Tesla Here at Key Support at 180-187

I published this chart when TSLA was back up to the "Earnings Level" back in September near $280 and pointed out that it was up against "Key Resistance" and here we are 4+ months later and we have had two more earnings reports and Tesla has fallen back down to another important "News Level" that I labeled "Moody's Upgrade Level".

The reason that Moody's Upgrade level is so important is that it is the level where institutions could actually begin to consider investing in Tesla debt, which at the time was junk-rated, aka 'non-investment-grade' to say it nicely. Why that was important is that it would open the doors to Tesla getting financing at lower rates should they need it and even though Tesla didn't need to borrow any money at that time, the upgrade gave Tesla credibility where they didn't have it before.

For many years there were roadblocks to Tesla selling shares to raise the capital to build plants and grow the business and Tesla had to pay higher than average rates. The Moody's level can start on March 17th, the trading day before the news hit at the lower purple line at $180.13. The other technique is to use the mid-point of the day that the news hit and the next day and that puts $176.35-198.00 as the range or $187 as the Key Support level. You can see how the market reacted to that level multiple times before breaking out in late May on its run up to $299.29.

The entire Tesla story has changed dramatically since they have almost paid off all of their debt and also have accumulated $29.1 billion in cash and short term investments from profits over the past three years. This puts Tesla in a position unlike any other profitable auto company where cash exceeds all debt and capex plans over the next few years. The next stage of the Tesla growth story will be from new manufacturing processes, new batteries, new software and the new CyberTruck just hitting the road since December only a month ago. Stay tuned.

Since I have been following Tesla daily since it went public over 10 years ago, it has been a marathon of headwinds against the company and against Elon. Granted there is plenty of truth to many of the issues that end up in the news, but what I have found is that bias and downright frustration by advertisers, analysts, competitors and short-sellers has played a bigger role in slowing Tesla's success.

I hope you enjoy the "Earnings Level" indicator which is now *FREE* here at TradingView after being a paid-only indicator that I created many years ago. Other services have tried to copy it but the original is here at TradingView, the best software for visualizing and graphing data anywhere.