Tesla saw a big gap down this morning from $518 to $494, followed immediately by a huge spring shortly after open in the first 5 minutes that saw the stock rebound to $509.50 on strong volume. So what's driving this:
#1) Tesla Fanboys (AKA Bulls) - there are a ton of diehard tesla bulls out there, and after the stock rose to $550 earlier this week, anyone that missed the jump was waiting for a great entry.
#2) Morgan Stanley's 'Downgrade' - there's no question analysts can move markets, so what's with the timing of this downgrade with earnings just around the corner?? Answer: The ASTOUNDING Number of Naked Puts out there.
#3) Tesla Haters (AKA Bears) - you don't see a huge price jump like TSLA's without haters jumping on the bear bandwagon. The problem is, with a stock price > $500, you can't do a whole lot of hating by shorting a block of shares - but you CAN buy NAKED PUT OPTIONS on margin. And that's where the problem lies...
At the present time (10:30a Thu), there are more than 48 THOUSAND OPEN PUTS between $500 and $525, and another 14 THOUSAND OPEN PUTS between $500-$490. When these put options are purchased, the investor's broker shorts the shares on the sellers behalf - usually on margin. When there are this many put options out there that expire in less than 2 days, we can start to see margin calls from brokers on any move up.
Thus, bears start devouring bears. Margin calls force investors out of put positions, forcing them to BUY the stock when they close their put position. Momentum to the upside shocks other bears, and any increase in price brings more and more buyers who cover their positions. That's one of the big reasons TSLA shot from $492.17 (intraday low) to $509.42 - a span of $17.25....in THREE MINUTES. The people at Morgan Stanley know this, and also encourage the sell off by the bears while undoubtedly holding their long positions - basically turning on a giant vacuum and sucking up all the option premiums on the short side from thousands of bears that can't afford to short the stock itself at $500/share.
Bottom line, there's a huge number of puts still on the books at the 510 level (8k w/ volume of only 3k). We usually see volume inline w/ open interest on the last 2 days before an option expires or is exercised. Expect TSLA to slowly trend up the rest of the day, some 'analyst' to come along and reaffirm their faith in TSLA, and the stock price to easily fill the gap and open tomorrow right around that $518 level it gap'd down from (likely followed by another run up to the $530-540 range).
#1) Tesla Fanboys (AKA Bulls) - there are a ton of diehard tesla bulls out there, and after the stock rose to $550 earlier this week, anyone that missed the jump was waiting for a great entry.
#2) Morgan Stanley's 'Downgrade' - there's no question analysts can move markets, so what's with the timing of this downgrade with earnings just around the corner?? Answer: The ASTOUNDING Number of Naked Puts out there.
#3) Tesla Haters (AKA Bears) - you don't see a huge price jump like TSLA's without haters jumping on the bear bandwagon. The problem is, with a stock price > $500, you can't do a whole lot of hating by shorting a block of shares - but you CAN buy NAKED PUT OPTIONS on margin. And that's where the problem lies...
At the present time (10:30a Thu), there are more than 48 THOUSAND OPEN PUTS between $500 and $525, and another 14 THOUSAND OPEN PUTS between $500-$490. When these put options are purchased, the investor's broker shorts the shares on the sellers behalf - usually on margin. When there are this many put options out there that expire in less than 2 days, we can start to see margin calls from brokers on any move up.
Thus, bears start devouring bears. Margin calls force investors out of put positions, forcing them to BUY the stock when they close their put position. Momentum to the upside shocks other bears, and any increase in price brings more and more buyers who cover their positions. That's one of the big reasons TSLA shot from $492.17 (intraday low) to $509.42 - a span of $17.25....in THREE MINUTES. The people at Morgan Stanley know this, and also encourage the sell off by the bears while undoubtedly holding their long positions - basically turning on a giant vacuum and sucking up all the option premiums on the short side from thousands of bears that can't afford to short the stock itself at $500/share.
Bottom line, there's a huge number of puts still on the books at the 510 level (8k w/ volume of only 3k). We usually see volume inline w/ open interest on the last 2 days before an option expires or is exercised. Expect TSLA to slowly trend up the rest of the day, some 'analyst' to come along and reaffirm their faith in TSLA, and the stock price to easily fill the gap and open tomorrow right around that $518 level it gap'd down from (likely followed by another run up to the $530-540 range).