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It is interesting to note that the price Musk mentioned was $420 per share while the stock closed at just under $730 per share today and was as high as $969 (ED

by slg 7y ago

It is interesting to note that the price Musk mentioned was $420 per share while the stock closed at just under $730 per share today and was as high as $969 (EDIT: actually more like $900, see computerex's comment below) per share before the Coronavirus selloffs began. I point this out not to defend Musk (he is often an idiot, especially on social media), but to point out that the people still angry about this are likely Tesla shorts and day traders. Anyone who is long on Tesla likely couldn't care less.

elicash 7y ago
> the people still angry about this are likely Tesla shorts and day traders. Why does this matter?
- mehrdada 7y ago
  Because it is a shareholder lawsuit, supposedly claiming some damages to the Tesla shareholder, who happens to be doing very well. The non-shareholder community is the one at loss and would want restitution for their "damages," but Tesla, Inc. really has no responsibility towards them beyond the general rules and regulations, i.e. SEC et al complaints. TL;DR: if you bought or held TSLA due to that tweet, well, it's already above that price+market gain.
  - elicash 7y ago
    Genuinely asking, I don't understand the distinction you're making. Weren't these folks shareholders? Is the idea that if you're no longer a shareholder, this makes you bad?
    - mehrdada 7y ago
      Filing a lawsuit does not mean you will win. Yes, you can tactically become a shareholder and file suits as some people do all the time. You miss earning you get hit by a shareholder lawsuit every time. This is not a rare thing, but also does not necessarily imply they have any reasonable claim to any damages. Could be just leeching. The distinction between this and the SEC matter that was settled is that SEC is supposed to care about the integrity of the market at large, not just Tesla, Inc. shareholders doing well at the cost of other players in the market that were misled. That's a much stronger basis to argue for damages.
      - elicash 7y ago
        Maybe I'm being unclear. I'm wondering why we shouldn't care about damages to day traders. Is the suggestion that those types of investors are doing something bad? I don't know anything about investing, but wouldn't they just be people who do quick trades?
        mehrdada 7y ago
        "We" should, and "we" do, through SEC and other regulators or criminal investigation against the executives. That matter, however, is already settled, for better or worse. The suit at hand is on the basis of Tesla, Inc.'s fiduciary duties to its shareholders and it is hard to imagine Tesla did not do well by its shareholders at least taking a ~one-year lens.
        pm_me_ur_fullz 7y ago
        Shareholder litigation isn't regulatory issue, it is totally separate, has different statutes of limitations and has no bearing on what Elon settled with the feds.
        cowsandmilk 7y ago
        > Tesla, Inc.'s fiduciary duties to its shareholders and it is hard to imagine Tesla did not do well by its shareholders at least taking a ~one-year lens. Tesla's stock went down below 200 in May of 2019, well after the tweet and skyrocketed after that. The long term performance of Tesla stock is not the result of that tweet in August of 2018 and that tweet was not representative of creation of long term value. If Musk hadn't tweeted that day, I would bet long-term performance for Tesla shareholders would have been identical. If Musk actually had funding secured and did take the company private, recent share prices might even indicate that would have been against the long term interests of Tesla shareholders as they were betting on the long-term results of Tesla's investments in manufacturing and would have been deprived of the gains from that bet that they are seeing now.
    - slg 7y ago
      It doesn't make them bad. It makes them disingenuous. This Tweet did not do any damage to people who has held onto Tesla stock. It did damage to short term arbitrage seekers that were trying to make a profit by being the first to act on the news. These people were at one point shareholders, but they likely weren't shareholders before the Tweet and likely aren't shareholders now. I don't and I assume the general public doesn't have a lot of sympathy for that type of trader.
      - akerl_ 7y ago
        The definition of shareholder doesn’t require that somebody hold the shares for a given amount of time. It’s clear that you don’t have sympathy for people who aren’t long on Tesla stock, but that doesn’t change the fact that they were shareholders, and they were misled because Musk made false statements about the finances of his company to the public.
      - FireBeyond 7y ago
        > It did damage to short term arbitrage seekers that were trying to make a profit by being the first to act on the news. As opposed to long term traders, who are not trying to make a profit?
        thaumasiotes 7y ago
        As opposed to long term traders who are suing without having been harmed. Ideally, in a lawsuit, you want the plaintiff to have suffered some kind of harm at the hands of the defendant.
      - ABeeSea 7y ago
        Are short term traders not shareholders at a moment in time? Why are you segmenting shareholders based on length of ownership?
    - LeifCarrotson 7y ago
      People who don't have stock in Tesla and profit when the stock price goes down think that Musk doing things that make the stock price go up is bad. People who have stock in Tesla and profit when the stock price goes up aren't going to be particularly mad when Musk makes the stock price go up, and they're the only ones who get to participate. Holding a short position is similar to having a friend with a spare old car. Their lazy kid is going to get a job and their license eventually, and they definitely want to have the car for that, but who knows when that will be. You buy it for $3,000, promising they can have the car back whenever they want. But you sell it immediately to a third party. You're planning to buy them a replacement car on the used market when the car depreciates (they'll never know the difference), hopefully next year that old gas guzzler engine is even less popular and that model year's styling is considered even more dated. When your friend asks for the car back, you'll buy one for $2,000 and make a tidy profit! What happened to these folks was that the car didn't depreciate from $3,000 to $2,000 like they expected it to, that model had the lead role in a blockbuster movie and overnight, it became a coveted classic car. Turns out there are only a couple hundred still on the road, and now, if your friend asks for it back, you'll have to go to a big auction and pay $50,000 to replace it, suffering a loss 4700% greater than the profit you expected to make. This is a lawsuit for car owNers, not car owe-ers. The owners are $47,000 richer, they don't want to sue the car manufacturer, regardless of any underhanded dealings that got it that movie role.
  - FireBeyond 7y ago
    If you were a shareholder who sold because you saw the SEC seeking enforcement action, your actions were directly impacted by Elon's speech, and you can argue you have losses.
    - mehrdada 7y ago
      I am sure there will be some arguments along that line or similar, so we will see, but the situation would be entirely different had the stock been at say, $220 today.
      - FireBeyond 7y ago
        The stock price today is immaterial, as it relies on information that no investor had at that point in time. Hindsight is always 20/20.
        mehrdada 7y ago
        It is a civil lawsuit and it sure is material as far as quantifying damages is concerned. But why speculate when we can just wait and see the outcome. Again, I agree that your post above might serve as an avenue to claim some damages that a judge would agree to, but to say stock price today is immaterial is just plain wrong. If the stock price had dropped to $100 today, it would have been likely that all shareholders could make a valid argument to a claim, but now at the very least one has to demonstrate that they were a shareholder at the time of the tweet, and they have taken a certain action that hurt them based on that tweet.
- catalogia 7y ago
  Elon Musk encourages his supporters to view him as a wrongly persecuted underdog, victim of numerous nefarious conspiracies from established industries. Claiming that his critics are seething short sellers is part of this.
H8crilA 7y ago
I am short TSLA and I wish those people stop with the lawsuits and let this stock explode so I can add at even more ludicrous prices. Elon has already done so much to discourage fundamental analysis and price discovery of this stock.
- vikramkr 7y ago
  I hope in that situation you have the cash on hand to cover those margin calls. And even if you do, a lot of shorts would be getting screwed by behavior that is unethical and illegal. I'd rather people not lose money because of blatant lies by the ceo than have the stock shoot up unchecked to fulfill your little fantasy
  - H8crilA 7y ago
    You're right, it is selfish, such is the nature of capital markets. I'm trying to exploit other's mistakes. Shorting Tesla without hedging (or some good covering protocol) is a fool's game; no margin calls for me. There's a reason why the IV is ludicrous too. And I don't think that Tesla is a "bad company", it's merely has substantially overpriced securities. But what I find truly horrifying is how okay everyone seems to be with highly unethical and dangerous behavior when things are going up. Not just in Tesla, but in so many corporate offices.
    - secfirstmd 7y ago
      Of all the companies to short for me Tesla is one I really hope beats you. They've managed to drag the polluting car engine industry into the future and are continuing to lead the way. Climate change is about to threaten humanity and kill millions. Tesla and Musk are one of the few who are making positive steps to try and rectify this. I hope your money makes you happy if Tesla gets destroyed and sets back reducing carbon in that sector by another 10 years.
      - papermachete 7y ago
        Wow you worry too much. Maybe call your senator and have the government deal with it.
cowsandmilk 7y ago
> the people still angry about this are likely Tesla shorts and day traders I'm mad about it and my only involvement with the market is through mutual funds and RSUs that are immediately sold up on grant from a FAANG. He was lying with the intention of manipulating the shares of his company. That is unacceptable behavior for a CEO of a public company.
- threatofrain 7y ago
  Then appropriate remedies should be pursued, but in what way have Tesla shareholders as a class been damaged? In the net, I would wager that Tesla shareholders are still quite happy with Elon at the helm.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    As a shareholder, I’m still long, but want Musk to be held accountable. Incentives are important.
    - slg 7y ago
      That accountability is more likely to come from the SEC's previous punishment than this lawsuit. It seems like many of the people here are acting as if this shareholder lawsuit is the only recourse against Musk's actions. My original comment was made in the context of that punishment already being handed down.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - xkjkls 7y ago
        That punishment was a slap on the wrist compared to how much actions like this poison the public markets. Knowing the SEC won't act with real force in these situations will encourage penny stock CEOs and other characters to do the same thing.
  - toast0 7y ago
iamaelephant 7y ago
So what?
KarlKemp 7y ago
Maybe Tesla stock would be higher today, if the market didn't need to price in the CEO's erratic behaviour.
- stirlo 7y ago
  Maybe, But that erratic behavior has also got them millions in free media coverage so it's not as clear cut it seems.
gizmo 7y ago
When it became clear the "funding secured" tweets were a lie and that the SEC was seeking an officer & director ban against Elon Musk many people sold their stock and lost money. It's not OK for directors of a company to make materially false statements to their shareholders and if they do they can (and deserve to) get sued. It's a bit silly to talk about people being "still angry about this" when between filing the lawsuit and today Tesla has been close to bankruptcy multiple times.
- xkjkls 7y ago
  Exactly. Can anyone name another CEO who could pull this stunt and wouldn't be immediately fired by his board? This whole ordeal exposed the complete lack of corporate governance in Tesla.
  - mehrdada 7y ago
    Can you name any other CEO who could pull the success Tesla had thus far? It comes in a package--you cannot pick and choose. If the board (or SEC) legitimately thought a better person could run the company, the outcome may have been different.
    - xkjkls 7y ago
      I'm not sure I would call Tesla a success. The company has racked up GAAP losses of close to $7 billion since going public, and has never made an annual profit. Whatever Elon Musk has created, it doesn't look anything like a sustainable business.
      - frank2 7y ago
        The stock market disagrees with you: The market cap of Tesla is 137.2B in contrast to GM's 29.8B, Ford's 19.6B and Daimler's 32.3B. Source: https://markets.on.nytimes.com/research/markets/usmarkets/industry.asp?industry=53111 https://markets.on.nytimes.com/research/markets/usmarkets/in...
onetimemanytime 7y ago
I guess the people that lost that moment would be able to recoup. Doesn't matter what happens 2 years later to the stock if I lost $xx million due to his (questionable) tweet.
beamatronic 7y ago
How is their stock going up when they aren’t even making cars right now?
- asdf21 7y ago
  It's mostly options driven
- ethbro 7y ago
  Because there's enough naive buyers that smart money can flood the market on their backs and swamp the short market?
- josefx 7y ago
  Because it was higher before, may reach those heights again and people think that right now is a good time to buy in?
- vardump 7y ago
  Their China factory is not making cars?
computerex 7y ago
> was as high as $969 per share before the Coronavirus selloffs began Just to clarify, the stock hit the $969 high very briefly and dropped closer to what it is now far before any of the Coronavirus related moves in the market.
- slg 7y ago
  You are right. I was eyeballing the daily stock chart. That $969 peak was a few weeks before the general market selloffs began. However Tesla was right around $900 when the market started to dip in late Feb so my general point still stands.
vardump 7y ago
I always thought that $420 tweet was a desperate measure to defend from... something. A hostile takeover, perhaps?
- xiphias2 7y ago
  Elon wants fast growth, which is great, but has a lavish lifestyle using borrowing money on his volatile shares. Most people can't even handle the volatility of Tesla shares emotionally, when it's leveraged even more, of course Elon get very frustrated when the stock goes down. He should have just waited a bit more with his billionaire lifestyle that he deserves.
draw_down 7y ago
It’s ok to be short Tesla and to be a day trader.
macspoofing 7y ago
... which reinforces the point of how stupid that tweet was. Two years later and it still causes problems for him.
apta 7y ago
> are likely Tesla shorts and day traders What's baffling is how shorting is even legal. It's strictly gambling and benefiting off the misfortune of others.
- xkjkls 7y ago
  Why would borrowing something to sell only to buy it back to pay someone for borrowing it back be illegal?
  - apta 7y ago
    You look at the transaction end-to-end, and what the intention behind it is. Don't get stuck in the technicalities, as that's the cause of many issues we see today.
    - xkjkls 7y ago
      Why is the cause of many of the issues we see today? Most all research shows that short selling is important to price discovery: https://www.aqr.com/Insights/Research/Journal-Article/Price-Efficiency-and-Short-Selling?aqrPDF=1 https://www.aqr.com/Insights/Research/Journal-Article/Price-... https://academic.oup.com/rfs/article-abstract/26/2/287/1581906?redirectedFrom=fulltext https://academic.oup.com/rfs/article-abstract/26/2/287/15819... Markets would be far worse without short sellers.
xkjkls 7y ago
Plenty of people long Tesla via calls are also included in this lawsuit. Claiming a buyout offer of $420 a share takes all of the calls above that figure to zero
dragonwriter 7y ago
> It is interesting to note that the price Musk mentioned was $420 per share while the stock closed at just under $730 per share today and was as high as $969 (EDIT: actually more like $900, see computerex's comment below) per share before the Coronavirus selloffs began. Yeah, and time doesn't mean anything in markets, so that's somehow relevant. > I point this out not to defend Musk (he is often an idiot, especially on social media), but to point out that the people still angry about this are likely Tesla shorts and day traders. That...doesn't even remotely follow from the facts you cited. For one thing, a CEO repeatedly flouting securities rules and thereby triggering sanctions against the firm probably means that the current market price is less thanot would be, ceteris paribus, without that occurring. Just because the stock price has gone up since that event doesn't mean that the event did not negatively impact long positions compared to everything else being the same except that event.

by slg 7y ago

elicash 7y ago

> the people still angry about this are likely Tesla shorts and day traders. Why does this matter?

mehrdada 7y ago
Because it is a shareholder lawsuit, supposedly claiming some damages to the Tesla shareholder, who happens to be doing very well. The non-shareholder community is the one at loss and would want restitution for their "damages," but Tesla, Inc. really has no responsibility towards them beyond the general rules and regulations, i.e. SEC et al complaints. TL;DR: if you bought or held TSLA due to that tweet, well, it's already above that price+market gain.
- elicash 7y ago
  Genuinely asking, I don't understand the distinction you're making. Weren't these folks shareholders? Is the idea that if you're no longer a shareholder, this makes you bad?
  - mehrdada 7y ago
    Filing a lawsuit does not mean you will win. Yes, you can tactically become a shareholder and file suits as some people do all the time. You miss earning you get hit by a shareholder lawsuit every time. This is not a rare thing, but also does not necessarily imply they have any reasonable claim to any damages. Could be just leeching. The distinction between this and the SEC matter that was settled is that SEC is supposed to care about the integrity of the market at large, not just Tesla, Inc. shareholders doing well at the cost of other players in the market that were misled. That's a much stronger basis to argue for damages.
    - elicash 7y ago
      Maybe I'm being unclear. I'm wondering why we shouldn't care about damages to day traders. Is the suggestion that those types of investors are doing something bad? I don't know anything about investing, but wouldn't they just be people who do quick trades?
      - mehrdada 7y ago
        "We" should, and "we" do, through SEC and other regulators or criminal investigation against the executives. That matter, however, is already settled, for better or worse. The suit at hand is on the basis of Tesla, Inc.'s fiduciary duties to its shareholders and it is hard to imagine Tesla did not do well by its shareholders at least taking a ~one-year lens.
        pm_me_ur_fullz 7y ago
        Shareholder litigation isn't regulatory issue, it is totally separate, has different statutes of limitations and has no bearing on what Elon settled with the feds.
        cowsandmilk 7y ago
        > Tesla, Inc.'s fiduciary duties to its shareholders and it is hard to imagine Tesla did not do well by its shareholders at least taking a ~one-year lens. Tesla's stock went down below 200 in May of 2019, well after the tweet and skyrocketed after that. The long term performance of Tesla stock is not the result of that tweet in August of 2018 and that tweet was not representative of creation of long term value. If Musk hadn't tweeted that day, I would bet long-term performance for Tesla shareholders would have been identical. If Musk actually had funding secured and did take the company private, recent share prices might even indicate that would have been against the long term interests of Tesla shareholders as they were betting on the long-term results of Tesla's investments in manufacturing and would have been deprived of the gains from that bet that they are seeing now.
  - slg 7y ago
    It doesn't make them bad. It makes them disingenuous. This Tweet did not do any damage to people who has held onto Tesla stock. It did damage to short term arbitrage seekers that were trying to make a profit by being the first to act on the news. These people were at one point shareholders, but they likely weren't shareholders before the Tweet and likely aren't shareholders now. I don't and I assume the general public doesn't have a lot of sympathy for that type of trader.
    - akerl_ 7y ago
      The definition of shareholder doesn’t require that somebody hold the shares for a given amount of time. It’s clear that you don’t have sympathy for people who aren’t long on Tesla stock, but that doesn’t change the fact that they were shareholders, and they were misled because Musk made false statements about the finances of his company to the public.
    - FireBeyond 7y ago
      > It did damage to short term arbitrage seekers that were trying to make a profit by being the first to act on the news. As opposed to long term traders, who are not trying to make a profit?
      - thaumasiotes 7y ago
        As opposed to long term traders who are suing without having been harmed. Ideally, in a lawsuit, you want the plaintiff to have suffered some kind of harm at the hands of the defendant.
    - ABeeSea 7y ago
      Are short term traders not shareholders at a moment in time? Why are you segmenting shareholders based on length of ownership?
  - LeifCarrotson 7y ago
    People who don't have stock in Tesla and profit when the stock price goes down think that Musk doing things that make the stock price go up is bad. People who have stock in Tesla and profit when the stock price goes up aren't going to be particularly mad when Musk makes the stock price go up, and they're the only ones who get to participate. Holding a short position is similar to having a friend with a spare old car. Their lazy kid is going to get a job and their license eventually, and they definitely want to have the car for that, but who knows when that will be. You buy it for $3,000, promising they can have the car back whenever they want. But you sell it immediately to a third party. You're planning to buy them a replacement car on the used market when the car depreciates (they'll never know the difference), hopefully next year that old gas guzzler engine is even less popular and that model year's styling is considered even more dated. When your friend asks for the car back, you'll buy one for $2,000 and make a tidy profit! What happened to these folks was that the car didn't depreciate from $3,000 to $2,000 like they expected it to, that model had the lead role in a blockbuster movie and overnight, it became a coveted classic car. Turns out there are only a couple hundred still on the road, and now, if your friend asks for it back, you'll have to go to a big auction and pay $50,000 to replace it, suffering a loss 4700% greater than the profit you expected to make. This is a lawsuit for car owNers, not car owe-ers. The owners are $47,000 richer, they don't want to sue the car manufacturer, regardless of any underhanded dealings that got it that movie role.
- FireBeyond 7y ago
  If you were a shareholder who sold because you saw the SEC seeking enforcement action, your actions were directly impacted by Elon's speech, and you can argue you have losses.
  - mehrdada 7y ago
    I am sure there will be some arguments along that line or similar, so we will see, but the situation would be entirely different had the stock been at say, $220 today.
    - FireBeyond 7y ago
      The stock price today is immaterial, as it relies on information that no investor had at that point in time. Hindsight is always 20/20.
      - mehrdada 7y ago
        It is a civil lawsuit and it sure is material as far as quantifying damages is concerned. But why speculate when we can just wait and see the outcome. Again, I agree that your post above might serve as an avenue to claim some damages that a judge would agree to, but to say stock price today is immaterial is just plain wrong. If the stock price had dropped to $100 today, it would have been likely that all shareholders could make a valid argument to a claim, but now at the very least one has to demonstrate that they were a shareholder at the time of the tweet, and they have taken a certain action that hurt them based on that tweet.
catalogia 7y ago
Elon Musk encourages his supporters to view him as a wrongly persecuted underdog, victim of numerous nefarious conspiracies from established industries. Claiming that his critics are seething short sellers is part of this.

H8crilA 7y ago

I am short TSLA and I wish those people stop with the lawsuits and let this stock explode so I can add at even more ludicrous prices. Elon has already done so much to discourage fundamental analysis and price discovery of this stock.

vikramkr 7y ago
I hope in that situation you have the cash on hand to cover those margin calls. And even if you do, a lot of shorts would be getting screwed by behavior that is unethical and illegal. I'd rather people not lose money because of blatant lies by the ceo than have the stock shoot up unchecked to fulfill your little fantasy
- H8crilA 7y ago
  You're right, it is selfish, such is the nature of capital markets. I'm trying to exploit other's mistakes. Shorting Tesla without hedging (or some good covering protocol) is a fool's game; no margin calls for me. There's a reason why the IV is ludicrous too. And I don't think that Tesla is a "bad company", it's merely has substantially overpriced securities. But what I find truly horrifying is how okay everyone seems to be with highly unethical and dangerous behavior when things are going up. Not just in Tesla, but in so many corporate offices.
  - secfirstmd 7y ago
    Of all the companies to short for me Tesla is one I really hope beats you. They've managed to drag the polluting car engine industry into the future and are continuing to lead the way. Climate change is about to threaten humanity and kill millions. Tesla and Musk are one of the few who are making positive steps to try and rectify this. I hope your money makes you happy if Tesla gets destroyed and sets back reducing carbon in that sector by another 10 years.
    - papermachete 7y ago
      Wow you worry too much. Maybe call your senator and have the government deal with it.

cowsandmilk 7y ago

> the people still angry about this are likely Tesla shorts and day traders I'm mad about it and my only involvement with the market is through mutual funds and RSUs that are immediately sold up on grant from a FAANG. He was lying with the intention of manipulating the shares of his company. That is unacceptable behavior for a CEO of a public company.

threatofrain 7y ago
Then appropriate remedies should be pursued, but in what way have Tesla shareholders as a class been damaged? In the net, I would wager that Tesla shareholders are still quite happy with Elon at the helm.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  As a shareholder, I’m still long, but want Musk to be held accountable. Incentives are important.
  - slg 7y ago
    That accountability is more likely to come from the SEC's previous punishment than this lawsuit. It seems like many of the people here are acting as if this shareholder lawsuit is the only recourse against Musk's actions. My original comment was made in the context of that punishment already being handed down.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - xkjkls 7y ago
      That punishment was a slap on the wrist compared to how much actions like this poison the public markets. Knowing the SEC won't act with real force in these situations will encourage penny stock CEOs and other characters to do the same thing.
- toast0 7y ago

iamaelephant 7y ago

So what?

KarlKemp 7y ago

Maybe Tesla stock would be higher today, if the market didn't need to price in the CEO's erratic behaviour.

stirlo 7y ago
Maybe, But that erratic behavior has also got them millions in free media coverage so it's not as clear cut it seems.

gizmo 7y ago

When it became clear the "funding secured" tweets were a lie and that the SEC was seeking an officer & director ban against Elon Musk many people sold their stock and lost money. It's not OK for directors of a company to make materially false statements to their shareholders and if they do they can (and deserve to) get sued. It's a bit silly to talk about people being "still angry about this" when between filing the lawsuit and today Tesla has been close to bankruptcy multiple times.

xkjkls 7y ago
Exactly. Can anyone name another CEO who could pull this stunt and wouldn't be immediately fired by his board? This whole ordeal exposed the complete lack of corporate governance in Tesla.
- mehrdada 7y ago
  Can you name any other CEO who could pull the success Tesla had thus far? It comes in a package--you cannot pick and choose. If the board (or SEC) legitimately thought a better person could run the company, the outcome may have been different.
  - xkjkls 7y ago
    I'm not sure I would call Tesla a success. The company has racked up GAAP losses of close to $7 billion since going public, and has never made an annual profit. Whatever Elon Musk has created, it doesn't look anything like a sustainable business.
    - frank2 7y ago
      The stock market disagrees with you: The market cap of Tesla is 137.2B in contrast to GM's 29.8B, Ford's 19.6B and Daimler's 32.3B. Source: https://markets.on.nytimes.com/research/markets/usmarkets/industry.asp?industry=53111 https://markets.on.nytimes.com/research/markets/usmarkets/in...

onetimemanytime 7y ago

I guess the people that lost that moment would be able to recoup. Doesn't matter what happens 2 years later to the stock if I lost $xx million due to his (questionable) tweet.

beamatronic 7y ago

How is their stock going up when they aren’t even making cars right now?

asdf21 7y ago
It's mostly options driven
ethbro 7y ago
Because there's enough naive buyers that smart money can flood the market on their backs and swamp the short market?
josefx 7y ago
Because it was higher before, may reach those heights again and people think that right now is a good time to buy in?
vardump 7y ago
Their China factory is not making cars?

computerex 7y ago

> was as high as $969 per share before the Coronavirus selloffs began Just to clarify, the stock hit the $969 high very briefly and dropped closer to what it is now far before any of the Coronavirus related moves in the market.

slg 7y ago
You are right. I was eyeballing the daily stock chart. That $969 peak was a few weeks before the general market selloffs began. However Tesla was right around $900 when the market started to dip in late Feb so my general point still stands.

vardump 7y ago

I always thought that $420 tweet was a desperate measure to defend from... something. A hostile takeover, perhaps?

xiphias2 7y ago
Elon wants fast growth, which is great, but has a lavish lifestyle using borrowing money on his volatile shares. Most people can't even handle the volatility of Tesla shares emotionally, when it's leveraged even more, of course Elon get very frustrated when the stock goes down. He should have just waited a bit more with his billionaire lifestyle that he deserves.

draw_down 7y ago

It’s ok to be short Tesla and to be a day trader.

macspoofing 7y ago

... which reinforces the point of how stupid that tweet was. Two years later and it still causes problems for him.

apta 7y ago

> are likely Tesla shorts and day traders What's baffling is how shorting is even legal. It's strictly gambling and benefiting off the misfortune of others.

xkjkls 7y ago
Why would borrowing something to sell only to buy it back to pay someone for borrowing it back be illegal?
- apta 7y ago
  You look at the transaction end-to-end, and what the intention behind it is. Don't get stuck in the technicalities, as that's the cause of many issues we see today.
  - xkjkls 7y ago
    Why is the cause of many of the issues we see today? Most all research shows that short selling is important to price discovery: https://www.aqr.com/Insights/Research/Journal-Article/Price-Efficiency-and-Short-Selling?aqrPDF=1 https://www.aqr.com/Insights/Research/Journal-Article/Price-... https://academic.oup.com/rfs/article-abstract/26/2/287/1581906?redirectedFrom=fulltext https://academic.oup.com/rfs/article-abstract/26/2/287/15819... Markets would be far worse without short sellers.

xkjkls 7y ago

Plenty of people long Tesla via calls are also included in this lawsuit. Claiming a buyout offer of $420 a share takes all of the calls above that figure to zero

dragonwriter 7y ago

> It is interesting to note that the price Musk mentioned was $420 per share while the stock closed at just under $730 per share today and was as high as $969 (EDIT: actually more like $900, see computerex's comment below) per share before the Coronavirus selloffs began. Yeah, and time doesn't mean anything in markets, so that's somehow relevant. > I point this out not to defend Musk (he is often an idiot, especially on social media), but to point out that the people still angry about this are likely Tesla shorts and day traders. That...doesn't even remotely follow from the facts you cited. For one thing, a CEO repeatedly flouting securities rules and thereby triggering sanctions against the firm probably means that the current market price is less thanot would be, ceteris paribus, without that occurring. Just because the stock price has gone up since that event doesn't mean that the event did not negatively impact long positions compared to everything else being the same except that event.