Options traders are looking for Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA)’s price to spike when earnings are announced later today, with the largest single trade on Tesla shares yesterday being a put option at 31% more than the company’s current stock price, reports Kaitlyn Kiernan for The Wall Street Journal.
Tesla’s big swing
“It’s been as wild as I’ve ever seen it around earnings,” National Securities options strategist William Lefkowitz said about Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA). “People are looking for big swings,” he said.
And unlike price targets, which are still all over the place, most options traders are betting on an upswing with nine of the ten most actively traded contracts predicting a price spike. Overall, Tesla options were the fifth most popular yesterday, and although some of the activity could be short-sellers hedging their position, so many people have gotten burned shorting Tesla this year that most have moved on to other targets. That’s not to say that the bears have been converted, but trying to guess when share prices will come back down to earth hasn’t been a winning strategy.
Weekly call options for $165, $175, and $200 were some of the most heavily traded contracts, which implies an expected bump between 3.3% and 15.6%.
Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk has mentioned that he thinks his company’s share price is unwarranted, and many people think the current price is based on unrealistic expectations, but for a company that is relatively new and newly profitable, predicting long-term earning power involves a lot of guesswork. As with other companies whose stock price is driven more by sentiment than fundamentals (Facebook, Twitter a few weeks from now), it’s hard to predict how the market will react to new information.
For investors still thinking about getting involved, some analysts have said that now is the right time to short the stock, because “overbought conditions” and a “pattern of non-confirming weekly RSIs” were two key indicators that could have tipped people off to short Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) when it was at an all-time high. At a recent talk, Jim Chanos has also hinted that he is shorting Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA), though he wasn’t willing to confirm any of his positions.
