail holders, such as myself, building ever larger and more concentrated positions with little intention of selling anytime soon. Weak longs have been routinely shaken out.
Large, concentrated positions in the hands of "pry-them-from-my-cold-dead-hands" holders means that the "true" float is much smaller than might otherwise be the case. This is to the long term benefit of retail longs though, perhaps perversely, this may ease manipulation and allow for increased volatility. Sorry, not sorry for that.
To put it another way and no offense intended, while you‘re kvetching about the weather, I’m thinking about the climate.
From my long term view, things look grand. As for a low IV, it is irrelevant to my life, whereas preserving my low resting pulse matters.
edit: Of course my holdings are minuscule compared to the whales mentioned above.