Papafox's Daily TSLA Trading Charts

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

Today the U.S. moved closer to turning the corner on COVID-19 with declines in new cases and in deaths, compared to the April 4 data. The market celebrated this ray of hope with a ferocious rally, taking both the Dow and NASDAQ up more than 7%.

Looking at the daily charts, you can see that both TSLA and QQQ opened way up for the day, TSLA up 6% at open from the previous close, and QQQ up 3.7% at open. That's a hefty 1.6X multiplier for TSLA. Alas, QQQ took a brief dip right after open and TSLA took a Mandatory Morning Dip much larger than QQQ's dip then soared to about 520 before being pulled lower.

Meanwhile, QQQ established a gentle climb and just kept climbing, with a lively spurt right at the end. TSLA, on the other hand, was pushed down below 510, worked its way back above that number, was pushed down again and then spent most of the rest of the day being capped at 510. Clearly, when looking at the effort behind the MMD and the capping at 510 while practically every other stock in the known universe was climbing with the macros, TSLA was suffering from manipulations. Moreover, with only 14 million shares traded on an up day, you would expect to see delta-hedging underway for much of the day so that market-makers could achieve neutrality, but the buying associated with the hedging was also strangely missing.

Was bad news the reason for TSLA's relative weakness to other tech-like stocks (which climbed 10% or so today)? Actually, news was fairly good. Over the weekend Tesla released a video that showed the prototype ventilator that they had largely designed out of Model 3 parts. Analyst calls? This Electrek article shows that Baird's Ben Kallo revised his price target to $525 and has a neutral rating, while Jefferies analyst Philippe Houchois predicted a 27% sales increase for Tesla but decreased his price target to $650. With both price targets higher than the current price, they should have provided an upward, not downward force.

On this CNBC video, a trader suggests that TSLA is in a 400-600 price range at the moment and there are opportunities to make an 18% return within that range.

On a personal note, I sold 100 shares this morning at 512 to initiate a short-term trade (I think the morning dip after reaching 520 was due to small traders like me selling to play the swing. I've been catching 50 to 100 point swings so far and my thought was that the very obvious manipulations today suggested some of the big dog hedge funds got surprised on the wrong side of the trade when TSLA released their Q1 P&D Report, and they've been manipulating like "sugar" to control the stock's price until the next down day of the macros allows them to manipulate it a bit lower. If TSLA goes up rather than down, I'll still smile because my trading shares are so much less than my total TSLA shares. Nonetheless, TSLA is under manipulation pressure right now.

Good things lay in store for Tesla in the future, but for now I will try to sell at apparent local tops and buy at apparent local bottoms with this small portion of my shares. For the rest, I stay long and strong. We've held strong throughout the worst of the virus's attack on Europe and now North America, and the dip defining the bottom of sentiment may have already happened, judging by the weekend news and Monday's response by the market. Hoping so.

Dusaniwsky's chart shows shorts starting to exit again, which should be a good sign.

Shorts were tagged with 59.7% of TSLA selling today, continuing a two week stretch of approx. 60% selling by shorts, which suggests a cycle of heavy manipulations

The biggest takeaway from the tech chart is that volume was a mere 14.3 million shares today, not much when the share price rose $36. That rise makes for lots of delta-hedging the market-makers must do, and yet we don't see the continued rise into the afternoon that you'd expect from the need for delta-hedging. Look, too, at the lower bollinger band (in green) and the 200 day moving average (red) moving higher. The two lines together would amount to formidable support. Maybe this is why the technical trader on CNBC today suggested that TSLA at the moment is in a trading range between 400 and 600. Another positive development is that the stock price close above the mid-bollinger band for the first time in several weeks. This crossing will help to left the lower bb and stabilize the upper bb.


Conditions:
* Dow up 1627 (7.73%)
* NASDAQ up 540 (7.33%)
* TSLA 516.24, up 36.23 (7.55%)
* TSLA volume 14.3M shares
* Oil 27.09
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 59.7%

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

Today there was optimism at opening regarding the COVID-19 situation in the United States, but an increase in daily deaths took some of the wind out of the market's sails and the macros fell slightly into the red by close. The deaths number will typically follow the peaking of the new cases number by a couple weeks, and it looks like new cases are just starting to peak. The really good news, which the market seemed to miss today, is that hospital admissions are way down in New York today, which suggests hospitals will indeed be able to keep up with demand and the worse is soon to be over in New York.

The broader markets opened high, with QQQ up about 2.9%. That's all that TSLA needed, it opened up about 4.8% and it ran up above 560 before eventually closing at 545. Although some of the climbs and descents of the broader market were reflected in TSLA's movements, our stock clearly was outperforming the broader markets and closed more that 5.5% higher than both QQQ and the NASDAQ. Thus, TSLA started higher than QQQ and only increased its advantage throughout the day.

Why so strong? One theory I floated in the main investor's thread today was that yet another day of strong macro performance at opening gave TSLA the advantage it needed to break free of the manipulations of previous days and regain lost territory. In after-hours trading that followed the Q1 P&D report, TSLA rose above 540 before settling a bit, and so today's rise brings TSLA back up to those moments just after the P&D report when the stock price soared. The other possibility is that some large institutional investor chose to reduce their TSLA holdings and they used Friday and Monday to do so, which adversely affected TSLA trading on those days. With the stake apparently sold, TSLA returned to normal trading today and made up for the pushdown due to trimming. Take your pick.

Here are a few patterns you ought to keep in mind if buying or selling. Yesterday was an exception to the rule, but typically we see the high of the day taking place in the morning, rather than the afternoon. I think this is because of manipulation pressure once the volume declines after about 2pm. Another pattern that is apparent today as with yesterday when TSLA opened up substantially from the day before is that in both cases macros did a small dip right after market open, TSLA joined that dip, but once the dip was defeated TSLA rose very quickly to the high of the day. That high didn't last long, though! Thus for buying, maybe the MMD dip right after opening or the end of the day dip might be best and for selling, it's hard to beat that morning peak that quickly follows the overruled MMD. In today's environment with Gap ups, waiting to buy until the following morning can sometimes be expensive.

In news: @Curt Renz posted this youtube video in the main investor's thread and I think it's worthwhile posting here too. The Morgan Stanley expert lays out how recoveries work in relation to recession recoveries, etc., with an emphasis on the market sometimes not waiting for the mending to be done before running the price of equities higher. Worthwhile, IMO.

This Electrek article shows the content of a letter to employees sent from Tesla, announcing furloughs, retention of health benefits during those furloughs, and expectations for a return to work on May 4. Take that date with a grain of salt, but it shows that Elon is ready to get TSLA moving forward again and the market may approve. We'll see.

On a personal note, the trading shares I sold yesterday at 512 made me wish I still had them today. That's the reality of trading, though, and it's a reason to trade with a small percentage of your overall shares so that if you miss the trade, not much harm is done. Rather than chase the stock price, I am still loaded to the earlobes with TSLA shares and leaps, so I'll just wait for the next dip and see what happens.

Looking at the opricot.com max pain chart, the large spikes in 550 and 600 strike calls suggest that if the hedge funds are still playing manipulation games rather than delta-hedging their sold calls, then they will pull out all the stops to keep TSLA below 550 for Thursday's options close (no trading on Good Friday).

Looking at the tech chart, notice that today, yesterday, and many of the up days show very small differences between opening and closing prices, with most of the gains due to the gap up. Notice the lower bollinger band is climbing quickly to reach the 200 day moving average, and that'll be a very solid floor I suspect in case the macros have a conniption. We've just seen our 3rd green day in a row. Also, volume continues to be rather mild, suggesting investors are mostly sitting on their shares, hodling with a view towards better days when the country reopens.

Conditions:
* Dow down 26 (0.12%)
* NASDAQ down 26 (0.33%)
* TSLA 545.45, up 29.21 (5.66%)
* TSLA volume 17.9M shares
* Oil 24.94
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 59%

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

Looks like the hedge funds are indeed playing the expiring sold option game this week and the target is to protect their 550-strike sold call options. With the Dow and NASDAQ up roughly 3% today, TSLA spending the whole day in the horse latitude doldrums looked mighty suspect, especially considering that news was on the good side.

First, we saw TSLA up pre-market almost to 565 at one point. Once the bell rang, the Mandatory Morning Dip set in so reliably that you could have set your clock to it. TSLA started recovering from the MMD and then QQQ took a bit of a dip, so the hedge funds sold TSLA with a vengeance and gave us a dip on steroids with all the well-defined trappings of manipulations known as "icicles". For the remainder of the day, the manipulators played a game of whack-the-mole with TSLA. Next week can be something better but someone's spending the time and money right now keeping TSLA below 550 through Thursday's close.

Naturally, the longs weren't keen to sell with this nonsense going on, and so volume was a low 12.5 million shares. It was a pretty boring day for TSLA-watching once you understood the script, and I wasted no popcorn today.

The good news was a Kelly Blue Book tip of the hat to Tesla by awarding all but one of its luxury car awards to Tesla.

TSLA shorts were tagged with 62.2% of selling today. In other words, they were manipulating the "sugar" out of TSLA today. Keep in mind, this doesn't mean that short interest increased today. Rather, there was robust selling and then covering throughout the day to keep TSLA below 550. No doubt the manipulators look at the order book, sell when TSLA is threatening to run higher, sell when the orders to buy are low and a pushdown can be engineered, and then slowly rebuying in a fashion to have the minimal positive effect on the stock price.

Conditions:
* Dow up 780 (3.44%)
* NASDAQ up 204 (2.58%)
* TSLA 548.84, up 3.39 (0.62%)
* TSLA volume 12.5M shares
* Oil 26.26
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 62.2%

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

Thursday was an options expiration day and many of us expected another whack-the-mole day such as Wednesday in which the hedge funds constrain TSLA's climb so that it would close below 550 for the day. Unfortunately for those hedge funds, good news came out on Thursday that overwhelmed their ability to hold the stock price below 550.

We can see with both QQQ and TSLA the stock price rose from the negative and into strong positive territory about 9am. With QQQ, the morning rise gave way to mixed trading for the rest of the day, but with good news, TSLA resisted any pushdowns and climb through about 12 noon, at which point the hedge funds started capping at 570 to keep the 570, 575, and 580 calls out of the money. That cap held until about 10 minutes before close, when buying pressure pushed the SP up another $3. The after-hours trading for the next 1 1/2 hours was so flat it looked like a nearly-trimmed lawn, but as 6pm approached the stock price started running higher again.

By 8pm TSLA had been trading in the 590s, showing almost as much gain during after-hours as during market trading on Thursday.

So, what was the news that propelled TSLA higher?
* Before market open, Adam Jonas of Morgan-Stanley put out a note saying that Tesla would increase its competitive advantage in the vehicle space once the COVID-19 epidemic came to an end. Moreover, he said that Tesla was positioned to uniquely benefit from any auto sales stimulus that might come forward. Tesla possessing greater relative advantages after COVID-19 is much the same message that Cathie Wood of ARK Invest has been saying, but coming from a Morgan-Stanley analyst it carried more weight, especially since Jonas has been anything but bullish on TSLA during recent months.
* This early morning article by the South China Morning post says that although China March auto says were down 40%, TSLA greatly expanded its sales to exceed 10K sales during the month, its highest ever monthly sales in China. Adam Jonas's note is so inline with this news that the note might have been inspired by early knowledge of this story.
* This tweet refers to a China auto expert saying Tesla should realize 30% gross margins on China-built Model 3s.
* Additional tweets suggest long-range RWD Model 3 coming to GF3, along with performance and AWD variants

Add all these pieces of GF3 data together and you have a really compelling vision of Tesla selling lots of Model 3s in China and making lots of profit on those vehicles. Nobody else in the auto industry possesses such an amazing cash generator right now.

You may remember this chart from Dusaniwsky posted a few days ago that shows rather flat short interest between mid-March and March 31. We learned from this @Artful Dodger post that Dusaniwsky has been greatly underestimating the increase in short interest during late March and his estimates were millions of shares too low. March 15 gave a few days of pushdown to the low by shorts and then the shorts were battling the climb from there. In other words, the depth of the dip likely increased due to short-selling and the speed of the recovery likely would have been even greater without the short-selling. NASDAQ says that short interest was at 19.7 million shares on 3/31/20 and that short interest grew by over 3.5 million shares during second half of March. Compare that 19.7 million shares on 3/31 to the value you see in the chart above and you realize the chart had quite a slope upward, not level as depicted.

TSLA shorts were tagged with 61.6% of TSLA selling on Thursday, a continuation of the especially high levels of manipulative activity we've been witnessing since the second half of March. Interestingly, during the final two weeks of March, short interest grew by 3.5 million shares (see chart above this one) during a time of high manipulations (60ish% of selling tagged to shorts) during this time period.

Looking at the tech chart, there's much to take in.
* The lower bollinger band and the 200 day moving average are aligning to provide a strong support just below 400. Meanwhile, look at the upper bb, which has descended slightly below 600 now.
* After-hours trading on Thursday almost reached the upper bb, so we'll be seeing both pressure to push the upper bb higher as well as perhaps some resistance in the short term from the upper bb until it starts trending higher. Notice, though, that much of the rise from December onward was done right at the upper bb, forcing it higher with each next move, so one shouldn't look at the upper bb as a solid wall but rather a flexible restraint that can be molded to bend upward with consistent positive trading if news allows.
* Thursday was positive day 5 in a row for TSLA. Looking at the climb since November, we've had a few 5 in a row positive days and one 6 in a row.
* Volume was only 13.7 million shares, which is particularly low for a day when the price rises 4.4%. Looking at the chart, areas in which we saw low volume and long stretches of positive trading took place in December and early January rises.
* The 3.5 million shares increase in short interest that occurred from 3/15-3/31/20 began a few days before the low in the 350s and ended as TSLA was being pushed down in its second dip that took it to 450ish. Looks like the manipulators were using all available means to maximize the dips and thwart the recovery of TSLA.

Where does TSLA go from here? The after-hours run-up on Thursday suggests that we're going to see buying pressure extend into Monday and that at least some of that climb into the 590s will be realized. Pundits on TV and the internet have recently been saying TSLA is in a trading range of 400 to 600 and others have been saying that TSLA is poised to climb to 600. Such expectations are often reflected in investor behavior. News over the weekend will, of course, provide some influence.

What about the view from epidemiologists that we will see multiple waves of CV19 and the view of economists that all businesses will be swimming upstream against a recessionary environment? There's likely truth to these warnings and the recovery will likely continue to have lumps in it. My strategy that has worked well with TSLA, though, is that as long as the long-term strength of the company looks intact, buying in tranches as the stock nears local lows and then holding has worked well. I believe I started nibbling around 610 and did my biggest buying around 360, and now all of those buy points look reasonable for the future. Will we see TSLA approach 350 again as the harsh realities of this pandemic and economy reveal themselves? I really doubt it. After seeing this recovery and Tesla's strength right now in China, there are simply too many investors who would jump in if TSLA approached 400 again, and plenty who are buying in right now. One simply cannot count on a later dip for rebuying this stock. Rather than hold my funds hoping for a deep dip, I'm pleased to have deployed my buying and now be in a position to hodl for the next couple years as TSLA recovers from this dip. My buy prices look good to my eye when looked at through a two-year lens.

For the week, TSLA closed at 573.00, up 92.99 from last Friday's 480.01. If you count after-hours gains, then TSLA is up over $100 for the week. Have a great weekend, and stay safe.

Conditions:
* Dow up 286 (1.22%)
* NASDAQ up 63 (0.77%)
* TSLA 573.00, up 24.16 (4.40%)
* TSLA volume 13.7M shares
* Oil 22.76
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 61.6%

 

[Papafox]

@Curt Renz posted this link in the main investors' thread, but I'd like to post again here with some commentary that supports my previous post.
Tesla’s stock is a bullish ‘Triple Play’ at Oppenheimer

I've been referring to a low of the trading range of "400", but there's an additional reason for this support level, according to the article. Ari Wald, technical analyst at Oppenheimer said that because 390 was a multi-year resistance level for TSLA, it turns into a support level over time. So, add one more reason why the 400 to 390 area should be strong support if it's ever required.

Other reasons given for Oppenheimer's triple play on Tesla are:
* Analyst Colin Rusch rates TSLA as outperform and gives a price target of $684 based on fundamentals
* TSLA screens positively in trend work
* TSLA is supported by top-down market tailwinds

Also, in my post above, I mentioned the concerns of epidemiologists and economists, but I need to reiterate that I continue to believe that advances in COVID-19 testing and treatments will reduce the severity of these threats compared to models based upon current practices. For example, Abbott Labs molecular testing devices at key airports for testing departing passengers could make long distance flight relatively safe again, and the arrival of these passengers could likely keep the communities visited by the passengers safe if a second test is performed at a prescribed number of days following the flight and certain precautions are taken.

 

[Rammstein]

Wtf happened today?

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

All those in favor of a 100 point climb today say, "Aye!". I thought so. After hours closing price of 673.50 gives us that nice figure. So, what's going on? Let me take a stab.

TSLA's price is what an engineer would call "dynamically unstable", which means once it starts moving in one direction it tends to keep moving or even accelerate in that direction.Thus we see the insanely deep dips (such as reaching the 350s during the coronadip) and why we see such insanely strong recoveries. Let me refresh your memories on the causes for dynamic instability:
* Short sellers- In a normal world, shorts enter positions when the stock price is high (sell high) and close their positions when the stock price is low (buy low). This is how you make money as a short-seller. Incredibly, TSLA shorts tend to sell low and buy high. Most recently, shorts sold into 3.5 million shares additional shares during second half of March. Now they're unloading (at a loss, of course). As a climb forces margin calls and FOC! (fear of climbing!) covering (buying) accelerates, which increases the climb.
* Delta-hedging of call options- There are a "sugar"-load of call options still out there, and market-makers (not the odd rogue hedge funds that don't delta-hedge) which sold the calls have to buy as the stock price rises to stay neutral. Moreover, as the stock price rises, the delta of those options also rises, so an option that rose 50 cents per share when the stock rose a dollar might now be rising 70 cents for each dollar rise of the stock. All of these changes increase the buying by market-makers as the stock price rises.
* Catching falling knives vs. Standing in front of the bulldozer- Many TSLA investors no longer try to catch the exact bottom of a dip because if your timing is off it's like catching falling knives. OTOH, shorts and manipulators have the same problem when TSLA is on a rally. Trying to cap the rally once it gets going and volume increases is like trying to stop a bulldozer by standing in front of it. Instead, both sides often let a plunge or a rally play itself out before jumping in.
* High Price Rise, Low Volume- This is a relationship that happens when there are more potential buyers than sellers on a given day. TSLA's investors have held through the coronadip for the most part and aren't interested in selling before the stock reaches higher levels or at least reaches a local high. They're hodling. Meanwhile, investors who planned to buy on the big macro dip are feeling FOMO because they're worried the stock price is running too high and maybe there won't be a big dip of TSLA ahead. Some are jumping in now. The thing is that as TSLA rises 100 points with all these call options needing to be hedged, and with more investors throwing money into call options right now, 22 million shares traded isn't a lot of trading to allow for easy delta-hedging. Thus, you get these climbs that just keep going through close and into after-hours trading.
* Shaking off the "manipulator's discount"- TSLA reached 540 after the April 2 P&D report came out, but the next day it was pushed down to 480. That's a $60 manipulator's discount available on the stock price. It took a week and a half, but the market eventually reclaimed that pilfered $60. On Wednesday of last week TSLA suffered a full day of whack-the-mole and closed below the $550 major call options expiration strike, even though broader markets were up about 3%. On Thursday, final trading day of the week, TSLA broke loose of the manipulation, climbed to 573, then added another $21 after hours. In retrospect, the loss of control on Thursday by manipulators and the additional climb in after-hours trading gave us a good clue that this stock wasn't going to be contained.
* More positive news when Tesla's stock is rising- A journalist's hit piece on Tesla looks pretty ridiculous on a day when the stock adds $100 to its price. This time around, however, it's not so much the SP rise that's creating better news but the other way around. Word that Tesla sold over 10K vehicles in China during March shows an extremely robust recovery from the virus shutdown in that country and bodes well for the U.S. and Europe as they reopen, too. Tesla adding AWD, Performance, and LR M3s to the Shanghai production line guarantees plenty of sales and today we hear someone reporting 10 Tesla China orders in 1 minute and maybe up to 20K orders within a 24 hour period. It's not just retail investors noticing this strength in China that will likely translate to Fremont when it opens, too. Consequently, I suspect there are some big dogs starting to load up and many may live in China. Investors right now are looking for stocks in strong companies that were unfairly beaten down too far, and for stocks in companies that will gain ground over their competitors as we emerge from this crisis. TSLA satisfies both criteria, particularly with the China news added on top of the Q1 P&D report.

To no one's great surprise, the buying frenzy we saw going into the close of after-hours trading on Thursday continued today. The manipulators, bless their predictable icy hearts, gave traders a short Mandatory Morning Dip to load some shares before the great bulldozer started moving up the hill and never quit. The strength of the past two trading days really magnifies all of the dynamically unstable forces as well as stirring up lots of FOMO in investors who have been waiting on the sidelines, some of whom jumped in. Also, the Q1 P&D report suggests that Tesla will have nice, positive cash flow in Q1 and might even be profitable. Elon will likely reiterate plans to produce 500K vehicles in 2020. Some big money may be moving into the stock prior to the Q1 ER.

TSLA shorts were tagged with 62.1% of selling today

Looking at the tech chart, you can see that the stock price shot through the upper bollinger band by nearly $30. Typically, we don't see the SP above the upper bb for more than about 2 days in a row, but looking at the steep bend in the upper bb it may be ready to very willingly run upwards quickly in an attempt to catch the stock price. Notice that TSLA has risen for six days in a row now. This so far has been the max positive days in a row we've seen during the early year rally, but judging from the strength of after-hours trading, I wouldn't be surprised to see another positive day added on Tuesday.

Now, aren't you glad you didn't sell all your TSLA last week with plans to rebuy during the next coronadip?

Conditions:
* Dow down 329 (1.39%)
* NASDAQ up 39 (0.48%)
* TSLA 650.95, up 77.95 (13.60%)
* TSLA volume 22.5M shares
* Oil 22.75
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 62.1%

 

[Sancho]

Great post Papafox! I would add one more factor to the reasons TSLA SP is dynamically unstable: the presence of so many superbulls (and superbears). There are tons of investors, both on this forum and off, who (like me) would not sell a majority of their TSLA holdings even if TSLA shot up today to $2000. Or maybe even to $5000. That is fairly unique in the world of investments.

Conversely, there are also superbears who still really think the company is worth much less than $180.

So if investor sentiment for TSLA turns solidly positive for just about any reason, the sky is literally the limit; and if investor sentiment turns negative for any reason (including an effective FUD campaign), the ground is the limit.

Buckle up, and enjoy the ride.

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

Yesterday's after-hours strength suggested today could be a green day as well, but the resulting strength was indeed amazing. Part of the reason for TSLA's strength can be seen in the QQQ chart (NASDAQ 100 stocks) which closed up nearly 4%. That strong, steady climbing in the macros really supported TSLA's climb.

Looking specifically at TSLA's chart, notice how the stock started to dip when it approached 740. This is likely a price level that the active traders were seeing as a local high, and they were selling to take their gains. Normally, you'd expect to see a more aggressive dip after a local high had been reached, but you didn't see it today. Why? Part was the support from macros that were still climbing, but another part was simply because, just like yesterday, someone was buying the selling.

So, who were the buyers today? We know that Adam Jonas of Morgan Stanley recently warmed up to Tesla, saying it is going to have an advantage over competitors coming out of this coronadip. Previously, Jonas was negative on TSLA in late 2019 when it was performing so well, and I think the reason is that Morgan Stanley didn't have time to acquire TSLA shares and get its favored investors into the stock before big Tesla announcements caused the stock to rally. For example, on Dec. 5, 2019, Jonas's TSLA base case was still $250. Now Jonas has a $1200 bull case for TSLA and I suspect his better clients had an opportunity to buy in before that announcement.

Ever since David Tamerino left Goldman-Sachs, Goldman has not covered TSLA because it lacked an analyst who could do so. Today, after hours, Goldman's new analyst for Tesla's stock, Mark Delaney, initiated coverage of TSLA with a "buy" rating and a price target of $864. This announcement was followed by the stock price rising another 5% in after-hours trading. Do you think, just perhaps, that someone who knew the upgrade was coming was buying shares of TSLA before the announcement? In any event, both MS and GS are giving positive indications about TSLA at the moment, so I think their involvement, particularly GS's, may have been part of the buying strength we've seen since last Thursday.

Behold the after-hours stock performance below:

For the big picture of what's going on in the financial world and why we're seeing such positive activity in the market at the moment, Dave Lee does a great job of removing the veil and show you what's going on behind the scenes. I'm only 14 minutes into the hour video so far, but what I've seen is eye-opening and strikes me as correct.

The chart above from Ihor Dusaniwsky is important because it corrects the 3.5 million share miscalculation of short interest that was added during the 2nd half of March. The current levels of short interest are still high, given the recovery that the market and TSLA has seen recently. If the chart is accurate (a big if) then there's room for a whole lot more short covering yet to go, which would add upward pressure to the stock price. Meanwhile, shorts are down over $8B this year and $1.6B today alone. Will they never learn?

Looking at the tech chart, notice that the stock price has been running away from the upper bollinger band and no one seems to care. Normally, the upper and lower bb work out to be useful resistance and support levels to keep in mind, but when huge things are happening with TSLA or the market, they can be overruled, which is what happened today.

Just for keeping track of gains, we closed at about 651 yesterday and after-hours saw TSLA up at nearly 747, just $4 short of another $100 rise. Don't be surprised to see another gap up on open tomorrow with such strong after-hours performance. At some point, like we almost saw today, a local high will be reached and we'll see profit-taking cause a dip, but given the strength of this run up and the near impossibility of anticipating catalysts such as the Goldman upgrade, I'd rather just keep my chips on the table and play the long game than try to outsmart the market with timing. Tesla is going to be a very successful company with lots of added production in the near future, and I don't want to see the results of that growth while holding a diminished number of shares and leaps.

Conditions:
* Dow up 559 (2.39%)
* NASDAQ up 323 (3.95%)
* TSLA 709.89, up 58.94 (9.05%)
* TSLA volume 29.7M shares
* Oil 20.73
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 60.7%

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

With the big after-hours rise yesterday on news of the Goldman-Sachs "buy" recommendation and 864 price target, we expected today to be an interesting day, and so it was. During pre-market trading TSLA topped 760 before descending to less lofty heights. Unfortunately, today was a down day for the macros, and they gave TSLA a downward pull. Interestingly, QQQ bottomed out about 10am and rose until a little after 3pm, where it then did a descent into close and descended a bit in after-hours trading. TSLA traded contrary to QQQ's movements for much of the way, decreasing until a little before noon as traders started jumping ship at an assumed local high, but buyers returned and TSLA traded near 730 for the remainder of the day.

The generally downward after-hours movement of TSLA and QQQ may suggest weakness, but as this post is being written, NASDAQ futures have turned slightly positive and so the overall mood about TSLA and QQQ might be warming a bit compared to after-hours trading.

TSLA still closed more than 4.5% above the NASDAQ today, which is still something to celebrate.

Dave Lee has a video out about the Goldman upgrade. In a nutshell, he thinks it's a big deal, since Goldman is the biggest and most prestigious investment bank in the country. Dave then went on to show how someone bought 11,000 weekly call options for about $12/share and speculated they'd be worth around $150/share today. For 1.1 million shares, that's an investment in millions on a far out of the money weekly call that netted more than a 10X profit. Dave left it to the viewers to make up their own minds about what's going on, but I won't be so correct. I've never done a deep dive into looking at apparent front-running of market-moving analyst announcements, but I can tell you the times I've seen apparent front-running of such announcements through apparent leaked information, Goldman-Sachs was involved. My conclusion once again: don't confuse the stock exchange for an honest casino. These things happen. They especially affect buyers and sellers of short-term options. Two days of nearly $100 rises in a row weren't due just to good China news.

In other news, Elon Musk will be one of at least 20 advisors to the president on the reopening of business in the U.S. This status is a positive, not only because Elon can likely make some useful suggestions but also because if Tesla encounters unwarranted headwinds in reopening the Fremont factory, he'll likely have support on the federal level.

Looking at the opricot.com max pain chart, I see nearly 4K of calls at 750 and nearly 5K of calls at 700. I suspect the hedge funds (who appeared to be playing the end of week close below the sold calls game last Wednesday) will see if they can engineer a close below 700 for Friday and will mobilize their defenses if TSLA threatens to close above 750.

Looking at the technical chart, you can see how steeply the upper bollinger band is climbing now. I suspect one way or another TSLA will be within or near the band by tomorrow's close. Also note that today was the 8th green day in a row. We haven't seen such a streak anywhere else in the climb since November. Given the end of the week is approaching, I don't expect us to hit 10 in a row this week, but I'd be quite happy to be wrong.

Conditions:
* Dow down 445 (1.86%)
* NASDAQ down 123 (1.44%)
* TSLA 729.83, up 19.94 (2.81%)
* TSLA volume 23.6M shares
* Oil 20.47
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 61.7%

 

[mikevbf]

@Papafox if something like a suspicious 11,000 weekly call options trade is brought to your attention in the future, it would be super helpful if you would connect the dots for us like you so often do with other plays/manipulations, so us lowly traders who do not get this type of front runner info can make better trades. Thanks so much for all your unique insight and time on this forum. I personally find it very valuable.

 

[Rammstein]

Papafox you could start a YouTube channel explaining the TSLA daily movements. Just don’t ask me to support you on Patron

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

TSLA got off to a bad start today as it traded in the red during pre-market trading and then saw a Mandatory Morning Dip that took it below 710. We had some warning about the weak start today because of weak after-hours performance yesterday, especially the final two hours until 8pm. The MMD and a few subsequent dips of TSLA have the icicle shape of manipulative push-downs.

Then a funny thing happened. When QQQ started recovering some time after 10:30am, TSLA found its mojo and not only climbed into the green but threatened to reach 760. That peak faded as QQQ faded as well, but neither of the charts above dipped into the red for the remainder of the day.

Translation: With volume above 20M shares, there was plenty of buying going on today. Some big buyers are still accumulating because none of the dips get very far. We're not seeing the typical manipulative push downs into the red during the final two hours of market trading. There's a pack of hungry big dogs out there right now. Retail investors and the occasional manipulator play in the pre-market and after-hours trading. The big dogs rule market hours. Notice how TSLA was a red stock today, for all practical purposes, until the big dogs bid it up during market hours.

Notice that as QQQ and TSLA moved into after-hours trading, we saw a simultaneous significant climb to both. Looking at the Yahoo quote for TSLA at 7:59pm, I see 775 as the price, for an even 4% climb in after-hours trading. It turns out that antivirus drug Remdesivir by GILD had some leaked findings from a Chinese test that was cancelled. Those findings suggest that Remdesivir is very helpful at improving time in hospital and survivability when started after the patient has already become severely affected by COVID-19. Implications are that with widespread use of this drug, the virus won't be as lethal as it has been with other treatments, and such an improvement will aid the economic recovery. GILD closed up 16% by 6pm this evening.

This positive news about Remdesivir fits well with my overall view of this crisis, which is that there will be lumps as the virus plus its economic impact negatively impact stocks, but the most dire predictions of the epidemiologists would likely not come about because we will see breakthroughs which will change the course of the pandemic. What surprised me about the Remdesivir news was how long it took us to receive it. Tomorrow should be a positive day for the markets and for TSLA too, given the performance after hours.

Keep in mind that 10 green days in a row is simply amazing for TSLA. I think what we've seen is strong performance of the stock itself based upon China performance, Q1 P&D report, and the Goldman upgrade. We have also in recent days seen high volume when news is slack, which suggests the big dogs are acquiring, and that idea is reinforced by the inability of manipulators to push this stock down in the afternoons, as they have so often done before. Finally, when a day arrives when it looks like we'll finally see a dip for profit-taking, the macros go roaring up and pull TSLA along in their wakes. Go ahead, throw me in that briar patch.

This long streak of winning days plus technical breakthroughs in the fight against COVID-19 suggest that the tactic of hodl for the long run continues to make great sense.

Looking at the tech chart, you can see that the upper bollinger band (729.24) and TSLA (745.21) are getting much closer together, both because of lower climbs over the past few days and because of a steep climb of the bollinger band. Amazingly, we've made 9 green days in a row and there's now the probability that we'll see 10 in a row when Friday's trading is over, given the likely gap up tomorrow at opening.

What to expect for Friday? There are traders who believe that if TSLA climbs above 767 (the price for the most recent equity offering of Tesla's) that we will see a big rise from there. With TSLA as high as 775 after hours today, tomorrow's open could be interesting. OTOH, we have seen hedge funds recently trying the end of week manipulation to keep TSLA below a popular call option strike price for expiring options, and there's nearly 8K calls ready to expire Friday with 800 strikes. I would be surprised if we don't see an effort to protect 800 on Friday.

@mikevbf , I do indeed endeavor to connect the dots whenever possible. There are lots of dots out there though! The techniques I've used for my personal investing detailed in these posts has worked well so far (with the exception of one short-term trade). Hoping most of you are doing as well or even better.

Conditions:
* Dow up 33 (0.14%)
* NASDAQ up 139 (1.66%)
* TSLA 745.21, up 15.38 (2.11%)
* TSLA volume 20.7M shares
* Oil 19.68 NOTICE THAT OIL HAS DROPPED BELOW $20/BARREL
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 59.4%

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

Looking at the QQQ chart above, the enthusiasm over some leaked results of remdesivir's value in treating coronavirus faded as the day progressed, which led to QQQ actually entering negative territory at times on Friday and the macro trajectory also exerted a negative pull on TSLA. Nonetheless, TSLA showed enough strength so that it still managed to climb for the 10th day in a row. The Dow was stronger than the NASDAQ and closed up nearly 3% on Friday.

With a descending trend in macros as the day progressed, hedge funds saw an opportunity to push TSLA below the 750 price point and save their bacon on sold 750 call options. Unfortunately for them, macros perked up during the final hour of trading and exerted an upward pull on TSLA. I suggest that hedge funds were pushing down at the same time buying returned, and you can see in the TSLA chart above that volume increased during that final hour. The end of the day was a stalemate of sorts. Hedge funds were able to keep TSLA from running upward with the macros during the final hour, but they weren't able to push TSLA below 750 and thus took some losses on sold 750 call options that expired Friday.

The reason why the volume lines are small on TSLA for Friday is a combination of low volume overall and a massive trade of 363K shares during the 4pm minute that closed market trading. I continue to believe that the big buyers in that final minute were manipulating hedge funds that were undoing short sales entered throughout the day that were used to manipulate the closing price.

Some interesting statistics have come forward as Tesla continues to see its stock rise in value and the stocks of other vehicle makers decline.
* Rob Maurer of Tesla Daily shows in this video how Tesla's market cap now accounts for more than 2/3rds of the U.S. auto industry's market caps

* In this post by @mulder1231 , he shows that Tesla's market cap now exceeds the market cap of the big three European automakers combined
* Finally, in this post @DaveT references other posts and suggests that when TSLA reached $951 it will overtake the current market cap of Toyota (the number one market cap automaker in the world).

With the Q1 ER on April 29, we're less than two weeks away from that event.

Pertinent news:
*GF1 in Nevada is slated to reopen on May 4 according to this Reno TV News station's report . The GF1 reopening it crucial because without it the Fremont factory will lack sufficient batteries for Model 3 and Model Y production.
* According to this article, clarification in language by Homeland Security gives backing to Tesla's plans to reopen the Fremont factory on May 4th.

TSLA shorts were tagged with 57.4% of selling on Friday

Looking at the tech chart, the reduced rate of increase in stock price over the past few sessions has allowed the upper bollinger band (753.89) to overtake the stock price on Friday, clearing the way for more conservative institutional investors to resume buying. With a steep rise to the upper bb at the moment, this is a nice setup to accommodate any further price appreciation
* The number of green days in a row now stands at 10, a formidable achievement
* Volume was low (12.9M shares), which is similar to the low volume of last Friday (13.7 M shares). Low volume gives options expiration manipulators more leeway in leading the stock price lower to minimize their exposure to non-hedged call options that they sold and are expiring

What to expect in the weeks and months ahead? The coronavirus situation will continue to provide lumpiness to the macro trading. Negative lumps could be associated with a resurgence of the virus in areas where the economy is reopened. Some lumps are to be expected. The recovery will have lumps in the other direction, too. A leaked small study of remdesivir elevated macros Thursday evening. The release of a full-fledged controlled study that backs up these positive findings could have a much greater and more lasting effect upon the macros. We simply don't know how the news will elevate or depress macros from one day to the next. For this reason, a longer-term investment strategy in TSLA continues to be a good choice for wealth appreciation.

For the week, TSLA closed at 753.89, up 180.89 from last week's 573. Combined with last week's rise of 92.99, our two week total rise stands at 273.88. Not too shabby for a company that builds passenger vehicles during a once-in-a-century pandemic. Stay safe and enjoy your weekend.

Conditions:
* Dow up 705 (2.99%)
* NASDAQ up 118 (1.38%)
* TSLA 753.89, up 8.68 (1.16%)
* TSLA volume 12.9M shares
* Oil 18.27 (thanks @MSMike for heads up)
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 57.4%

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

Note: Comparing the charts above, one needs to calibrate the climbs and dips. QQQ dipped about 1.5% at times, but the early market trading dip of TSLA down to below 720 was a dip of over 4%.

As QQQ opened, it climbed for the first few minutes, but TSLA was hit with a solid Mandatory Morning Dip, suggesting that you-know-who has not given up on attempts to manipulate TSLA. At 9:36am selling shot up to 95K shares/min, then that was followed by 78K shares the next minute. The market gobbled up this manipulation discount, much to the chagrin of the shorts. A second dip followed, it too was gobbled up, and the market celebrated this triumph with the day's high in green territory shortly thereafter (note: here's that pattern again: the daily high being reached shortly after the MMD was defeated). @Artful Dodger did a nice job of laying out the relationship today, so you might want to check out this post.

Big news of the day was West Texas Intermediate oil sank to a NEGATIVE $40/barrel at one point before bouncing back to a price of about $1 per barrel. Crude prices for North Sea oil in Europe remained above $20/barrel and futures for WTI in June are quite a bit higher than what we see today, so realize this plunge is really a case of traders being caught with oil futures and having no place to physically take possession of that oil. The market was somewhat understanding that this was a trading gotcha rather than some type of permanent repricing, so the market did not tank as a result.

Nonetheless, the Dow closed down 2.44% which the NASDAQ (with no oil stocks) closed down 1.03%.

Given the serious effort of the MMD on top of macro weakness, TSLA fared well today.

A few days ago, this Hyperchange video with Galli and Mayur Thaker came out. It's really worth watching because it gives a nice look into how the various metrics of Tesla's performance have improved to the point where fund managers are taking notice that TSLA is looking strong going into the years ahead. A few charts show the cadence of how EBITDA, cash flow, or whatever was being looked at rose with each new vehicle introduced and then dipped into the negative with the R&D plus investment underway for introducing the next vehicle. This cycle repeated for S, X, and 3. All of these were "bet the company" vehicle introductions, in Musk's terminology. What I like is that the transition from 3 to Y shows no such dip into the negative. Instead it shows a plateau. This is bullish and also suggests that the financial performance of TSLA once the Y has ramped up will be MUCH to our liking. Highly recommended.

TSLA shorts were tagged with 58.4% of TSLA selling today. I see this continued high level of percent of selling suggesting that someone is really running some high-speed trading algos on a consistent basis, with plenty of willingness to short.

Looking at the tech chart, you can see that at long last the stock price is well within the bollinger bands, with the upper bb now at 781.66. This is giving the stock room to run if good news provides a catalyst. Also notice the second day in a row of low (14.7M shares traded) volume.

Conditions:
* Dow down 592 (2.44%)
* NASDAQ down 89 (1.03%)
* TSLA 746.36, down 7.53 (1.00%)
* TSLA volume 14.8M shares
* Oil: Negative price at times today, was about $1/barrel when I checked!
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 58.4%

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

Today was a day where the contrasts between TSLA and QQQ really told a story. During the first hour of market trading, TSLA dipped about 0.85%, but QQQ was down over 2% at 10:30am. TSLA had even run up into the green briefly after opening. Clearly, TSLA was trading stronger than QQQ.

Around 10:30am, QQQ started dipping as investors saw the oil price situation moving into the June futures. With no apparent news to justify a steep dip for TSLA (I believe low oil prices in the short term are not going to substantially hurt Tesla sales other than their effect on the economy), TSLA started falling quickly on high volume. It looks to my eye like a classic bear attack. As @Curt Renz pointed out in the main investor thread, the manipulators likely set their sights on triggering the stop loss orders that investors had put in for 700. Once the stock price hit 700, it dropped like a rock another $20 before quickly recovering and forming an icicle.

I also recognize there's a phenomenon with TSLA that once it starts running downhill quickly with the macros, it has a tendency to drop at a rather high multiple, with 2X not being too out of the ordinary. How much of what we saw today is just investor psychology and how much is a drop aided by selling from the manipulators (dip on steroids) I really cannot tell you.

Take a moment and consider how profitable such a manipulation could be. Let's not even look at the manipulators holding shares sold short, puts, and having sold call options that expire soon. The shorting likely began around 740 and intensified around 705, judging by the volume indicators on the TSLA chart. Once the stock hit 700, the dip from there was mostly those stop losses being triggered and longs reacting to the plummet. This additional fall allowed the manipulators to start buying back below 690 as late as 1pm. My assumption is that manipulators wanted out before close today before the gap ups and gap downs recently have been unpredictable and sizeable.

Looking at the final minute of market trading, we saw 207K shares trade hands, which suggests to me included manipulators closing the last of their day short positions.

With all these gyrations, volume picked up as some investors feared the beginning of a longer downhill run.

In after-hours news, the Senate reached an agreement on an additional stimulus bill, so that news should help tomorrow's trading. Futures are up slightly at the time of writing.

I've been enjoying this video today, featuring Dave Lee and Rob Maurer, two of my favorite TSLA commentators

Looking at the tech chart, the dip we're currently experiencing could be similar to the end of March dip, but of course there's really no way of telling because the current dip is macro-related and how investor sentiment changes in the next few days is harder to gauge than some Tesla-specific dips. Let's hope the stimulus news gives the broader markets a green day tomorrow.

Conditions:
* Dow down 632 (2.67%)
* NASDAQ down 298 (3.48%)
* TSLA 686.72, down 59.64 (7.99%)
* TSLA volume 20.2M shares
* Oil 12.75
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 54.9%

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

The wished-for macro green day arrived today and TSLA didn't disappoint. The market was happy that the Senate reached agreement on an additional stimulus bill, and so it was off to the races.

Initially, TSLA suffered a Mandatory Morning Dip that was inappropriate, given the strength of the macros. Once the MMD turned around, however, investors bid TSLA up in one of the most reliable patterns we've seen recently with TSLA, and once the stock price peaked a little under 710 the usual push-down occurred.

Fortunately for TSLA longs, the macros were a real bulldozer today, pushing relentlessly uphill, with the Dow closing up about 2% and the NASDAQ up 2.8%. Initially, efforts to hold TSLA back succeeded, but around 1pm the bulls took control and we saw a strong but uneven climb into close.

News today included a negative analyst downgrade by Bank of America where the stock was downgraded from hold to underperform and the price target was cut from 500 to 485. Investors didn't seem to mind, however, because BofA has always been a bottom dweller in TSLA. The analyst has a Tiprank average return of -4.8%, meaning the best way to make money from the analyst's recommendations is to do the opposite.

Good news today is this Reuters article posted in the main thread by @Curt Renz that says auto sells in April are starting to rebound from their March lows.

Looking at the tech chart, you can see that TSLA regained much of yesterday's loss. Particularly notable is the low volume of 14M shares. When a stock can climb 45 points with such low volume, it makes it hard for market makers to keep up with their delta-hedging and so once an strong afternoon rise begins like we saw today, it becomes somewhat self-perpetuating as market-makers continue to buy into the close and a bit beyond.

The Tesla Q1 ER is one week away. As always, there are lots of moving parts involved in such an ER. Analysts are expecting a slight loss, but some in the TMC community are expecting a slight non-GAAP profit. Keep in mind that we could be surprised positively or negatively. Of particular interest will be Elon's guidance regarding whole year deliveries guidance. We know he tends to look at things from a "what is possible" frame of mind rather than a "what is conservative" point of view. For this reason, I suspect Elon to retain the greater than 500K vehicles delivered estimate, which should help buoy the stock price. Also, we could see FCA income from European operations beginning in Q1 which in theory could add enough profit to enable S&P inclusion. That's probably a longshot, though. Bet the farm, run for the hills, or hodl? I'll take the last choice, as usual.

Conditions:
* Dow up 457 (1.99%)
* NASDAQ up 232 (2.81%)
* TSLA 732.15, up 45.39 (6.61%)
* TSLA volume 14.22M shares
* Oil 14.13
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 59.8%

 

[Papafox]

Chart of TSLA above

Chart of QQQ above

Chart of GILD (maker of remdesivir) above

Today we saw a combination of a bear attack on TSLA that had the good fortune of coinciding with a negative macro event. The macros did well enough in the morning, with QQQ seeing a rise of 1.5% by noontime and the Dow up as well.

For TSLA, though, we saw a strong MMD about 10:00am that was contrary to macro movements of the time, followed by a quick unwinding of that dip and a visit of TSLA to the land of the green for a very short period of time. Looking at the TSLA daily chart, there are more sharp icicles extending from the chart than you'd see under a leaky flume in the heart of winter. Icicles tell of bearish manipulations because they're caused by short flurries of high volume selling that cause the SP to plunge, followed by buying that undoes much of the plunge. The buying the follows the selling flurry shows that if the sellers would just have spread out their selling, they could have realized higher average selling prices. Thus, the selling flurries when there is no news nor macro intentives reveal themselves to be irrational acts for maximizing revenue and therefore inspired for other purposes. You can see the increase in volume as the icicles transpire by looking at the volume bars at the bottom of the TSLA daily chart.

In spite of the icicles, manipulators had a hard time getting TSLA much below 725 as morning transitioned into afternoon. At about 12:40pm, however, the macros plunged hard, recovered somewhat, but then spent the day in an overall downward trajectory. Seldom is the cause of a macro dip as easy to spot as today's however, because if you examine the GILD chart (bottom one) you'll see the stock creating the dip that the marcros then followed (just look at what happened to GILD volume after the news). The dip wasn't severe in GILD, however, because remdesivir is a very small portion of revenues for the nearly $100B market cap company. The WHO published a summary of a Chinese test that was terminated early involving remdesivir. The study was done on severe cases and remdesevir performed no better than the placebo. The market had a negative day because it hoped that remedesivir would be part of the strategy for taming the virus earlier. Fortunately, we haven't seen serious test results on the three top antivirals (plus a fourth from Phiser) when given early, which is the apparent secret when looking at some HCQ experiences. Hoping we get to see results of those tests soon.

Volume was light today, suggesting investors aren't really worried about this manipulation. If manipulators push down below 700 on Friday expect the volume to increase, however.

The declining NASDAQ gave manipulators an opportunity to maximize their push downward today. Who are the manipulators? They could be in any of three groups:
* those who make money from the manipulation itself, likely from buying puts prior to the push down, getting the downward motion going and then when stop losses are triggered at prices such as 700, allowing others to do the pushing from there while they slowly close their daily shorting at a profit
* short-sellers who want out of TSLA before the ER next week and are doing a preliminary push down before buying to cover
* hedge funds that sold call options expiring on Friday. Take a look at the opricot.com chart below. From 750 to 700-strike inclusive, there's about 18K calls expiring, so the amount is worth their effort to protect. Interestingly, there are more 690 and 685 calls than 700s, likely due to call buyers understanding that manipulations to pull the SP below round-number option strike prices is rampant with this stock.

News for Tesla yesterday was somewhat negative with a reduction in subsidy provided by China for vehicles in the price range of all Teslas. This change takes effect in July. Today, Tesla had good news, with the appointment of Hiro Mizuno as an additional member of Tesla's board. Hiro was leading Japan's Trillion+ investment fund and his appointment adds both competence, diversity, and stature to Tesla's board.

The Opricot.com max pain chart showing expiring options on 4/24

Looking at the tech chart, you can see a stalemate of sorts around the 700-720 price area where the stock price keeps ending up as bear raids follow big run-ups. The good news is that the upper bollinger band is now at 818, giving some nice headroom for next week's ER.

Where to from here? I suspect the bear raid will continue tomorrow so that the pirates can go after the booty associated with the 700 stop losses. They'll likely try to hold the stock price below 700 as far as they can because the strike prices just below 700 have numerous calls set to expire. It's your typical end of week manipulation. Next week the stock price will be all about the ER, which will ultimately determine where we end up a week from Friday. This week's action is a side-show for the benefit of those who sold short-term calls, those who profit from these pushdowns for their own sake, and those itching to reduce their short positions prior to the uncertainty of the ER.

Conditions:
* Dow up 39 (0.17%)
* NASDAQ down 1 (0.01%)
* TSLA 705.63, down 26.48 (3.62%)
* TSLA volume 13.2M shares
* Oil 17.70
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 58.8%

 

[Papafox]

Comparing the TSLA and QQQ charts above (TSLA on top), you can see many similarities between the two. I was most surprised that we didn't see the heavy selling in icicle spurts that were evident on Thursday. My guess that the manipulators were working hard to achieve a certain price level for Friday close was inaccurate, or at least incomplete. Instead, I think with the up down up down cadence we've been seeing that the manipulators might be swing trading while TSLA works back and forth within a fairly narrow consolidation window. As I mentioned in the main investor thread on Friday, today's TSLA trading showed none of the large 40K/minute selling sprees we saw on Thursday. Obviously, the strategy of the manipulators was changed for Friday's trading.

What's interesting about Friday morning's trading is that QQQ actually followed a pattern we often see in TSLA, which was a dip shortly after market open (MMD in TSLA), followed by a run upwards into the green after that dip is dispatched, followed by a fairly quick unwinding of that climb into the green. As you can see by TSLA's reaction to the QQQ moves, it followed these moves but with exaggerated intensity. For example the QQQ rise after the morning dip peaked at a gain of about 0.5%, compared to about a 1.75% peak in TSLA.

Then things got interesting in the afternoon. At about 1:30pm you see QQQ up about 0.6% while TSLA was up about 1% (for a typical multiple of QQQ). By 2:30, macros were on the rise with QQQ up about 1% and TSLA rising only to about up 1.4% (TSLA lagging on the multiple). Looks like TSLA's rise was being held back by a subtle manipulation. Alas, TSLA investors figured out they were being offered a discount and TSLA surged with a peak about 2:45pm, and then as the macros rose into the close TSLA stayed on pace, rising with them. It was a nice end to the week.

News in after hours included this filing that shows Citadel has acquired a 4.3% stake in Tesla. Most of the shares are held by the market-maker arm of Citadel (4.2% of TSLA shares) and a small portion is held by the hedge fund arm of Citadel (0.1%).

NASDAQ just released the short interest numbers for 4/15/20, and they're 20.1M shares shorted on that date. Looks like Dusaniwsky had about 19.7M shares shorted on that date, so he was fairly close in estimate this time. The good news is that there are plenty of short position still waiting to be shaken out when better news comes our way.

Looking at the tech chart, the upper bollinger band is above 830 now, so lots of headroom is appearing, should reactions to the ER be positive. For the week, we saw a dip from last week's highs as TSLA enters a consolidation after that 10 day run. Most interesting with the consolidation is the down up down up cadence which suggests that some large player may be swing-trading this stock and using manipulations to induce the swings. Notice this week's low volumes, suggesting that most investors are just holding and waiting for the ER.

For the week, TSLA closed at 725.15, down 28.74 from last Friday's 753.89. Considering that TSLA rose $273 during the previous two weeks, that's not much of a dip during this consolidation period. Next week is ER week, so it'll be interesting, one way or the other. Have a great weekend.

Conditions:
* Dow up 260 (1.11%)
* NASDAQ up 140 (1.65%)
* TSLA 725.15, up 19.52 (2.77%)
* TSLA volume 12.8M shares
* Oil 16.94
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 57.7%

 

[Papafox]

TSLA chart above

QQQ chart above

TSLA at 800 anyone? We saw that number for a short spell during after-hours trading.

This weekend was a positive one in Muskland. Starship SN 4 passed it's cryo test and will likely take a short flight and both Gigafactory Reno and the Fremont factory are slated to open next week. Last week we also learned that Oregon's retirement system had invested in TSLA, as did market maker Citadel. Dana Hull of Bloomberg reported at 12:41pm Eastern Time that Tesla had "backtracked" on plans to bring in some Fremont employees this week. Not letting Dana have all the fun for trying to scuttle Tesla's plans, Lora Kolodny of CNBC launched this article on the same subject, later in the day. Meanwhile, TMC member @BenPrice offered this post, suggesting that the reason for the big runup today was not Fremont starting to bring in employees a few days early, but rather that big acquirers were now involved in buying TSLA.

Comparing TSLA with QQQ, you can see that QQQ may have opened high but it was in descent mode until 2pm. This didn't offer the best environment for TSLA, but TSLA didn't care. It surged on open and pretty much held onto its gains without batting an eye for QQQ movements. Volume was relatively low at less than 20M shares going into market close, so this was not very high volume for a $73 climb, and I suspect market makers were buying to delta-hedge right up until the bell, which really makes it tough to stop the bulldozer.

TSLA continues to look very good in the long run and continues to show high volatility in the short run. Because so much of what is moving the stock price is invisible to our eyes at present, I continue to use my hodl approach, not planning on a specific climb nor dip, but letting the stock do its thing. Much of my confidence in TSLA is due to the 7 year headstart it got on EVs, compared to the rest of the industry, and it was this same 7 year head start that put Amazon so much further ahead in online sales than its competitors. Further, @avoigt received positive feedback from Elon Musk for his article and video on Pace of Innovation. Who needs a moat when you can innovate so much quicker than your competition? It's this head start, pace of innovation and a Silicon Valley style of quick centralized decision making that makes Tesla unstoppable. Elon's goals that will benefit humanity plus his willingness to reinvent every aspect of the business has drawn many of the best and brightest young engineers of our planet to work for Tesla and SpaceX, and that talent allows Tesla to accelerate its lead. Bottom line: Hodl continues to work very well with this stock.

My biggest concerns leading up to the ER are negative developments regarding the reopening date of Fremont and more weakness in oil.

Dusaniwsky says TSLA shorts lost over $1 billion today alone. Enough days like that and it eventually adds up to some real money!

Looking at the tech chart, you can see the breakout from the consolidation. The upper bollinger band is now above 853 as we look forward to the earnings call Wednesday after market close.

Conditions:
* Dow up 359 (1.51%)
* NASDAQ up 96 (1.11%)
* TSLA 798.75, up 73.60 (10.15%)
* TSLA volume 20.7M shares
* Oil 10.84 BIG DROP!
* Percent of TSLA selling tagged to shorts: 57.4%