3 ms·

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TSLA/key-statistics?p=TSLA https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TSLA/key-statistics?p=TSLA A bit down the page on the right, you'll

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TSLA/key-statistics?p=TSLA https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TSLA/key-statistics?p=TSLA A bit down the page on the right, you'll see "Shares Short", "Short Ratio", "Short % of Float", and "Shares Short (prior month)". What that is telling you is that almost $10B of Tesla stock has been borrowed and sold (with the profit coming from buying in the future at lower prices, ie, betting against TSLA). That is increased about 7% from the prior month, and would take almost 5 entire days of average trading volume to close out all the short positions. This is a high level of betting against a stock by any standard.

beambot 8y ago
Is this short ratio atypical? I presume it involves some major institutional investors being against TSLA, but is there a good way to determine who?
- tofu8 8y ago
  >Is this short ratio atypical? I wouldn't say so. There are other heavily shorted stocks that have a much higher short ratio because of their small float (e.g. MTCH). >but is there a good way to determine who? Short sellers don't have to disclose their positions, unlike investors who're long the stock. You can try to get a better sense of who's thinking what through headlines and analyst notes/reports. Side note: Elon tweeted out that we'd see the 'burn of the century' (a short squeeze) and that it would be bigger than the VW/Porsche squeeze in 08.
  - throwaway5752 8y ago
    Thanks, for replying when I couldn't! Generally I agree with you. I would disagree that this level of short interest is typical, I think 20%+ short interest is high 90s percentile territory. The relatively low short ratio is more indicative of how highly traded TSLA is (short ratio = short interest / avg daily volume). If there's a way to report who is short a stock, I don't know it. There are also other trades to profit from decreases in an underlying security (buying puts, selling calls) and I don't know about reporting obligations there, either.

beambot 8y ago

Is this short ratio atypical? I presume it involves some major institutional investors being against TSLA, but is there a good way to determine who?

tofu8 8y ago
>Is this short ratio atypical? I wouldn't say so. There are other heavily shorted stocks that have a much higher short ratio because of their small float (e.g. MTCH). >but is there a good way to determine who? Short sellers don't have to disclose their positions, unlike investors who're long the stock. You can try to get a better sense of who's thinking what through headlines and analyst notes/reports. Side note: Elon tweeted out that we'd see the 'burn of the century' (a short squeeze) and that it would be bigger than the VW/Porsche squeeze in 08.
- throwaway5752 8y ago
  Thanks, for replying when I couldn't! Generally I agree with you. I would disagree that this level of short interest is typical, I think 20%+ short interest is high 90s percentile territory. The relatively low short ratio is more indicative of how highly traded TSLA is (short ratio = short interest / avg daily volume). If there's a way to report who is short a stock, I don't know it. There are also other trades to profit from decreases in an underlying security (buying puts, selling calls) and I don't know about reporting obligations there, either.