(03-25-2019, 03:50 PM)NilesMike Wrote: I was considering doing an extensive study on TSLA and see if I could just trade the underlying profitably. It does move plenty, anybody watching it that closely?
I used to trade the underlying stock, but not recently. I preferred shorting it. I still follow it for entertainment purposes, and to a lesser extent education. They are going to study this one for decades. TSLA is outside my risk tolerance so I stopped. I'd make $3-500 and run scared, leaving big moves on the table. The stock has been in a fairly reliable trading range for a long time now and it is heavily gambled both shares and options. The option premiums are nuts.
I do regret I didn't trade it some the past year because it was easy money if you weren't greedy. A heavy dose of my opinion but here is why I am pretty sure the old support is not going to hold, at least in the short-term.
The brilliant lunatic is too unhinged. Sure he is playing with fire with the SEC and judiciary, but that isn't what concerns me so much. The monthly (I am being kind) changes in business strategy smell like panic. I've been following the sales # drama and this QTR could be real bad. They need to make a real profit some quarter soon or the debt is going to eat them up. About two years ago they said they would never discount. Now they are discounting heavily and they aren't even profitable on an annual basis yet. I'm not saying they are going BK, but I don't see how they remain at 500% valuation of a normal car manufacturer if they are forced to dilute shares, or dump product and destroy their margins just to pay the notes. It's the mother of all cult stocks though. I thought they would be forced to become profitable years ago to survive and clearly they did not.