teslamotorclub: Daily TSLA Trading Charts part 2

Today was the last-chance day to get into TSLA before Q2 delivery numbers are released. It culminates a weekly rise of about $22 in TSLA, not bad. With short positions near historical highs, with technicals all hovering around critical levels, and with the potential for good news on Q2 deliveries, the upside potential remains high. Negative trading in pre and early market were the results of fears stemming from the Tesla autopilot fatality reported on Thursday, but as the news revealed details of the accident the press and the public lightened their stance on the significance to TSLA of this accident.

Conditions:
* DOW up 19 (0.11%)
* NASDAQ up 20 (0.41%)
* TSLA up 4.22 (1.99%)
* TSLA volume 5.4M shares
* SCTY down 0.22 (0.92%)
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Today was the day after the three-day weekend in which Tesla announced a miss with the 2Q deliveries. Naysayers see the miss as 14,3XX vehicles delivered instead of the expected 17,000. Optimists see the 2,000/week vehicle production rate at quarter's end as confirmation that Tesla is set up to produce vehicles at a greater than 2000/week rate for the remainder of the year and that the 80,000-90,000 2016 vehicle delivery target is still possible. Further, the 5,000+ vehicles in transit will likely not be exceeded to a great extent in 3Q and therefore the 24,000+ production in the thirds quarter should translate nicely into deliveries that quarter, too.

The big question I had coming into today was whether the buyers of the past week were traders hoping to make a quick buck on 2Q delivery numbers or whether the buyers had longer time horizons. Looking at the chart, I would say the short-term traders exited in the morning (and most still made money on their bets) and then in the afternoon, institutional investors and others with time horizons of 6 months or greater started buying in when they saw that TSLA wasn't going to plunge today.

An important point about today's trading is that such a muted response after a delivery shortcoming would not have been possible if lots of shares were available to short. Shorts would have jumped on this opportunity to define the delivery miss as a big negative event. Since the shorts lacked the ability to go in deeper, a moderate response to the numbers was possible.

SCTY's good showing today suggests that the confidence shown in TSLA by investors today bodes well for the acquisition.

Conditions:
DOW down 109 (0.61%)
NASDAQ down 40 (0.82%)
TSLA down 2.52 (1.16%)
TSLA volume 5.2M shares
SCTY down 0.05 (0.21%)
News: In early morning, Ben Kallo of Baird reiterated his Outperform rating for TSLA with a PT of $338
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Today TSLA brought to an apparent end the stock price fall from somewhat disappointing Q2 delivery numbers and closed in the green. For much of the day, TSLA followed the broader markets in trading but diverged from following the NASDAQ as it transitioned to green. At least five changes of momentum took place before TSLA successfully claimed a gain for the day. Typically, when TSLA transition from a down cycle to closing up for the day we see at least 2 days of positive trading that follow.
Conditions:
DOW up 78 (0.44%)
NASDAQ up 36 (0.75%)
TSLA up 0.46 (0.21%)
TSLA volume 4.9M shares
SCTY up 0.42 (1.78%)
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Here's a chart of the full July 6 after-hours trading. Notice that the tug-of-war between longs and shorts persisted throughout the after-market hours. The shorts are really trying, but their ammunition is running short and they lack the ability to stop an enthusiastic rise once it gets going.

Note: The one deep dip in after-hours trading was likely a market-time trade that got posted late.
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Today was the day after TSLA reversed its down trend and as expected it was an up day for the stock. Obviously, pre-market trading did nothing positive to forecast the day's activity and I remain very skeptical of pre-market as an indicator. Since the gains today were modest, tomorrow's trading is a question mark, but I suspect if the broader markets are up that TSLA will show gains as well.
Conditions:
DOW down 23 (0.13%)
NASDAQ up 18 (0.36%)
TSLA up 1.50 (0.70%)
TSLA volume 3.6M shares
SCTY up 0.46 (1.91%)

The bigger picture is that brokerage houses are increasing the interest fees charged for shorting TSLA, and although some shorts are bailing, new TSLA shareholders are offering their shares for loan in order to gain interest on the transactions. The pressure on shorts would normally lead to some type of short squeeze, but we lack the catalyst at this time to get longs to join in the buying, and so TSLA gains have been modest today.
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Today the broader markets were way up and TSLA started up with them, but then came a series of downhill runs that took the stock into the red before it pulled out in afternoon for a small gain. As I mentioned before, on days with large gains underway for the broader markets, if TSLA fails to keep up with the market we see traders move their money to stocks that more-reliably respond to the market rise, and TSLA misses out on the action. Such was the case today.

While the stock price was near the zero-gain, zero-loss point, it moved up and down enough times to suggest that we were seeing a tug-of-war between longs and shorts, as we had seen two days earlier. Interpretation: shorts were providing some manipulation today in an attempt to get TSLA to close in the red, but they lacked the shares to short in order to continue the effort and TSLA rose. The after-hours trading included an error dip which distorted the chart, which is a shame because we saw the stock close at 215, down nearly 2 points from normal hours close, with no substantial news and with a dip at the very last minute. With volume so slim late on a Friday night, the late dip can be regarded as non-consequential.
Conditions:
DOW up 251 (1.40%)
NASDAQ up 80 (1.64%)
TSLA 216.78, up 0.84 (0.39%)
TSLA volume 4.1M shares
SCTY 23.8, down 0.74 (3.02%)
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Today was another positive day for the broader markets, but this time TSLA took off and outperformed the broader markets. Why? We've been seeing shorts subjected to much higher interest rates on borrowing TSLA shares, as part of a shares recall, and shorts have been making a very orderly exit with small gains to the SP. Unfortunately for us longs, a short squeeze was not taking place because there has been little news to entice longs to jump in and buy. In other words, we have a fertile setup for a squeeze, but no trigger. Along comes word from Musk that he's going to reveal the secret plan, part 2 this week, and now longs have a catalyst to entice buying. The result: A gain of $8 for the day.

In after-hours trading, a tweet by cnbc said that Tesla was being investgated by the SEC for securities violations related to not informing buyers of the equity offering about the fatal autopilot accident. The tweet may have overstated the situation. This information caused a near-instantaneous loss of about half the day's gains.

I post a chart of SCTY today so that you can see how closely it responds to TSLA's movements

Conditions:
* DOW up 80 (0.44%)
* NASDAQ up 32 (0.64%)
* TSLA 224.78 up 8.00 3.69%
* TSLA volume 5.4M shares
* SCTY 24.52 up 0.72 (3.03%)
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Today was a classic day of stock manipulation by the shorts. Tesla took off strong out of the gate but quickly reversed itself and went negative. Then it started climbing back into the green until some mysterious force brought it red again. From here it traded above and below the red/green line for the remainder of the day. TSLA's trading chart showed no resemblance to the charts of broader markets, another clue that some sort of manipulation was underway. Why manipulate? Today was going to be another up day for the broader markets and the shorts didn't want to risk another runaway up day like we had yesterday. So, as TSLA approached 228, enough short selling took place to get the stock on a downward trajectory. Once the stock bottomed out, whoever sold the short shares had a chance to partially reload by purchasing low. As TSLA approached 227, the series repeated itself until TSLA spent the rest of the day trading barely above and below the green/red line. Notice that someone with enough capital to actually affect the market with their trades could actually make money in this scenario by selling high and then buying back in low. If TSLA rose just a bit too high, a short could bop it down with a quick short sale. With so little volatility during the last half of the day, you would expect volume to be light, right? Take a look at the volume indicators, though, and you see that volume was anything but light. The only way you can see so little movement of the SP with this much volume is if someone is "managing" TSLA's share prices.

Conditions:
DOW up 121 (0.66%)
NASDAQ up 34 (0.69%)
TSLA 224.65 down 0.13 (0.06%)
TSLA volume 4.6M shares
SCTY 24.61 up 0.09 (0.37%)
News: Curt Renz reported that the appearance of FUD articles today was somewhat in sync with price dips, and so this theory also speaks of manipulation, but one using FUD rather than creative short-selling and repurchasing.
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Papafox said: ?

View attachment 185131
Today was a classic day of stock manipulation by the shorts. Tesla took off strong out of the gate but quickly reversed itself and went negative. Then it started climbing back into the green until some mysterious force brought it red again. From here it traded above and below the red/green line for the remainder of the day. TSLA's trading chart showed no resemblance to the charts of broader markets, another clue that some sort of manipulation was underway. Why manipulate? Today was going to be another up day for the broader markets and the shorts didn't want to risk another runaway up day like we had yesterday. So, as TSLA approached 228, enough short selling took place to get the stock on a downward trajectory. Once the stock bottomed out, whoever sold the short shares had a chance to partially reload by purchasing low. As TSLA approached 227, the series repeated itself until TSLA spent the rest of the day trading barely above and below the green/red line. Notice that someone with enough capital to actually affect the market with their trades could actually make money in this scenario by selling high and then buying back in low. If TSLA rose just a bit too high, a short could bop it down with a quick short sale. With so little volatility during the last half of the day, you would expect volume to be light, right? Take a look at the volume indicators, though, and you see that volume was anything but light. The only way you can see so little movement of the SP with this much volume is if someone is "managing" TSLA's share prices.

Conditions:
DOW up 121 (0.66%)
NASDAQ up 34 (0.69%)
TSLA 224.65 down 0.13 (0.06%)
TSLA volume 4.6M shares
SCTY 24.61 up 0.09 (0.37%)
News: Curt Renz reported that the appearance of FUD articles today was somewhat in sync with price dips, and so this theory also speaks of manipulation, but one using FUD rather than creative short-selling and repurchasing.
Click to expand...

Since there are so few shares available to short, where would black hats be getting them? If there is in fact net increase of longs it shouldn't be possible to keep using new shirts to hold things down right?
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austinEV said: ?

Since there are so few shares available to short, where would black hats be getting them? If there is in fact net increase of longs it shouldn't be possible to keep using new shirts to hold things down right?
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I was pondering this same question. If the smart shorts have already parted with their TSLA positions, who would be manipulating, then? Here are a couple possible scenarios.
1) Maybe some "black hats" are still in the game. These are individuals who have enough trading horsepower to move TSLA and aren't willing to give up their short positions quite yet.
2) Maybe we're seeing the work of "sell then reload" types. You sell your shares to create the top of a peak and sell some to get the stock headed downward. Frightened longs and follow-the-leader new shorts join in with the selling. Once the descent has progressed sufficiently, you start buying back stock to replenish your supply so that you can repeat this scenario multiple times during a day. The net result is you're selling higher than you are buying, and you're making money while discouraging TSLA from climbing. Your selling when the stock shows any hesitation in the climb and buying towards the bottom of a descent has the effect of stabilizing the stock, Once you can get it trading even, right about at the starting point for the day, you only need small sales to keep it under control unless we have what we saw on Friday, an afternoon breakout that couldn't be contained.

The reason I believe manipulation is taking place is because of the patterns we keep seeing repeated that effectively take the wind out of the sails of a possible TSLA run up that day (and thereby serve the purposes of the shorts), and secondly because the stock behavior cannot reasonably be explained without some manipulation involved. Look at the volume of trading this afternoon and you will see that with this much action and the stock not bumping much past a quarter point up or down, someone truly is putting effort into managing the stock price. I'm open for other explanations. Feel free to mention one if you think it is reasonable.
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Papafox said: ?

I was pondering this same question. If the smart shorts have already parted with their TSLA positions, who would be manipulating, then? Here are a couple possible scenarios.
1) Maybe some "black hats" are still in the game. These are individuals who have enough trading horsepower to move TSLA and aren't willing to give up their short positions quite yet.
2) Maybe we're seeing the work of "sell then reload" types. You sell your shares to create the top of a peak and sell some to get the stock headed downward. Frightened longs and follow-the-leader new shorts join in with the selling. Once the descent has progressed sufficiently, you start buying back stock to replenish your supply so that you can repeat this scenario multiple times during a day. The net result is you're selling higher than you are buying, and you're making money while discouraging TSLA from climbing. Your selling when the stock shows any hesitation in the climb and buying towards the bottom of a descent has the effect of stabilizing the stock, Once you can get it trading even, right about at the starting point for the day, you only need small sales to keep it under control unless we have what we saw on Friday, an afternoon breakout that couldn't be contained.

The reason I believe manipulation is taking place is because of the patterns we keep seeing repeated that effectively take the wind out of the sails of a possible TSLA run up that day (and thereby serve the purposes of the shorts), and secondly because the stock behavior cannot reasonably be explained without some manipulation involved. Look at the volume of trading this afternoon and you will see that with this much action and the stock not bumping much past a quarter point up or down, someone truly is putting effort into managing the stock price. I'm open for other explanations. Feel free to mention one if you think it is reasonable.
Click to expand...

I just imagine myself trying to do that and how hard it would be. It's like market timing but more difficult and with high stakes (you can't manipulate with 100 shares). So your ideal situation is a thinly traded "top" where you can unload your inventory, cause a higher volume downward trajectory, quietly reload into higher volume (so your fixed qty of trading shares doesn't spike the price back up) and wait again for the nasty tesla cheerleaders to bid it back up again and repeat.

All it would take is one failure to be really upside down. The stock drifts up, you sell your "hammer" to cap the move--- but it doesn't. today volume was too high and the ticker goes up. Now what? Your black hat "job" is to stop it. You can't rebuy without contributing to the run up. Now you have to wait for the stock to go down on its own to reload at a lower price. But since the price action has been mysteriously resilient, it's character is that it just refuses to do it's sawtooth leg down. That is the interesting thing post-merger news. Since the stock has refused to leg down the black hats MUST be running out of inventory. They cannot borrow, and they cannot manufacture shares.
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Today the bears tried to see how low TSLA could go, and it wasn't much. At about 10:05am, more than 50,000 shares were sold in a 4 minute period. Then at 1:30pm, more than 110,000 shares were sold in 2 minutes. The results? In both cases, TSLA bounced back almost immediately. The reason why I suggest such rapid selloffs are induced by shorts when there's no pressing news to warrant such a quick sale is because selling in blocks this big depresses the stock price momentarily and reduced the average selling price for the seller. If he had merely sold slowly over time, those 110,000 shares could have blended into the other 3.5 million shares trading hands without much of a hit on selling price at all. So, selling in these massive blocks makes no sense for profit maximization. It only makes sense if the sale is used to knock the SP down to help another short position.

Anyway, I was very impressed by the resilience of TSLA to the bear assaults today. This resistance demonstrates that the longs are confident, and that confidence should be chilling to the shorts.

Conditions:
* Dow up 24 (0.13%)
* NASDAQ down 17 (0.34%)
* TSLA 222.53, down 2.12 (0.,94%)
* TSLA volume 3.5M shares
* SCTY 24.22 down 0.39 (1.58%)
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austinEV said: ?

I just imagine myself trying to do that and how hard it would be. It's like market timing but more difficult and with high stakes (you can't manipulate with 100 shares). So your ideal situation is a thinly traded "top" where you can unload your inventory, cause a higher volume downward trajectory, quietly reload into higher volume (so your fixed qty of trading shares doesn't spike the price back up) and wait again for the nasty tesla cheerleaders to bid it back up again and repeat.

All it would take is one failure to be really upside down. The stock drifts up, you sell your "hammer" to cap the move--- but it doesn't. today volume was too high and the ticker goes up. Now what? Your black hat "job" is to stop it. You can't rebuy without contributing to the run up. Now you have to wait for the stock to go down on its own to reload at a lower price. But since the price action has been mysteriously resilient, it's character is that it just refuses to do it's sawtooth leg down. That is the interesting thing post-merger news. Since the stock has refused to leg down the black hats MUST be running out of inventory. They cannot borrow, and they cannot manufacture shares.
Click to expand...

I've thought of trying the sell high buy low routine but I can't do so for two reasons:
1) restrictions in my account against day trading
2) inability for me to sell enough shares to move the market. This is key. If you can't influence the market with your selling, then you really can't play this game. Today, the big dips involved about 100,000 shares trading hands in 2-4 minutes. The kind of trades that a mischievous black hat would do would require much less, maybe 25,000 shares. Still, I think there are individuals and organizations with enough horsepower to throw 25,000 shares at the market and see what happens. If you ever get that many shares and give it a try, let me know, I want to watch ; )
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Is such manipulation legal?
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3Victoria said: ?

Is such manipulation legal?
Click to expand...

Even if stock price manipulation is not legal, the culprits could claim they had no intent to affect the stock price, their trades just happened to take place at turning points for the stock. It'd be really tough to prove intent and so they carry on.
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Ho hum, just another day of shorts willing to spend money to contain TSLA on an up day for the broader markets. Evidence of buyers willing to bid TSLA up can be seen in pre-market trading. Look at the downward spike about 10:30am and how little traction it got, though. Look at the break upwards about noon and how quickly selling neutralized the gain. The good news is that the game cannot go on forever. Sooner or later there will be a smidgen of good-enough news so that TSLA will lurch upward and once shorts get worried and join in the buying (to cover), there's no containing it until TSLA reaches a resistance point.
Today joins July 6, 8, and 12 as near-neutral trading days for TSLA when the broader markets are heading upward.

Conditions:
* DOW up 134 (0.73%)
* NASDAQ up 28 (0.57%)
* TSLA 221.53, down 1.00 (0.45%)
* TSLA volume 2.6M shares
* SCTY 24.65 up 0.43 (1.78%)
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Papafox said: ?

View attachment 185348
Ho hum, just another day of shorts willing to spend money to contain TSLA on an up day for the broader markets. Evidence of buyers willing to bid TSLA up can be seen in pre-market trading. Look at the downward spike about 10:30am and how little traction it got, though. Look at the break upwards about noon and how quickly selling neutralized the gain. The good news is that the game cannot go on forever. Sooner or later there will be a smidgen of good-enough news so that TSLA will lurch upward and once shorts get worried and join in the buying (to cover), there's no containing it until TSLA reaches a resistance point.
Today joins July 6, 8, and 12 as near-neutral trading days for TSLA when the broader markets are heading upward.

Conditions:
* DOW up 134 (0.73%)
* NASDAQ up 28 (0.57%)
* TSLA 221.53, down 1.00 (0.45%)
* TSLA volume 2.6M shares
* SCTY 24.65 up 0.43 (1.78%)
Click to expand...

What is the next "natural" resistance point in your opinion? $265? ATH @ slightly above $290???
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Johan said: ?

What is the next "natural" resistance point in your opinion? $265? ATH @ slightly above $290???
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I don't have a firm resistance number in mind. Let's see when we get to $265
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Today followed the trading pattern of the past three days, which is to say a small loss in value of slightly more than $1.00. Volume was particularly light today, which made TSLA more vulnerable to any attempts at manipulation. For the week, TSLA closed up about $3.60. The after hours dip late in the day involved only about 1,000 shares and can be regarded as non-consequential, just as I mentioned about a similar dip at the end of after-hours trading last Friday.

Conditions:
* DOW up 10 (0.05%)
* NASDAQ down 4 (0.09%)
* TSLA 220.40 down 1.13 (0.51%)
* TSLA volume 2.2M shares
* SCTY 25.04 up 0.39 (1.58%)
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I was thinking about @jhm's post about how SCTY and TSLA prices are bound together (recall 225 (TSLA) x 0.122 = 27.45 (SCTY), in short term thread). Looking at the week's SPs, it looks like he has a point. I couldn't help but to notice how TSLA is trending down for the week while SCTY is moving up (hopefully my chart will make sense):

Day
actual TSLA (calc SCTY)/// actual SCTY (calc TSLA)
Mon::: 224.78 (27.42)/// 24.52 (200.98)
Tues::: 224.65 (27.41)/// 24.61 (201.72)
Wed::: 222.53 (27.15)/// 24.22 (198.52)
Thur::: 221.53 (27.03)/// 24.65 (202.05)
Fri::: 220.40 (26.89)/// 25.04 (205.25)

Not sure if it's predictive, but could there be a trend going on here bringing their prices together as jhm pointed out? What I found fascinating was that when I looked back at the 30 day numbers, SCTY has been gradually rising to TSLA 220, where TSLA was before the announcement. Interesting. Probably old news for seasoned investors, but since I'm a noob, I'm glad @jhm pointed that out!

If I made any errors in calculations, please feel free to point out. Thanks @Papafox for keeping this thread and adding SCTY!

Sorry, after I posted I realized the chart looked funny so I added the ::: and /// to hopefully make it more readable.
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GoTslaGo,
Thanks for the computations. I put the SCTY info into the daily postings to enable such calculations. My guess is that TSLA is going to do what it is going to do and SCTY will adjust, as long as investors believe the merger will go through. SCTY rising closer to the min percentage could suggest growing optimism for the deal, or it could suggest growing optimism for SCTY itself. We'll see.
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It was deja-vu all over again. Two Mondays in a row, TSLA jumped higher in the morning and never looked back. Lots of people have given their reasons for today's rise, but I believe it was the same reason as last Monday's rise, the combination of growing pressure on the shorts to leave their positions combined with a catalyst, and the catalyst in both cases was expectations of a Master Plan 2 being delivered by Elon Musk. Oh yes, there's also the similarity that both rallies began during the amateur hour of a Monday morning, a regular catalyst for a bump up as people have had a whole weekend to decide upon a purchase of TSLA shares, but a catalyst that needs support to go higher and maintain that altitude. For two weeks in a row, it has found that support.

Will TSLA build upon this Monday's performance or will it, like last week, be slowly beaten down by FUD and give up some of the gains? The jury is still out, but I see a more positive news cycle at the moment, higher short interest rates, and perhaps an imminent release of a Master Plan 2 by Elon.
Conditions:
* DOW up 17
* NASDAQ up 26
* TSLA 226.25 up 5.85 (2.65%)
* TSLA volume 3.4M shares
* SCTY 26.14 up 1.10 (4.39%)
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You know I was waiting for this!

TSLA 226.25 (calc SCTY 27.60)
SCTY 26.14 (calc TSLA 214.26)

Getting closer...
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Here's Tuesday's chart. This is a chart of uncertainty. Investors saw TSLA lose all but $3.50 of last Monday's gains and some were wondering if history would repeat itself. The NASDAQ was also down, related to a Netflix miss. As long as TSLA is rising, shorts are going to be jumping ship, but the good news is that the dips were very shallow and TSLA recovered almost all of its loss by the end of after-market trading. Differences between last week and this week: Last Monday had the WSJ announce an SEC investigation of Tesla (which was untrue because the SEC is still evaluating), Master Product Plan will actually be released this week, and we're one week closer to potential lift from gigafactory opening.
Conditions: (note: some minor errors may exist because these were figured one day late)
* DOW up 25.96 (1.40%)
* NASDAQ down 19.41 (3.84%)
* TSLA 225.26 up 4.86 (2.21%)
* TSLA volume 3M shares
* SCTY 26.26 up 1.22 (4.87%)
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Today the uncertainly for TSLA investors lightened as Elon confirmed he would release the second Master Plan. Right after opening, TSLA took a dip to nearly the red before immediately recovering, on no news. This dip was likely a meger attempt by shorts to strike some fear and uncertainty into traders. It didn't work. Seriously, if you had a large number of shares to sell on a day that has been trading up in pre-market, would you dump them all at once and diminish the money you receive for them? I think not.

Take a look at the spike in SP at 3:08pm. This was one minute after Elon tweeted that he would release Master Plan 2 later that evening. I continue to strongly believe that anticipation of SMP2 was a significant catalyst for helping TSLA climb these past two weeks.

Conditions:
* DOW up 36 (0.19%)
* NASDAQ up 53 (1.06%)
* TSLA 228.36 up 3.10 (1.38%)
* TSLA volume 2.6M shares
* SCTY 26.95 up 0.59 (2.63%)
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Today was the day after Elon released his Master Plan 2, and the market was less than thrilled today. I see the drop to the support level of 220 as TSLA giving up some of the gains it received from anticipation of the Master Plan.

Concerns included fears that new projects would impede the on-time arrival of Model 3 and general concerns that short-term profitability could be lessened as Tesla broadens its product line. An interesting example is Adam Jonas of Morgan Stanley. Jonas must personally be thrilled that Tesla is long-last open about implementing an Uber-like drive service for autonomous vehicles (after all of his statements in the press and unsuccessful questioning of Elon Musk. Ultimately, Jonas indicated no positive changes in his TSLA valuation. Part of the reason is that Morgan Stanley helped sell the last equity offering, and whatever purchasers were told about 2016 profit expectations took a radical change when Tesla announced plans to acquire SolarCity. Thus, concerns about 2016 overruled the bigger picture for Tesla in the mind of many investors and analysts.

Conditions:
* DOW down 78 (0.42%)
* NASDAQ down 16 (0.31%)
* TSLA down 7.86 (3.44%)
* TSLA volume 4.4M shares
* SCTY down 0.55 (2.04%)
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A number of TMC Investor forum members including myself have tried to catch these wild price swings in after-hours trading as you see around 5 pm, but we cannot, and one needs to disregard them. Why do they occur? The obvious answer is that someone wants to mess up the charts I share with you. Of course!

Nonetheless, TSLA did show that 220 is a strong support level once again. What can we expect for Monday? I've been of the opinion that the anticipation of SMP2 was the catalyst that allowed the high interest rates and other pressures on shorts to get a buy-to-cover frenzy underway over the past two Mondays. Why Mondays? We often see buying during the first hour of a Monday as investors have pondered a purchase over the weekend, and this bump during the first hour of trading can get things rolling. Once the stock starts climbing, more shorts get nervous, and there you have it, a nice climb. My guess is that we won't see a strong climb on Monday because SMP2 is now behind us, but let me hedge my bet a bit. Since we've had two strong Mondays in a row, shorts may be nervous and some little news item may set them off to covering. It'll be fun to watch and see what happens.

Conditions:
* Dow up 54 (0.29%)
* NASDAQ up 54 (0.52%)
* TSLA up 1.77 (0.80%)
* TSLA volume 2.6M shares
* SCTY 26.45 up 0.05 (0.19%)
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I saw this from @Gerardf (he saw this and posted in short term)

neonacr - $TSLA I put an order in to sell my 250 shares at $281.88 in ... | StockTwits

Sounds like a fat finger AH trade messed things up this time...poor guy.
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GoTslaGo said: ?

I saw this from @Gerardf (he saw this and posted in short term)

neonacr - $TSLA I put an order in to sell my 250 shares at $281.88 in ... | StockTwits

Sounds like a fat finger AH trade messed things up this time...poor guy.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I saw that post too, but I am wondering if someone just made it up after seeing the $181.88 sale of 250 shares. Think about it, why would the brokerage skip all the many higher buy requests and go for one that exactly matches the stated sales price? I would think if this was a legitimate sale that the seller could go back to the brokerage and say "you didn't do your job. There were much higher buy orders out there, why did you skip over them?"
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Papafox said: ?

Yeah, I saw that post too, but I am wondering if someone just made it up after seeing the $181.88 sale of 250 shares. Think about it, why would the brokerage skip all the many higher buy requests and go for one that exactly matches the stated sales price? I would think if this was a legitimate sale that the seller could go back to the brokerage and say "you didn't do your job. There were much higher buy orders out there, why did you skip over them?"
Click to expand...

Good point!
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Cha-ching! Three super Mondays in a row is mighty fine. I'm glad I hedged my bet about this Monday because we did see two substantial news items: word of a press day at the gigafactory on Tuesday and word that the gigafactory is well ahead of schedule and with expedited construction underway. My feeling has been if we closed above 230 today (and we did, just barely), any good news from the gigafactory press day would send TSLA higher.

Conditions:
* DOW down 78
* NASDAQ down 3
* TSLA 230.01 up 7.74 (3.48%)
* TSLA volume 4.5M shares
* SCTY 27.50 up 1.05 (3.97%)
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Papafox said: ?

Yeah, I saw that post too, but I am wondering if someone just made it up after seeing the $181.88 sale of 250 shares. Think about it, why would the brokerage skip all the many higher buy requests and go for one that exactly matches the stated sales price? I would think if this was a legitimate sale that the seller could go back to the brokerage and say "you didn't do your job. There were much higher buy orders out there, why did you skip over them?"
Click to expand...

I am in the habit of placing after hours bids to buy at a 9 dollar discount or sell to a 9 dollar premium. Those trades expire every time, even in sessions with these aberrant trades. So if they really were retail investors typing the wrong numbers my bids would have to get taken out first and they don't. I think that guy is full of it. I don't think I had a bid that day, but I have had them other days when something wild happened.
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Gosh, this is almost like the olden days when shorts were on the warpath. You can see from the very deep downward stabs, following immediately by near-recoveries, that the short-sellers were selling in fairly large orders in order to artificially knock the SP down today. I say this is manipulation because if you are trying to sell your stock for maximum profit, you would not sell so many shares within the span of a minute. Just look how quickly the SP recovers every time there's a deep stab downward.

Nonetheless, anticipation of the gigafactory media day provided incentive for longs to buy in, and you can see in the afternoon that TSLA twice almost went green but was batted down at the last moment by selling. Coincidence? I think not.

Conditions:
* DOW down 19 (0.10%)
* NASDAQ up 12 (0.24%)
* TSLA 229.51 down 0.50 (0.22%)
* TSLA volume 3.4M shares
* SCTY 27.43 down 0.07 (0.25%)
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I love the manipulation shown here today. Start with a deep dip after opening to scare the longs, it didn't work and TSLA hit 233 briefly. At 11:35am, a selling-spree of 70,000+ shares took place in just 4 minutes. This rapid-sell lowered the TSLA price into the red. From there, about 15 interventions were needed by the shorts to keep TSLA in the red. Notice the push to take TSLA lower during the final 20 minutes of trading. I particularly like the buyer who grabbed 50,000 shares right after hours to take advantage of the clearly-manipulated ending to the day. Bottom line: the shorts expended a good amount of ammo keeping TSLA from running up today. For anyone paying attention, the tendency for upward movement is there. It's only a matter of when.

Conditions:
* DOW down 2
* NASDAQ up 30
* TSLA 228.49, down 1.02 (0.44%)
* TSLA volume 2.9M shares
* SCTY 27.36, down 0,.07 (0.26%)
�

@Papafox -- I really enjoy your analyses. Here is a trial balloon from a neophyte .. shoot it down as you like.
Would this scenario explain todays action: a short wants to close out his position, but obviously buying 200,000 shares a one time would cause a large blip and might cause a panic among other shorts, creating a stampede for the exits. So, instead, he buys 100 shares every 10 secs, say. The stock climbs slowly, his cost is the average of the sloped segment. At some point it triggers other shorts to buy and the slope increases. At that point, he sells half (say) of the shares to bang down the stock, hopefully sucking in some longs into taking their profit. Then repeat and rinse. Todays chart has several slow rises with accelerations and then a dip. Unfortunately, for my hypothetical short, the slam-downs don't succeed in returning the stock back to base, and the slow rise continues through the day.
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Today clearly began as a tug-of-war between bears and bulls, with bears (shorts) losing the ability to hold TSLA down from about 1pm until the end of trading. I like to characterize the trading today as being the rise in TSLA that should have taken place yesterday but was delayed a day by serious efforts of well-timed selling by the shorts. In short, they used up too much of their ammo yesterday and couldn't short enough shares today to counter the direction the market wished to pull TSLA. I would say the rather flat trading around 3pm is indicative of a shorts attempt to hold TSLA near 230 which proved unsuccessful and the 3:30pm dip to be another short-initiated effort that proved equally unsuccessful.

Particularly interesting is the opposite movement of TSLA and SCTY to each other

Conditions:
* DOW down 16
* NASDAQ up 15
* TSLA 230.61, up 2.12 (0.93%)
* TSLA volume 2.4M shares
* SCTY 26.88, down 0.48 (1.75%)
�

50k shares sold at 230.35 at the start of AH today again.

If you're right and they're out of ammo, and if they're buying back ammo right there, could that be a new minimum resistance level? Or, would they sell at a loss in order to push it sub 230?
�

Low volume day, so should have been easier to push things around, yet green.
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Over in the short-term thread, I think we figured out why the arbitrage gap widened. We've mostly been considering the exchange rate in the offer (.122 to .131).

But there are probably some major traders out there who instead looked at the dollar value of the offer, assuming that if TSLA went up, they would reduce the exchange rate offer. (I personally think they're wrong about this assumption, but they exist. THIS IS NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE. Do your own research to determine whether they're right.)

Based on the TSLA closing price at the date of the offer, the dollar value of the merger offer values SCTY stock at $26.79. The "dollar value conversion" offer range in the letter is $26.50 to $28.50. Therefore, as long as this type of trader is out there in large numbers -- a trader who values the merger by dollar value rather than exchange ratio -- there will be resistance for SCTY around $26.50-$27. And this is precisely where the merger arbitrage gap reopened.

If TSLA drops below the $219.61 closing price on the date of the offer, traders following an exchange-ratio thesis may dominate again and SCTY should track TSLA. (Or maybe the merger arbitrage gap will remain open because people think the merger won't happen. What do I know.)
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The way I see things, on Wednesday, TSLA wanted to climb higher because of good news revealed at Tuesday's gigafactory press day, even approached 233, but was constrained by a quick response of short selling and closed lower. Thursday, the short selling tried to constrain TSLA again, but TSLA broke free and climbed into the green. By Friday, there was no holding TSLA back and it jumped up quickly in the morning. So... I rather believe that what we saw happen on Friday is what the longs wanted to do with TSLA on Wednesday, but the influence of the shorts delayed the real climb for two days.

Conditions:
* DOW down 24
* NASDAQ up 2
* TSLA 234.79, up 4.18
* TSLA volume 3.1M shares
* SCTY 26.70, down 0.18
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Jayjs20 said: ?

50k shares sold at 230.35 at the start of AH today again.

If you're right and they're out of ammo, and if they're buying back ammo right there, could that be a new minimum resistance level? Or, would they sell at a loss in order to push it sub 230?
Click to expand...

I think that a sale of 50,000 shares at one time after hours would have a huge effect upon strike price and would be quite expensive for the person initiating the trade. More likely, large transactions we see one or two minutes after close are catch-up transactions that somehow weren't posted in regular hour trading but appear right at the beginning of after-hours trading.
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One ha to remember, that AH doesn't allow market trades. So you cannot dump 50k shares to be sold/bought at market price. You can only enter limit orders that are filled if there are shares matching the other side of your deal by other traders with limit orders. So one cannot directly manipulate the market by dumping a huge amount of shares except if one gets a view of the market depth and dumps the shares at the lowest price that falls in the range, then it'd trigger all the limit orders that are there until it exhausts.

Also, don't think you could sell TSLA at a $100 discount like the 250 shares a while ago, that had to be a misprint or a recognition of a transaction from February for what ever reasons that went on tape now.
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Today's trading was influenced by a pre-market announcement of the TSLA-SCTY merger terms. Longs were generally positive about TSLA going into the trading day, as evidenced by pre-market trading in the green. The day turned out to be a transition from the continuous good news of the past few weeks to the realities that the uncertainties of less-than-stellar numbers divulged in the 2Q ER come Wednesday. In early trading, TSLA dropped, both because some longs likely wished to cut their holdings prior to the Q2 ER and also because shorts likely wanted to give some red early in the day to prevent a 4th Super Monday from occurring. Nonetheless, TSLA climbed into the green later in the morning owing to both nervous shorts and longs seeing a good price. Once the rally fell short of another Super Monday performance, though, the stock headed downhill in anticipation of Wednesday's ER.

Although delivery numbers suggest disappointing Q2 numbers in the upcoming ER, the mood of longs is generally upbeat about the remainder of the year and shorts are jittery. Thus, the emotions of these two groups will likely influence TSLA trading this week.

Conditions:
* Dow down 28 (0.15%)
* NASDAQ up 22 (0.43%)
* TSLA 230.01, down 4.75 (2.04%)
* TSLA volume 4.0M shares
* SCTY 24.72, down 1.98 (7.42%)
* News: TSLA and SCTY boards announced plans to merge with a 1 to 0.11 exchange ratio on the stock, which was lighter for SCTY than the previous range, resulting in a drop in the price of SCTY
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Today was the day before the Q2 ER, and concerns for the upcoming ER propelled the stock lower, along with reports that major automakers had a weak month of sales. With a lack of deep dips and near recoveries, we cannot blame the dip on mischief by shorts. Rather this was likely longs showing concern about the upcoming ER and with car sales in general. I expected TSLA to bottom out before 220, which has been a strong support level, and it stayed above that level. The most interesting part of the day was the recovery from the 11 am low. I owe this recovery to both the jittery shorts, the smartest ones using this dip to exit, and the relative bullishness of longs.

Conditions:
* Dow down 91 (0.49%)
* NASDAQ down 46 (0.90%)
* TSLA 227.2, down 2.81 (1.22%)
* TSLA volume 3.9M shares
* SCTY 24.42, down 0.30 (1.21%)
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Here's the chart from Q2 ER day. Notice the lack of direction being shown by the trading. Any time the stock price is bouncing between red and green in a narrow band I become suspicious of manipulation by shorts. Though some individuals suggested TSLA was influenced by the broader markets today, if you take a look you will see the NASDAQ in a slow climb throughout the day and TSLA running sideways for a couple hours before dipping down. I think the story today was mostly longs and shorts positioning for the ER.

Once the ER letter came out, look at the confusion of the market trying to determine if this was a good ER or not. Notice the deep drop in the final few minutes of after-hours trading,which may be shorts trying to put a negative spin on the ER. My impression is that we longs have weathered this storm and any dip will be small, and we may even see a positive day tomorrow. The more important point is that this potentially-negative catalyst that has been hanging over our heads is now gone, and once TSLA starts heading up, there's little reason for shorts to retain confidence, given the guidance for production during the final half of the year.

Conditions:
* Dow up 41 (0.23%)
* NASDAQ up 22 (0.43%)
* TSLA 225.79, down 1.41 (0.62%)
* TSLA volume 3.9M shares
* SCTY 24.30, down 0.12 (0.49%)
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On the day after 2Q ER day, TSLA shook off the ER's cloud of concern and reclaimed 230. Not surprisingly, we saw TSLA dip more than $3 shortly after regular hours began (and I used this dip to buy back a few calls), as shorts threw in a feeble effort to define the ER as negative. TSLA then went slightly green and you can see a tug of war between bears and bulls until about 1:30 pm when TSLA reclaimed its bullish manners and reclaimed 230 as well.

At this point, there's little reason for shorts to remain in TSLA. The big hope, the 2Q ER, produced low numbers but attractive guidance and the guidance won out. Elon provided enough info in the ER so that we understand TSLA has a plan to generate needed demand, production will hit 2400 units/wk by year end, and we can expect 50,000 vehicles in Q3 and Q4 combined, with improving margins. Model 3 is on track, as is the gigafactory.

I would consider today as a prelude to an exit by substantial numbers of shorts.

Conditions:
* Dow down 3 (0.02%)
* NASDAQ up 7 (0.13%)
* TSLA 230.61, up 4.82 (2.13%)
* TSLA volume 4.1M shares
* SCTY 24.38, up 0.08 (0.33%)
�

Added J18 $300 LEAPS at the Papafaux-morning-dip $222
(pun intended)
Thx Papa for consistent, diminutively informative posts

p.s.
All SCTY arbitrage shares converted to TSLA earlier when new ratio announced. Now full up TSLA
- with 20% of position leveraged to J18 LEAPS ($300s and $400s)
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kenliles said: ?

Added J18 $300 LEAPS at the Papafaux-morning-dip $222
(pun intended)
Thx Papa for consistent, diminutively informative posts

p.s.
All SCTY arbitrage shares converted to TSLA earlier when new ratio announced. Now full up TSLA
- with 20% of position leveraged to J18 LEAPS ($300s and $400s)
Click to expand...

My pleasure, Ken. I had sold some J17s prior to the Q2 ER and bought them back on the opening dip at a nice discount. It's mighty swell of the shorts to give discounts to those of us who can read the tea leaves ; )
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Yesterday was a day in which TSLA broke from a negative trading direction into a formidable climb by end of day. Usually, when you see a transition from days of negative trading to a mid-day transition into positive trading, the following trading day will be positive (see previous examples in this thread). Thus, members of this forum were excited about today and the shorts were on guard for such a positive day and took measures to prevent it. You can see the drop right after opening, followed by a climb, followed by a deep drop that was immediately neutralized. Then came another deep drop that was mostly neutralized. These are classic signs of manipulation by shorts. By end of day, TSLA had recovered into the green but was beaten down before the close. All of these are classic signs that TSLA would have gone higher today without intervention by the shorts. The combination of big macro gains today and following a transition-to-green day necessitated that the shorts use plenty of horsepower today to keep TSLA from running up. Such an effort is unsustainable for the shorts now, especially with short-shares still in short supply.

The good news is that TSLA closed at over 230, which potentially sets us up for another "super Monday". It's possible that Monday amateur-hour buying will trigger another fearful exit by shorts. It might not happen because of macros or because of strategic selling near opening by shorts, but it could happen.

Conditions:
* Dow up 191 (1.04%)
* NASDAQ up 55 (1.06%)
* TSLA 230.03, down 0.58 (0.25%)
* TSLA volume 3.2M shares
* SCTY 24.79, up 0.41 (1.68%)
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kenliles said: ?

p.s.
All SCTY arbitrage shares converted to TSLA earlier when new ratio announced
Click to expand...

Interesting choice. I'm still very heavy on SCTY in anticipation of the merger (I still think the merger is going to happen), mostly in the form of selling puts, which either gets me a better price than outright ownership, or gets me free money.

The arbitrage gap is at 2.1% on the shares, but still significantly larger on the put options (though it's shrinking pretty much every day). I'm sort of wondering when the differential in the pricing of SCTY vs. TSLA options will disappear; maybe not until after the vote.
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neroden said: ?

Interesting choice. I'm still very heavy on SCTY in anticipation of the merger (I still think the merger is going to happen), mostly in the form of selling puts, which either gets me a better price than outright ownership, or gets me free money.

The arbitrage gap is at 2.1% on the shares, but still significantly larger on the put options (though it's shrinking pretty much every day). I'm sort of wondering when the differential in the pricing of SCTY vs. TSLA options will disappear; maybe not until after the vote.
Click to expand...

Yeah it was a close call, but immediately after the announcement the ratio matched the .110 announced. I estimated a growing doubt thru closing might produce a slight gap, so decided to pull the lever; and since I was early on the TSLA to SCTY initial conversion when arbitrage was 12-15 points (original ratio), I was ok even with the lower final ratio.

There's no doubt it will go thru. The wording sounds like the .110 ratio is fixed, though it's possible that ratio is specified as defined by the 5 previous days of SP and the $ amount is actually the fix- I don't think so, but the wording isn't 100%- another reason I decided to just move to all TSLA.

I suspect you'll come out better than my move letting it convert at closing- besides you'll save the trade commissions! All the best...
�

Looks like the announced payment by TSLA of $411 million for retiring 2018 debt will likely take a toll on trading come Monday, which is a shame because I think we were seeing a setup for a positive Monday.
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If there's one number to look at today, it's the volume. TSLA traded at about half the volume of a normal day, pretty much indicating that nobody is in a big hurry to get into, or out of TSLA, at this point. Longs and shorts have placed their bets, longs are waiting for the 3rd and 4th quarter production numbers to do their magic and shorts are hoping for anything bad to happen, but with 2Q ER now out of the way, there's nothing definite on the radar screen. I'd say we're in a 220-230 trading range momentarily, but that range can easily be pushed up to 235 or higher with any type of positive news or with the passage of time. Time is now working in favor of the longs because of the possibility of share recalls and the improved production numbers we'll see in Q3 and Q4.

Pre-market trading reflected the after-market trading of Friday, with a slump due to the $411 Million early repay issue. The amateur hour brought the usual buying pressure with TSLA coming close to the green, but now quite. The deep dip you see about 10:45am looks like strategic short selling because it was substantially neutralized right away. As 2:00pm approached, a definite upward trend was evident. Then things turned negative, and I suspect the reason for the negativity was that volume was so light that creative short selling could yield very nice reductions in market price for not much money. Many minutes during the afternoon we saw only 500 shares trading during that minute. The big drop near the end of the day either came from some news (not sure what) causing longs to shed shares or possibly from a push to send TSLA lower through short selling. The shorts have an interest in keeping TSLA below the 229.8 pivot point that some technical traders are talking about.

Conditions:
* Dow down 14 (0.08%)
* NASDAQ down 8 (0.15%)
* TSLA 226.16, down 3.87 (1.68%)
* TSLA volume 2.2M shares
* SCTY 24,32, down 0.47 (1.90%)
�

Today TSLA investors shrugged off the $3 decline in low-volume, after-hours trading of yesterday and lifted the stock back above $230, before it settled down another point. Volume remains light. Tesla tends to trade well in a slightly-up broader-market environment, such as what we saw today.

Conditions:
* Dow up 4 (0.02%)
* NASDAQ up 12 (0.24%)
* TSLA 229.08, up 2.92 (1.29%)
* TSLA volume 2.2M shares
* SCTY 24.55, up 0.23 (0.95%)
* News: SCTY announced 2Q ER after hours today. SCTY reported a somewhat smaller loss than anticipated by analysts
�

Today TSLA basically lost what it gained yesterday, and a tiny bit more. The broader markets were down and the FUD was slinging, with CNBC doing its best to make the minor China autopilot accident of last week a big deal. More importantly, though, solar companies saw huge stock losses for the most part today, with one losing 30%. Concern about the sector may have spilled over into concerns about the value of adding SCTY to TSLA. Potential good news? Baird reiterated its 338-target buy recommendation, and the solar stock slump may have brought more shorts back into TSLA today (their departures in the future will raise the SP).

Another important point is to take a look at the new-vertical climb TSLA experienced yesterday, right after opening. Whenever TSLA starts heading up, some shorts panic-sell and we see such exaggerated movements. Today, with a negative outlook for the day, TSLA tended lower, but look at the trading and you don't see panic being shown by the longs. Overall, the longs remain calmer than the shorts during these ambiguous times.

* Dow down 37 (0.20%)
* NASDAQ down 21 (0.40%)
* TSLA 225.65, down 3.43 (1.50%)
* TSLA volume 2.3M shares
* SCTY 24.38, down 0.17 (0.69%)
�

Yawn, this was a really low volume day. Shorts could easily neutralize the five excursions into the green with minimal selling. Looks like we either need news or people coming back from summer vacation before we leave the duldrums.

Conditions:
* Dow up 118 (0.64%)
* NASDAQ up 24 (0.46%)
* TSLA 224.91, down 0.74 (0.33%)
* TSLA volume 1.7M shares
* SCTY 24.03, down 0.35 (1.44%)
* News: Electrek posted a story that they have a source who spelled out the hardware that will be in Autopilot 2.0. With such stories surfacing, Tesla will need to roll out AP 2.0 hardware fairly soon in order to avoid further fence-sitting by potential buyers. An announcement of AP 2.0 hardware being installed on vehicles will likely be quite a nice catalyst because it will be a big demand creator and remove some of the concerns whether Tesla can meet 2016 delivery guidance.
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On yet another day with very light trading, TSLA managed a gain. Max pain stood at 225 and it looked like the market makers could drag TSLA right where they wanted, but in the final minutes of trading TSLA jumped up more than half a point. Notice that TSLA closed the regular trading session with a nice flurry of buying and did well in after-hours trading as well. In recent weeks, TSLA has stormed upward during the first hour of trading on three Mondays. Might we have another super Monday ahead? There's hints of good news (100kwh battery progress and Autopilot 2.0 hardware predictions of "sooner than you think" from Electrek, so perhaps we're primed for another nice Monday morning. Conditions when TSLA does well is slight positive broader market performance (but not overpoweringly high performance), and a hint on Friday that upward momentum is ready to take hold of the stock for a few days. Hmm. Don't be surprised to see the shorts induce a dip into the red shortly after Monday's regular hours opening as a defensive measure.

Conditions:
* Dow down 37 (0.20%)
* NASDAQ up 5 (0.09%)
* TSLA 225.61, up 0.70 (0.31%)
* TSLA volume 1.8M shares
* SCTY 23.7, down 0.33 (1.37%)
�

This was a crazy day. I expected an amateur hour buying spree and wasn't disappointed with the spurt. This makes 4 out of 6 recent Mondays having a nice first-hour bump up. As with the other upward bursts, it was led by a few longs buying in, but mostly by nervous shorts, covering their shorts. I wasn't at all sure what would happen in the afternoon, since it is mighty easy for shorts to pull the SP down with the anemic volume of these August afternoons. Unfortunately, there wasn't good enough news to sustain the rise, and the SP slowly drifted down to the red. A f*re in France and CNBC giving national TV coverage to Mark Spiegel of all people contributed to the afternoon's decline.

Much of today's morning rise can be attributed to the newfound fear that shorts have of Monday mornings. Unfortunately, today's rise and then fall may cure that fear of Monday mornings for a while. Really, it does normally take some honest news to pull TSLA higher and keep it higher, in most cases. We had no good news to hold us higher, just rumors and rumblings. Consequently, once the morning rise had peaked, traders had little interest to stay in Tesla any longer today, and some took money to speculate on other stocks which were rising with the broad market gains.

So, where does today leave us? TSLA still looks good for second half of this year, and longs have shown no tendency to flee the stock. We continue to trade in the 220-230 range with solid support at 220 while awaiting word that the important things are still on track (50,000 deliveries in 2nd half of year, gigafactory and Model 3 still on schedule). We'll likely need news to break 230 and rise higher (100kwh battery announced, AP 2.0 hardware being installed, etc.), and so we will move up and down within the range until news forces the next move.

In the meantime, use the up and down trading within the 220-230 range to best advantage. I sold 4 J17 ITM calls as SP peaked this morning and I will convert the proceeds to Mar17 or J18 calls of the same strike when/if the SP falls a few points lower than today's close.

Conditions:
* Dow up 60 (0.32%)
* NASDAQ up 29 (0.56%)
* TSLA 225.59, down 0.02 (0.01%)
* TSLA volume 2M shares
* SCTY 23.99, up 0.29 (1.22%)
�

Today was the inevitable Tesla Tuesday follow a Monday with a runup and a rundown, especially with a down broader market, today. What's noticeable are the rather deep downward dips with immediate near-recoveries. My "Handbook for Understanding the Cunning Minds of the Shorts" says these jabs and near recoveries are selling events by shorts in order to depress the SP. It worked somewhat, but longs are not inclined to head for the exits, and so we only see a minor price adjustment. With strong support at 220, you can expect to see a reversal some time this week as we start working our way back up again through the 220-230 range. Make yourself comfortable, bring a pillow, we'll be here until some news pulls us one way or the other.

Conditions:
* Dow down 84 0.45%)
* NASDAQ down 35 (0.66%)
* TSLA 223.61, down 1.98 (0.88%)
* TSLA volume 2.3M shares
* SCTY 23.76, down 0.23 (0.95%)
�

After a Tesla Tuesday where we lost a dollar and some change on the SP, today was undecided trading. If the broader markets perk up tomorrow, I suspect we'll enjoy a slight up day. Again, we are trading in the 220-230 range until some real news allows us to move one way or the other. Volume remains light because shorts can't/won't enter new positions and longs are hanging tight, looking towards a more promising 2nd half of 2016 and a dynamic 2017.

Conditions:
* Dow up 22 (0.12%)
* NASDAQ up 2 (0.03%)
* TSLA , down 0.37 (0.17%)
* TSLA volume 1.8M shares
*SCTY 23.59, down 0.17 (0.72%)
�

After our Tesla Tuesday we evolved into an undecided Wednesday, which let to an up Thursday with game-playing in the low-volume trading of afternoon. Notice that morning rises and afternoon drops are not mirroring the broader markets. It just doesn't require much money to manipulate TSLA on such thin trading. For example, see that big decline at 1:30pm where TSLA plunges about a full point? That drop occurred with about 4,000 shares traded, less than a million dollars selling. If you are a big short seller, you can indeed manipulate TSLA pretty easily during the slim trading times of an August afternoon.

Nonetheless, we've seen TSLA continue to work its way back and forth through the $220-$230 range, and we see the selling pressure typically happen in the afternoons when volume is down. Until the news changes, the cycles will continue.

Conditions:
* Dow up 24 (0.13%)
* NASDAQ up 11 (0.22%)
* TSLA ,223.51, up 0.27 (0.12%)
* TSLA volume: 1.7M shares
* SCTY 23.42, down 0.17 (0.72%)
�

Papafox said: ?

View attachment 190618
After our Tesla Tuesday we evolved into an undecided Wednesday, which let to an up Thursday with game-playing in the low-volume trading of afternoon. Notice that morning rises and afternoon drops are not mirroring the broader markets. It just doesn't require much money to manipulate TSLA on such thin trading. For example, see that big decline at 1:30pm where TSLA plunges about a full point? That drop occurred with about 4,000 shares traded, less than a million dollars selling. If you are a big short seller, you can indeed manipulate TSLA pretty easily during the slim trading times of an August afternoon.

Nonetheless, we've seen TSLA continue to work its way back and forth through the $220-$230 range, and we see the selling pressure typically happen in the afternoons when volume is down. Until the news changes, the cycles will continue.

Conditions:
* Dow up 24 (0.13%)
* NASDAQ up 11 (0.22%)
* TSLA ,223.51, up 0.27 (0.12%)
* TSLA volume: 1.7M shares
* SCTY 23.42, down 0.17 (0.72%)
Click to expand...

Using this same logic, I wonder if market makers will push it to either 225, or 227.5 tomorrow afternoon. Monthly options expire tomorrow.
�

geneclean55 said: ?

Using this same logic, I wonder if market makers will push it to either 225, or 227.5 tomorrow afternoon. Monthly options expire tomorrow.
Click to expand...

Normally I would say 225, but 227ish certainly is possible. I think traders often abandon TSLA in the afternoon because of a tendecy to slump, but if we can keep a shallow climb going in the afternoon it would raise enough eyebrows to persuade the traders to stick around, I suspect. Will be cheering on the tractor beam tomorrow.
�

Thanks to the market maker tractor beam operating in an afternoon with low volume and monthly options expiring, TSLA shrugged off its red dip and climbed to close at 225. Although maximum pain was at 227.5, the SP 225 could be reached much easier, since it was midway within the recent trading range, and so it was the number TSLA closed at today.

Checking out the percentage of the day TSLA traded in the green, you can see that on Tuesday of this week, we were in the red most the day, on Wednesday TSLA traded about 50/50 green/red, on Thursday TSLA traded up most of the day, and so it did again today. We continue repeating the patterns from the previous two weeks.

As for Monday, TSLA is only midway up the trading range and we're on an uptrend, so some additional gains are possible, but due to last Monday's morning rise, afternoon fall, shorts are likely less concerned about Mondays than they were last week, and so setting off some type of panic buying in early trading is not as likely.

Conditions:
Dow down 45 (0.24%)
NASDAQ down 2 (0.03%)
TSLA 225, up 1.49 (0.67%)
TSLA volume 1.7M shares
SCTY 23.50, up 0.08 (0.34%)
�

With last week's runup on Monday and then forfeit of all gains that same day, shorts have for the time being lost their fear of Monday mornings. Although the chart above looks rather dramatic, it's only because the scale is so fine. In reality, we were trading within $2 of opening price for most of the day. SCTY lost twice the percentage amount compared to TSLA today, with at least one news story scorning the 6.5% interest paid on new debt. It's possible that SCTY could have had a bit of a drag effect of TSLA today, as many investors assume the deal will go through.

Conditions:
Dow down 23 (0.12%)
NASDAQ up 6 (0.12%)
TSLA 222.93, down 2.07 (0.92%)
TSLA volume 1.7M shares
SCTY 23.02, down 0.48 (2.04%)
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Another view: Intermediate Term Linear Trend Regression Channel is drifting lower. It would take a robust rally above the channel to turn intermediate term long. Buy Signal above $240.
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What a pleasure to see only green! About 11am Tesla announced there'd be a new product announcement at 3pm Eastern, noon Pacific. That announcement turned out to be the 100kwh battery and the now 2.5 second 0-60mph P100D. This announcement offered plenty of opportunities to TSLA traders. One opportunity was to sell some stock or calls near the high of the day and expect this to be another "buy the rumor, sell the news" event. Yep, it turned out that way, and I bought back in after the drop because $1.80 gain for the day was way too little a jump for such a potent demand lever and GM enhancer as the P100D. As the day progressed, you can see that investors realized the error of underpricing this event and started bidding up the SP in after-hours trading. So, some of us benefitted twice: first with the sell high and buy low immediately after the announcement and then with the recovery in after-hours trading.

Another important aspect of today's trading has to do with the chart posted above by apharris. Notice that although TSLA has been trading within the 220-230 range for quite some time, the general trend is a slow decline. With today's news, TSLA has a newfound spark of optimism, and that slow decline can now be countered.

Notice the return of normal volume today.

Conditions:
Dow up 18 (0.10%)
NASDAQ up 15 (0.30%)
TSLA 224.84, up 1.91 (0.86%)
TSLA volume 4.8M shares
SCTY 23.09, up 0.07 (0.30%)
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The day started out much as expected, with a run up to match the after-hours closing price of yesterday. Unfortunately, the broader markets were down and a large amount of negative press was circulating (Elon and cousins buying SCTY bonds, etc.) and so TSLA chose to pretty much follow the NASDAQ, which dropped off in the afternoon. The deep dips, followed by near-immediate recoveries, were not present today, so I can't blame today's trading on the shorts.

Looking down the road a ways, we see the Q3 delivery numbers set to be released in less than 40 days. The shorts are likely to get nervous as we approach that date, and traders are likely to buy in. If TSLA does nothing but remain in the 220-230 range until that upturn, we will be well-positioned for the 3Q delivery numbers release. Expect more FUD in next few weeks as shorts try to find an attractive exit point prior to October.

Conditions:
Dow down 66 (0.35%)
NASDAQ down 42 (0.81%)
TSLA 222.62, down 2.22 (0.99%)
TSLA volume 2.5M shares
SCTY 22.50, down 0.59 (2.56%)
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Today TSLA dropped along with the broader markets at about 1:30pm, but instead of rebounding somewhat, as the broader markets did, TSLA dropped a bit further. The continued drop after the NASDAQ started to recover could have been the result of shorts taking advantage of the low volume to push TSLA down even more. We've seen strong support at 220 (actually it's more like 219.75 which leads to a 220 recovery soon). For this reason, it's entirely possible for shorts to try and test the 220 support tomorrow. If they are unsuccessful, the tactic could backfire and TSLA could head higher. Expect continued pressure from shorts with creative trading in the next few weeks as they seek profitable exit points before the October release of Q3 delivery numbers.

Conditions:
Dow down33 (0.18%)
NASDAQ down 5 (0.11%)
TSLA 220.96, down 1.66 (0.75%)
TSLA volume 1.8M shares
SCTY 22.36, down 0.14 (0.62%)
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At least down days are low volume.
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GoTslaGo said: ?

At least down days are low volume.
Click to expand...

This is actually normal. It's relatively rare to have high volume and dropping prices; most bear markets are low volume. Dunno why volume correlates with rising prices, but it has for over 100 years.
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Papafox said: ?

xpect continued pressure from shorts with creative trading in the next few weeks as they seek profitable exit points before the October release of Q3 delivery numbers.
Click to expand...

Next significant date I see is Sept 14 when the 'go shop' period expires, followed immediately by September options expiration on the 16th. We'll all be watching to see how fast SEC approval goes but if it's greased to move fast, we could be voting before the release of Q3 delivery numbers.
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neroden said: ?

Next significant date I see is Sept 14 when the 'go shop' period expires, followed immediately by September options expiration on the 16th. We'll all be watching to see how fast SEC approval goes but if it's greased to move fast, we could be voting before the release of Q3 delivery numbers.
Click to expand...

There's something I don't understand here. The SEC just agreed there's no anti-trust issues with the SCTY acquisition. What additional approval is needed from the SEC before a vote can happen?
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Papafox said: ?

There's something I don't understand here. The SEC just agreed there's no anti-trust issues with the SCTY acquisition.
Click to expand...

No, that's the FTC.

What additional approval is needed from the SEC before a vote can happen?
Click to expand...

Basically, the SEC has to approve the proxy statements -- agree that they are not misleading to investors (voters).

If the managements of SCTY and TSLA do a really good job with the proxy statement, SEC approval could be lightning-fast. If they write it really badly, it could take several rounds of back-and-forth to get the text fixed.
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Gosh, the shorts gave me an early birthday present by doing exactly what I predicted today. We started the day nicely up but then came the big plunge around 12:30pm where (I believe) the shorts were testing the 220 support level. Their answer came in a quick rebound in SP that the 220 support was still alive and well. For the remainder of the day, longs tried to bring the SP up and shorts tried to get the SP to close below 220. On the short-term forum I predicted the possibility of a 219.99 close and my prediction came true to the penny. It's nice when the planets align.

So, where do we go from here? TSLA is sitting right on the bottom of the 220-230 range. Do we move up to more comfortable spots toward the middle of the range or do we settle lower next week? Since news is pretty quiet right now, much has to do with what the broader markets do and what type of press Tesla receives over the weekend and through the week. Being named the most innovative company by Forbes doesn't hurt, but at this point investors are more interested in the shorter term deliveries and financials plus whether Model 3 will be on time and profitable. Let's see what the media brews up in the next few days.

I continue to believe that shorts are trying to manufacture an attractive exit point prior to the Oct delivery-number dates. Since there's no evidence that short positions are increasing, I think what you're seeing instead is creative buying and selling to induce drops at critical times. At some point, if good enough news surfaces, and TSLA starts climbing again, you could see the same panic buying by shorts we saw a few weeks ago and some nice near-vertical ascents.

Keep in mind that for the SCTY acquisition to go forward, investors have to vote yes, and the SP at the time of the vote will be a factor influencing the vote. For this reason, Tesla has a reason to avoid a deep drop in the SP, and I see this motivation as a counteracting force to the desires of shorts to manufacture a lower exit point in the next few weeks. Tesla can release positive information in public events (this coming week's Sunday Socials, perhaps?) if they desire to give the SP a temporary boost. My hope is that the 3Q delivery numbers are sufficient to boost the SP high enough to get big investors comfortable enough with the SCTY acquisition to vote yes.

Conditions:
Dow down 53 (0.29%)
NASDAQ up 7 (0.13%)
TSLA 219.99, down 0.97 (0.44%)
TSLA volume 2.2M shares
SCTY 22.05, down 0.31 (1.39%)
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Today was a clear short attack to test the resolve of longs with SP below the 220 support level. The deep dips and partial near-recoveries are the fingerprints of short selling. At one point the stock recovered to 217, but continuous short selling to keep it below 217 in a horizontal movement allowed further decline later in the day.

The good news is that the shorts are limited in the number of days during which this type of selling activity can take place. Vgrinshpun reports that available short shares declined by more than 50,000 today at Fidelity. There was no substantial news today and broader markets were up, which points to selling by shorts as the primary explanation for today's decline in SP.

With production ramped up, demand holding, and Model 3 and gigafactory progressing on schedule (as far as we know), there is no reason for longs to jump out of the stock and so we do not see the panic selling by longs that took place in previous shorts-induced price declines. As long as longs buying in temper the effects of the short selling, there are real limits to how far down the short selling can bring the SP before a reversal takes place and longs start picking up shares at bargain prices.

Conditions:
Dow up 108 (0.58%)
NASDAQ up 13 (0.26%)
TSLA 215.20, down 4.79 (2.18%)
TSLA volume 3.3M shares
SCTY 21.46, down 0.59 (2.68%)
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Papafox said: ?

View attachment 192059

Today was a clear short attack to test the resolve of longs with SP below the 220 support level. The deep dips and partial near-recoveries are the fingerprints of short selling. At one point the stock recovered to 217, but continuous short selling to keep it below 217 in a horizontal movement allowed further decline later in the day.

The good news is that the shorts are limited in the number of days during which this type of selling activity can take place. Vgrinshpun reports that available short shares declined by more than 50,000 today at Fidelity. There was no substantial news today and broader markets were up, which points to selling by shorts as the primary explanation for today's decline in SP.

With production ramped up, demand holding, and Model 3 and gigafactory progressing on schedule (as far as we know), there is no reason for longs to jump out of the stock and so we do not see the panic selling by longs that took place in previous shorts-induced price declines. As long as longs buying in temper the effects of the short selling, there are real limits to how far down the short selling can bring the SP before a reversal takes place and longs start picking up shares at bargain prices.

Conditions:
Dow up 108 (0.58%)
NASDAQ up 13 (0.26%)
TSLA 215.20, down 4.79 (2.18%)
TSLA volume 3.3M shares
SCTY 21.46, down 0.59 (2.68%)
Click to expand...

50K decline in available short shares isn't much compared to today's volume of 3.3 m shares, it is less than 2%. How do we conclude that net short selling is the reason for fall today?
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TMSE said: ?

50K decline in available short shares isn't much compared to today's volume of 3.3 m shares, it is less than 2%. How do we conclude that net short selling is the reason for fall today?
Click to expand...

Fidelity is only one broker, and not even a particularly big one at that. I'd guess about 5-8% of todays sales were shorts, and that's enough to make some longs get fed up and sell too. Personally, I'm encouraged that the volume is picking up again.
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When longs are selling, you don't normally see the quick dips and near-recoveries. Such up and down trading is more indicative of a tug-of-war with shorts trying to maximize the drop when they sell into a new position and longs bidding the price back up quite a bit shortly thereafter. When longs are selling, such as after bad news, you don't see nearly so much up and down movement. It's far from a linear drop, but it is not so up and down as this.

Fidelity is a good-sized brokerage and if shorts borrowed 50,000+ shares today, one could imagine at least 200,000 short shares systemwide being put into play today. That's less than 10% of total trading and ggr's numbers may in fact be pretty close, but 200,000 shares sold in big lots that bring steep downward spikes can indeed move the SP considerably. An interesting exercise is to go to the NASDAQ's real-time TSLA page and click by the minute on the various dips that took place throughout the day and see the volume for that minute. On a slow day, even 10,000 shares sold can create a nice dip, if timed right. You also have algobots that jump in and sell when they see selling, so you have a magnified effect of short-selling.

One reason I suspected short-selling behind the dip today is that I was on guard about it before trading started. On Friday we closed a penny below the $220 support level and I expected either a push back higher into the green by longs or a short selling push that would probe to see how far below $220 TSLA could be pushed today.

And so, my premise is that with the shape of the trading chart today (lots of deep dips and then near recoveries), with the Fidelity drop in available shares to short, and with TSLA teetering right on the edge of the $220 support level causing shorts to have a real incentive to push the SP lower today, I believe that short-selling was the primary reason for the loss of value in TSLA today.
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@Papafox,

FWIW (since I am a noob at this) I agree with your hypothesis that the shorts are trying to push the SP down. IMHO, there was a tempting target available: the 200 day MA.

Just finished reading @Curt Renz 's primer on charting and couldn't help but to notice on Friday that the SP was just above the 200 MA. I'm sure others noticed it as well. Since lot's of folks use technicals to make trading decisions it was probably too tempting a target not to go after.

Quick article on NASDAQ:

Tesla Motors Breaks Below 200-Day Moving Average - Notable for TSLA
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Today was a better day than yesterday and gave indications that the bottom might be near. Notice the positive pre-market trading and the up and down trading during opening hour. This opening hour was a tug-of-war between bears and bulls or between shorts and longs, however you wish to see it. Two attempts were made to penetrate 210, and both rebuffed. Also, take a look at the closing half hour of trading today and yesterday. Yesterday, the shorts (or bears) still had control of the SP and TSLA descended into the close. Today, the bulls or longs had control at closing and we climbed into the closing. Then, shortly after closing, TSLA ascended another $1 before falling back. I think these indications reveal uncertainty among the shorts that they may miss the bottom if they hold into tomorrow's trading.

In the short shares available thread, Mario today says that the number of shares available to short at IB has expanded today. This development might prolong the battle if the cause of the shares availability was the brokerage working to free more shares for lending (and therefore for making money with). If the shares came about because of shorts starting to cover, the additional shares would tell a different story. We'll see tomorrow.

Conditions:
Dow down 49 (0.26%)
NASDAQ down 9 (0.18%)
TSLA 211.34, down 3.86 (1.79%)
TSLA volume 3.1M shares
SCTY 20.69, down 0.77 (3.59%)
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Whereas yesterday provided an improved picture of trading, today TSLA entered the mixed green and red trading common to a turnaround of momentum, with a positive trajectory heading into green at close. Unless new info surfaces, we should reached the bottom. Interestingly, some technical traders have been looking at 210 as the bottom as well.

Notice the deep plunge about half an hour into regular-hours trading followed by partial immediate recovery, which is indicative of strategic short selling.

One odd issue is the availability of shares to short. At Fidelity, the brokerage is out of short shares, which partially explains the turnaround in trading momentum, while at IB shares are apparently becoming more available.

At this point, shorts have a good exit price, the downtrend appears to have abated, and with the probability of good Q3 delivery numbers only about a month away, there seems to be little reason why a short would remain in TSLA once the run up begins.

Conditions:
Dow down 53 (0.29%)
NASDAQ down 10 (0.19%)
TSLA 212.01, up 0.67 (0.32%)
TSLA volume 3.3M shares
SCTY 20.66, down 0.03 (0.15%)
News: SEC S-4 document released, Tesla announces plan for another capital raise before end of year, Musk tweets positive comments about upcoming 8.0 or 8.1 release of autopilot software.
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Papafox, how big of an impact do you think could availability of shares to short have during a trading day like yesterday?
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Papafox, did volume increase during yesterday's run up into the close?
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ev-enthusiast said: ?

Papafox, did volume increase during yesterday's run up into the close?
Click to expand...

Ev-enthusiast, unfortunately, my chart didn't depict volume for Wednesday's trading and nothing struck me as notable about the change of volume in the day (other than the highest volume taking place as usual in the opening hours).

As a general rule, when shares to short run out, we usually see a positive effect on the SP. I believe it's not so much the quantity of selling the shorts are doing when entering new positions, it's more the method of their buying, which favors psychological impact such as a deep plunge near opening or pushing the SP down on very low volume during the late afternoon hours.
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Looking at the chart, you do not see the deep dips and quick partial recoveries of short-selling, and so one can conclude that the drop in SP today was primarily attributable to selling by longs. I saw no new negative news today about Tesla, only a rehash of yesterday's news and the emotional impact of a Falcon 9 rocket blowing up on the pad. For these reasons, the drop today can be mostly attributable to emotional responses. In fact, two positive news items came out today: good InsideEV delivery numbers for TSLA for August and a report that a Lazard evaluation of Solar City's value improperly overstated debt by $400 million. As the emotions drop over the coming three-day weekend and the good news has a chance to circulate, we could see a nice rebound on Tuesday. Tomorrow's trading is more of a question mark.

SCTY is now trading at .0935 times the price of TSLA, discounted substantially from the planned exchange rate for TSLA shares. The broadening gap between the two SP values indicates some concerns whether the merger will go through or not. Of course this is an arbitrage opportunities for individuals who feel certain that the merger will go through, but there is risk involved.

Conditions:
* Dow up 18 (0.10%)
* NASDAQ up 14 (0.27%)
* TSLA 200.77, down 11.24 (5.30%)
* TSLA volume 7.9M shares
* SCTY 18.78, down 1.88 (9.10%)
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Over in the tracking short interest thread we see the likelihood of hundreds of thousands of new shares to short being made available in the past couple of days, at a time when TSLA had just dropped below the important support level of 220. Why didn't we see the characteristic up and down spikes of strategic short-selling much of the day today, then? I think part of the answer has to do with the disheartening aspect on longs of the Falcon 9 loss this morning and the over-hyped liquidity concerns being stirred up by the media, when coupled by the difficult-to-understand severity of the SP drop today. Also, many longs had begun purchasing in the range just above $210 and weren't inclined to try catching falling knives when the drop looked so relentless. For these reasons, I am now inclined to believe that short-selling did indeed have much to do with the SP drop today.
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Anyone else ready for a three-day weekend to restore some sanity to the balance of good news vs. bad for TSLA? The news cycle has been locked on negative for a few days now, even though some positive stories such as the InsideEV August delivery numbers and the Lazard $400 million overstatement of SCTY debt have surfaced.

Looking at the trading today, you see buyers out there in pre-market and during the opening hour, but the bears ruled until about 2 pm, when we saw TSLA start an uphill climb. I did buy a leap near the bottom today and feel that the worst is over, but a climb back into the green before closing would have been necessary to forcefully define the bottom. A climb into the Friday close is a positive development, particularly when volume is significant. My biggest concern for next week would be any negative macro events, as TSLA seems to have just about worked out this latest round of Tesla news.

Conditions:
Dow up 73 (0.39%)
NASDAQ up 23 (0.43%)
TSLA 197.78, down 2.99 (1.49%)
TSLA volume 5.9M shares
SCTY 18.48, down 0.30 (1.6%)
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Lacking a chart because the NASDAQ is closed on Labor Day, I borrowed this chart of TSLA from the Frankfurt exchange. Keep in mind that the entire trading was a bit over 3,000 shares, an amount that often trades hands in one minute on the NASDAQ. Nonetheless, the chart is encouraging
Gain: 1.87%
Close 179.35 Euros = $200.01 dollars

Notice that the stock began the day with a nice gap up from the previous close, ran up and down as stocks do, but generally showed a climbing trend throughout the day. Looking forward to Tuesday's opening, as I believe last week's $20+ loss was, in the words of Ben Kallo of Baird, "caused by recycling of old news."
http://blogs.barrons.com/stockstowatchtoday/2016/09/02/tesla-motors-nothing-to-see-here/
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Papafox said: ?

View attachment 193248
Lacking a chart because the NASDAQ is closed on Labor Day, I borrowed this chart of TSLA from the Frankfurt exchange. Keep in mind that the entire trading was a bit over 3,000 shares, an amount that often trades hands in one minute on the NASDAQ. Nonetheless, the chart is encouraging
Gain: 1.87%
Close 179.35 Euros = $200.01 dollars

Notice that the stock began the day with a nice gap up from the previous close, ran up and down as stocks do, but generally showed a climbing trend throughout the day. Looking forward to Tuesday's opening, as I believe last week's $20+ loss was, in the words of Ben Kallo of Baird, "caused by recycling of old news."
http://blogs.barrons.com/stockstowatchtoday/2016/09/02/tesla-motors-nothing-to-see-here/
Click to expand...

I think we have bottomed and TSLA should go up starting tomorrow. It has has been down straight for 5 weeks and similar to down ward activity in June which reversed with a strong white candle we have probably hit bottom on Froday and short squeeze may start any day now based on positive fundamental events this weekend that is leak of Elon email plus autopilot update coming soon
Don't forget that TSLA stock has been down straight 5 quarters I bet we go up next quarter
And I'll be watching the quarterly candle closely until end of September
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As expected, TSLA shed its red ink after the three-day weekend and returned to recapture some of its lost ground of the previous week. A gain of $5 is a substantial reversal. A fade after the opening hour was not surprising particularly with the broader markets dipping, but the stock regained its bull legs and closed strongly.

Conditions:
* Dow up 46 (0.25%)
* NASDAQ up 26 (0.50%)
* TSLA 202.83, up 5.05 (2.55%)
* TSLA volume 4.4M shares
* SCTY down 0.04 (0.22%)
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I have included an after-hours trading chart for today because of the positive finish. Generally, after-hours sessions that finish well indicate that we'll see a positive start to the next day's regular trading session.

Regular trading ended at 202.83
After-hours trading ended at 203.5
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Whelp, I probably closed some of my options positions on a bad day on Friday, but I needed to secure the cash for expenditures; I was accidentally overinvested. We'll see how the options markets go approaching September 16, which should be a very interesting week...
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neroden said: ?

Whelp, I probably closed some of my options positions on a bad day on Friday, but I needed to secure the cash for expenditures; I was accidentally overinvested. We'll see how the options markets go approaching September 16, which should be a very interesting week...
Click to expand...

Bummers on the timing. Hoping you are going to be positioned well in early October.
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Oh, it's not so bad; because they were short puts most of them were actually closed at a profit thanks to time value decay. Just not as *much* of a profit as I would have liked. I should be set until January now.
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The positive close of trading yesterday carried over into the beginning of TSLA trading today, with TSLA running above 205 before word spread of a fatal Model S accident in the Netherlands and that one piece of news brought conflict to the trading. You can see the conflicted trading with a return twice to green mid-day and much uncertainty of direction. On the one hand, you have the bulls who expected TSLA to run higher today but they tempered their buying because only a single positive trading day has so far suggested that the stock has completed its downrun. You have the bears who are fearful (or hopeful, in the case of shorts) that the accident was caused by autopilot and newfound criticism could then be heaped upon Tesla and especially upon Musk personally. Since the vehicle in question was traveling at a high rate of speed, it is more likely in my mind that it was being hand-driven rather than running on autopilot.

A day of confused trading between green and red often marks a change of direction for a stock, but in this case I think the event that stopped TSLA's ascent will be neutralized shortly when Tesla reveals the details of what they learned, and then the ascent can resume. The effect of the accident in the Netherlands was similar to the Falcon 9 explosion last week in that both these events worked on the emotions but as time goes by we will see they likely have little bearing upon the value of TSLA stock.

Conditions:
* Dow down 12 (0.06%)
* NASDAQ up 8 (0.15%)
* TSLA 201.71, down 1.12 (0.55%)
* TSLA volume 3.6M shares
* SCTY 18.06, down 0.38 (2.06%)
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Quick note of thanks P-fox. Even for long term holders who rarely trade (I'm one of those), your summaries are a staple read. Thanks so much for your excellent, balanced analysis of daily events and associated effects on TSLA - A definitive, valuable service to the forum and its members.
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Yesterday's move from rising SP to uncertain trading signaled to some investors that today could be a down day, and thus it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. As you may recall, I speculated that much of the change of emotion from bullish to uncertain could possibly be attributed to the Netherlands high-speed accident where a driver ran off the road and was fatally injured after hitting a tree. A driver's death is still a tragic event, but it doesn't carry the weight to TSLA's value of a death caused while operating on autopilot. After the close of trading today, a story revealed that the Netherlands Tesla was not using autopilot, and thus the speculation that precipitated yesterday's change of momentum was unfounded. My guess is that tomorrow will move into uncertain trading again, which would set us up for a positive day on Monday. Even better would be a move to positive trading tomorrow, but performance of the broader markets and the amount of FUD released in the next 24 hours will impact TSLA's change in trajectory.

Apparently, at the SCTY website, a document has been posted which sets a record date for the vote on the merger as Sept 19. Let's watch to see if the same date is used at Tesla for a record date. If so, we could see some SP climb between now and Sept 19 due to the recalling of short shares by brokerages that wish to vote on the merger.

Conditions:
Dow down 46 (0.25%)
NASDAQ down 24 (0.46%)
TSLA 197.36, down 4.35 (2.16%)
TSLA volume 3.4M shares
SCTY 17.44, down 0.62 (3.43%)
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Papafox said: ?

recalling of short shares by brokerages
Click to expand...

And those retail investors! Some of them want to vote to, and will be recalling their shares

We may add up to a hill of beans, but with the huge open short position, I figure there's going to be stress at the margin, whether there's a squeeze or not. I think we'll start seeing this manifest in the interest rates associated with shorting TSLA and SCTY (where owners recalling shares reduce the number of shares to short, thus driving up the rates to push shorts out of the market AND pull shares to be loaned back into the market).
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adiggs said: ?

And those retail investors! Some of them want to vote to, and will be recalling their shares

We may add up to a hill of beans, but with the huge open short position, I figure there's going to be stress at the margin, whether there's a squeeze or not. I think we'll start seeing this manifest in the interest rates associated with shorting TSLA and SCTY (where owners recalling shares reduce the number of shares to short, thus driving up the rates to push shorts out of the market AND pull shares to be loaned back into the market).
Click to expand...

All good points. I bought more shares after hours to be sold during the first hour of trading Monday (like I did last week) if I see the Monday rise weakening or to be held longer if I see the trading pushing TSLA upward with strength. Between the news of no autopilot use with the Netherlands accident and the week of Sept. 19 record date, I feel we're likely going to see a positive transition very soon.
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Today we saw the opportunity for a turnaround of TSLA recent slide, but the broader markets got in the way. If TSLA could have rallied in the late afternoon, the strong opening plus a strong ending would have signaled that Monday's trading will be positive. It still could be, depending upon news over the weekend and the macro behavior on Monday, especially considering how much better TSLA fared today compared with the broader markets.Notice that the gulf between SCTY and TSLA continues to widen.

Here's a view of trading on the NASDAQ today, so that you can compare the movement of TSLA with the broader market.

Conditions:
* Dow down 394 (2.13%)
* NASDAQ down 104 (2.54%)
* TSLA 194.47, down 2.89 (1.46%)
* TSLA volume 3.8M shares
* SCTY 16.77, down 0.67 (3.84%)
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Papafox said: ?

View attachment 193821
Today we saw the opportunity for a turnaround of TSLA recent slide, but the broader markets got in the way. If TSLA could have rallied in the late afternoon, the strong opening plus a strong ending would have signaled that Monday's trading will be positive. It still could be, depending upon news over the weekend and the macro behavior on Monday, especially considering how much better TSLA fared today compared with the broader markets.Notice that the gulf between SCTY and TSLA continues to widen.

View attachment 193824
Here's a view of trading on the NASDAQ today, so that you can compare the movement of TSLA with the broader market.

Conditions:
* Dow down 394 (2.13%)
* NASDAQ down 104 (2.54%)
* TSLA 194.47, down 2.89 (1.46%)
* TSLA volume 3.8M shares
* SCTY 16.77, down 0.67 (3.84%)
Click to expand...

Hi Papafox

I am new to this forum and would like to seek your advice regarding a difficult situation.
I bought 3000 shares at 225 two weeks ago with CFD, not realising the danger of downtrend.
Was waiting for some recovery to sell to minimise loss however the spiral seems to be continuous, to the point the losses are unacceptable. My broker advised me once broken through the support at 188 it may spiral down to the lows at Feb, even a more precarious situation. I have the means to hold the shares, but fear it will not recover to decent levels to sell off. Hence the predicament.

Would greatly appreciate your advice based on your experience.

Thanks in advance !
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Novice said: ?

Hi Papafox

I am new to this forum and would like to seek your advice regarding a difficult situation.
I bought 3000 shares at 225 two weeks ago with CFD, not realising the danger of downtrend.
Was waiting for some recovery to sell to minimise loss however the spiral seems to be continuous, to the point the losses are unacceptable. My broker advised me once broken through the support at 188 it may spiral down to the lows at Feb, even a more precarious situation. I have the means to hold the shares, but fear it will not recover to decent levels to sell off. Hence the predicament.

Would greatly appreciate your advice based on your experience.

Thanks in advance !
Click to expand...

This is how new investors lose money. My (not @Papafox) advice is to hold the shares. The reasons you invested at $225 are still perfectly valid reasons. If you don't sell, in 18 months you won't remember this glitch. If you do, you will.
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ggr said: ?

This is how new investors lose money. My (not @Papafox) advice is to hold the shares. The reasons you invested at $225 are still perfectly valid reasons. If you don't sell, in 18 months you won't remember this glitch. If you do, you will.
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Hi ggr

Thanks for the advice.
In your opinion, will the SP rise in conjunction with the q3 result when released on 3rd Oct. ?
Or any chance it may rebound in the next 1-2 months ?
So far have noticed after a dip the recovery takes about 2 weeks to 2 months
I presume the 18 months is related to the launch of model 3
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Novice said: ?

Hi ggr

Thanks for the advice.
In your opinion, will the SP rise in conjunction with the q3 result when released on 3rd Oct. ?
Or any chance it may rebound in the next 1-2 months ?
So far have noticed after a dip the recovery takes about 2 weeks to 2 months
I presume the 18 months is related to the launch of model 3
Click to expand...

Yes, I am very confident that the price will go up in the long term. I also think, but with less certainty, that it will go up in early October when delivery numbers come out.
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ggr said: ?

Yes, I am very confident that the price will go up in the long term. I also think, but with less certainty, that it will go up in early October when delivery numbers come out.
Click to expand...

What do you think then about the strategy of selling all the shares bought at 225 and re entering say when it drops to 160-170 and holding the shares thereafter
Wouldn't this be better ?
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Of course it would be better, but I hope you have a high quality crystal ball. If stocks were that easy to predict, we'd all be rich. There's no telling if there will be a reversal on Monday, on the 16th or the week heading into early October. Maybe it'll go to 140, maybe not. I'm guilty of selling at the bottom before and it's not a great feeling. As long as you have the same number of shares, you can convince yourself that you haven't lost any money, since SP will inevitably go back up. Once you sell low, buy back in high, then you've definitely lost some money.
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I agree with the statement that your reasons for buying when you did are the same now as when you bought. I am in a similar situation and look at it the same way. My main regret is not having enough to buy more at this price.

By the way, there are never guarantees. BYD is a serious competitor. Both Clinton and Trump seem like they'd be willing to do bad things -- the former willing to sell her soul, the latter coming from a position of not really understanding the future. The roads ahead are fraught with dangers. I saw all those dangers when I made my initial investment, and I see little difference now. Yes, it could never go back up. But it's in almost the same risk category now as it was when I first invested, in my opinion. I know about the reformatting that will be happening with the Solar City merger attempt. I know about many of the risks. I know many of these will shine through, and some of that may happen soon (and have). I have a fear that Elon won't machette the push-sales model of Solar City fast enough, that he will defer to the bad accent relatives of his to keep scraping the bottom with Solar City (being boldly innovative with finances) rather than focusing on engineering (being boldly innovative with electrical market integration engineering and long term construction materials science). I have a fear that the pair of Elon and his cousins will not realize the full potential of doing solar roofs right, and will get afraid. I'm afraid that's because Elon's cousins aren't as confident about success in invention as Elon is, and will prefer to just build a heap of money for their personal life and screw the rest of us, and Elon won't be realizing his cousins are that evil. I feel like Elon will figure it out soon enough. But I don't know that. I also am afraid that Elon has this rejection force around him that pushes away the most inventive and innovative workers that he has. I've heard this before. This could be a fly in the ointment that causes these things to fail for no other reason than a lack of mental capacity to see them through. But, even that, I think Elon can solve, even if not perfectly. I am betting these problems either never happen or aren't enough to take down the planned future. Tesla has too many advantages to assume that any one error will make it lose those advantages. It would take a string of serious and effective errors for that to be true. I don't see one rocket going boom as really that much of an error; it's expected. I'm talking intrinsic errors, like the failure of Silevo factory to produce roofing panels, or the push sales model continuing, or all of the Model 3 factory builders* quitting out of disgust with the way they're treated, or anything insane like that. I even assume we'll see partial errors along those lines, but that they will be solved, in their own ways. So, I made the bet. Nothing's changed from that bet, yet.

* Those who build the machine that build the machine.
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Please tell us when you think it has changed.
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Novice said: ?

Hi Papafox

I am new to this forum and would like to seek your advice regarding a difficult situation.
I bought 3000 shares at 225 two weeks ago with CFD, not realising the danger of downtrend.
Was waiting for some recovery to sell to minimise loss however the spiral seems to be continuous, to the point the losses are unacceptable. My broker advised me once broken through the support at 188 it may spiral down to the lows at Feb, even a more precarious situation. I have the means to hold the shares, but fear it will not recover to decent levels to sell off. Hence the predicament.

Would greatly appreciate your advice based on your experience.

Thanks in advance !
Click to expand...

Hi Novice,
Sorry to not respond sooner, this is the first time I've looked at the thread in a couple days. Nobody can say with certainty where TSLA will be 1-2 months from now, but it is helpful to see what others are doing and why they're doing it. Most members of this forum are frustrated with this dip, but few are selling. We've ridden this roller coaster before. I've been down to 120, up to 290, down to 140, up to 265, and now down to 195. You have to ask yourself how viable TSLA looks in the future. Personally, with 400,000 Model 3 orders, serious progress at the gigafactory (I counted 3 buildings completed and 5 more in various stages of being built), Model X ramp-up going well now, and serious progress making autopilot better, I see a great future for Tesla, but you need to do your own evaluation. I agree with ggr that the 3Q delivery numbers, available in the first week of October, are likely to give Tesla a lift. The more conservative move would be to hold through the likely runup in stock price right before the numbers are released and sell some at that time, before the numbers are actually released, but personally I am holding for a longer period because once this stock starts heading up, it can really go up. Hold your stock and you're likely to be rewarded. Sell now and you guarantee a loss. Many brokers would tell you to never buy any Tesla in the first place, which is a shame because it may well become the top growth stock over the next 10 years.
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The big question coming into today was, "what will the broader markets do?" You can see some concern in early pre-market trading, but as it became apparent that broader markets were going up, TSLA headed up as well. I like to say that TSLA these days does best in a mildly up day for the broader markets, but today became a really up day for the broader markets, and I think that continued climb of the NASDAQ worked against TSLA. Take a look at this chart of the NASDAQ for today:

You can see the NASDAQ went up and just kept climbing (except for a little dip around 1:30pm). Now look back up at TSLA. After noon, TSLA pretty much flattened out with a much greater gain than the NASDAQ. This is a cue that traders have been taking (I think) to move their money out of TSLA and into other stocks that are likely to keep going up throughout the day, stocks that are much more tied to following the broader markets. TSLA has earned a reputation lately for slumping in the afternoons, and I think this reputation developed because short sellers were selling in the afternoon hours in order to have the maximum effect on driving the SP down, because volume has been so low in these summer afternoons. Like it or not, I think money leaves TSLA on a big runup day for the NASDAQ after TSLA has finished its morning run.

The good news is that TSLA could have a good day tomorrow, especially if we see the NASDAQ heading up ever so slightly. Look at the after-hours trading for TSLA and you see an overall positive sentiment for the stock going into tomorrow. This is a situation similar to where we were last week when the Falcon 9 rocket blew up. As long as nothing that drastic happens this Tuesday, I think TSLA has a chance to put two good days together. That would be significant, because investors are not willing to believe a downtrend has stopped just because there's been a single positive day.

Notice that even with its midday slump, TSLA gained more than either the Dow or the NASDAQ on a percentage basis. The real overachiever today was SCTY. If these positive results relative to TSLA continue, the net effect will be a display of more confidence that the merger will go through. The reason for the good performance at SCTY today was a $305 million raise in funding that was engineered by a Soros company.

Conditions:
* Dow up 240 (1.32%)
* NASDAQ up 86 (1.68%)
* TSLA 198.30, up 3.83 (1.97%)
* TSLA volume 3.7M shares
* SCTY 17.80, up 1.03 (6.14%)
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Papafox said: ?

Hi Novice,
Sorry to not respond sooner, this is the first time I've looked at the thread in a couple days. Nobody can say with certainty where TSLA will be 1-2 months from now, but it is helpful to see what others are doing and why they're doing it. Most members of this forum are frustrated with this dip, but few are selling. We've ridden this roller coaster before. I've been down to 120, up to 290, down to 140, up to 265, and now down to 195. You have to ask yourself how viable TSLA looks in the future. Personally, with 400,000 Model 3 orders, serious progress at the gigafactory (I counted 3 buildings completed and 5 more in various stages of being built), Model X ramp-up going well now, and serious progress making autopilot better, I see a great future for Tesla, but you need to do your own evaluation. I agree with ggr that the 3Q delivery numbers, available in the first week of October, are likely to give Tesla a lift. The more conservative move would be to hold through the likely runup in stock price right before the numbers are released and sell some at that time, before the numbers are actually released, but personally I am holding for a longer period because once this stock starts heading up, it can really go up. Hold your stock and you're likely to be rewarded. Sell now and you guarantee a loss. Many brokers would tell you to never buy any Tesla in the first place, which is a shame because it may well become the top growth stock over the next 10 years.
Click to expand...

this guy PApafox, whoever he is, is the real deal
it is truly heartening to see someone giving genuine advice
way to go bro!
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Jayjs20 said: ?

Of course it would be better, but I hope you have a high quality crystal ball. If stocks were that easy to predict, we'd all be rich. There's no telling if there will be a reversal on Monday, on the 16th or the week heading into early October. Maybe it'll go to 140, maybe not. I'm guilty of selling at the bottom before and it's not a great feeling. As long as you have the same number of shares, you can convince yourself that you haven't lost any money, since SP will inevitably go back up. Once you sell low, buy back in high, then you've definitely lost some money.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice ! Think I will hold on to the shares then
Hopefully the wait will not be that long.

Papafox said: ?

Hi Novice,
Sorry to not respond sooner, this is the first time I've looked at the thread in a couple days. Nobody can say with certainty where TSLA will be 1-2 months from now, but it is helpful to see what others are doing and why they're doing it. Most members of this forum are frustrated with this dip, but few are selling. We've ridden this roller coaster before. I've been down to 120, up to 290, down to 140, up to 265, and now down to 195. You have to ask yourself how viable TSLA looks in the future. Personally, with 400,000 Model 3 orders, serious progress at the gigafactory (I counted 3 buildings completed and 5 more in various stages of being built), Model X ramp-up going well now, and serious progress making autopilot better, I see a great future for Tesla, but you need to do your own evaluation. I agree with ggr that the 3Q delivery numbers, available in the first week of October, are likely to give Tesla a lift. The more conservative move would be to hold through the likely runup in stock price right before the numbers are released and sell some at that time, before the numbers are actually released, but personally I am holding for a longer period because once this stock starts heading up, it can really go up. Hold your stock and you're likely to be rewarded. Sell now and you guarantee a loss. Many brokers would tell you to never buy any Tesla in the first place, which is a shame because it may well become the top growth stock over the next 10 years.
Click to expand...

Hi
It's nice to hear from you. And thanks for the valuable advice. Will probably sell a fraction before q3 and retain the rest for long term gains so as not to be tied down with so much resources .
By the way, you mentioned selling before q3, why not after that if results are most likely to be resounding ?
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"buy the rumor, sell the news"
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GoTslaGo said: ?

"buy the rumor, sell the news"
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Ok I see, so the actual outcome may not be as potent as the anticipation of it
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Novice said: ?

.. the actual outcome may not be as potent as the anticipation of it
Click to expand...

Best distillation of that oft-said quote ever! I think I'd rather use your quote instead, Novice!
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We're still trying to get two green days in a row to break the downtrend, and the broader market said "NO!" to that idea today. Additionally, good range for the upcoming Chevy Bolt put some pressure on TSLA today. The good news is that some recall of shares is happening, and that fact was indicated by the recovery of TSLA during its final hour of regular-hours trading. On a percentage basis, TSLA lost less than the Dow and not much more than the NASDAQ today, which is odd for TSLA on a down day. It's funny how big up days don't help TSLA much, but big down days certainly do hurt the stock unless there's news to counter.

So, we await tomorrow with the hope that the combination of broader markets being calm and additional recall of shares will provide an updraft and bring TSLA back into the green.

Conditions:
* Dow down 258 (1.41%)
* NASDAQ down 57 (1.09%)
* TSLA 196.05, down 2.25 (1.13%)
* TSLA volume 3.6M shares
* SCTY 17.06, down 0.74 (4.16%)
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Today was the kind of day TSLA needed. The broader markets weren't too hot nor too cold, but were just about right. As with many days when TSLA is transitioning between red and green, we saw mixed red and green throughout a good part of the day. Notice, though, that each dip became higher as the day progressed, until the dips still remained green.

I expect to hear that a fair number of shorts covered today, which would account for the buying, as anemic as it was. If we had closed up on a high note today, I think TSLA would have started tomorrow's trading with a nice climb. Instead, TSLA will have to earn that climb. Expect another FUD-storm tomorrow as the naysayers do their best to prevent two green days in a row for TSLA.

Conditions:
* Dow down 32 (0.18%)
* NASDAQ up 19 (0.36%)
* TSLA 196.41, up 0.36 (0.18%)
* TSLA volume: 2.2M shares
* SCTY 16.89, down 0.17 (1.00%)
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Glancing back into the daily trading archives, I see that on July 30, TSLA closed at 234 and that was the beginning of the attack of the red ink. With the exception of Aug 18 and 19 when we barely had two green days in a row (one was up only a quarter point), today is the first day in quite some time that TSLA has been able to put two green days back-to-back. Have we bottomed out and begun the climb up to October delivery numbers? Maybe, but here's how Tesla lets the market know for sure that it is done dropping for a while. First, we need a green day tomorrow. If share recalls continue and if the macros behave, that should happen. Three positive days would set TSLA up for a nice opening Monday morning, quite likely, and by then the traders can start thinking more seriously about Q3 delivery numbers, which will be but two weeks away.

Volume was quite low for such a big TSLA day, which may indicate that shorts were covering but not a lot of new longs were playing the game yet.

Notice how yesterday's trading marked a conflict between bears and bulls with several changes between red and green throughout the day. That was a classic transition day. By today, we were solidly in the green.

One reason you saw such a smooth stairstep climbing to above 200 this morning was that there were no shares available to short when trading began. Thus, no strategic selling to try to spoil the rally was possible with short shares early in the day. At EXACTLY 12 noon, over 14,000 shares sold in a minute. My guess? Someone did a short sale of multiple thousand to discourage further climbing, and the algobots joined in to do the bulk of the selling. This is only a guess and your explanations are welcome. By end of day, IB had about 9,000 shares available to short, undoubtedly shares that had been made available today as some shorts chose to close their positions. I don't have short shares info for Fidelity, but that brokerage looks to be recalling and keeping the short shares, and so I would be surprised to see them offering shares to short tomorrow. Please speak up if you know otherwise. I think Fidelity is much more aggressively recalling shares compared to IB, and the climbing SP that the Fidelity recalls lead to are causing some IB shorts to close their positions. With TSLA still low for its 12 month history and with the prospects that the long, slow SP decline may be at an end, shorts may not be ready to open new positions, even if short shares become more available at some brokerages.

Congrats to all longs who held strong or added when we were in the 190s. Let's stay on the right side of 200 now. Max Pain for Friday is 205, which is a good number to shoot for. Let's hope the market makers help us get there.

Conditions:
* Dow up 178 (0.99%)
* NASDAQ up 76 (1.47%)
* TSLA 200.42, up 4.01 (2.04%)
* TSLA volume 3.1M shares
* SCTY 17.10, up 0.21 (1.24%)
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Great post!
Also monthly options expire tomorrow which should add some extra oomph toward 205 via the market makers.
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teslamotorclub

Thứ Ba, 27 tháng 12, 2016

Daily TSLA Trading Charts part 2

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