Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) insiders rarely sell their holdings in the electric vehicle maker. But director Antonio Gracias has aggressively been selling shares of the company. According to his latest SEC filing, Gracias has sold another 20,000 Tesla shares in an open market transaction dated Friday, May 30. He unloaded those shares at an average price of $210.08, raking in $4.2 million.
Gracias sold 110,000 Tesla shares last month
Last week, Antonio Gracias sold 10,000 shares on May 27 and another 10,000 on May 28. In fact, he has sold a total of 110,000 shares of Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) last month. According to Nasdaq, 10 insider selling transactions, excluding Gracias’ sale on May 30, took place in Tesla last month. Of them, nine were carried out by Gracias alone, and the only other seller was Kimbal Musk who sold 4,811 shares at $205.98 on May 1. Kimbal is the brother of Tesla founder Elon Musk.
Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) saw a huge decline in short interest in May. It indicates that sentiment is once again. The stock had fallen below $180 after the company reported its first quarter results. Nasdaq data show that short interest in Tesla fell from 26.74 million on April 30 to 25.12 million on May 15 settlement date. That reflects a drop of 6.1%. However, about 29.3% shares of the San Francisco-based company are still held short. Thanks to an increase in the average daily trading volume to 7.69 million shares, it will take short sellers 3.26 days to cover the entire short position, compared to 4.01 days on April 30.
Tesla garners attention of value investors
Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) is increasingly transforming itself an international automaker. The company has started selling its Model S sedan in China, and is currently building a Supercharger network there. Last week, Tesla began selling its vehicles in Australia. The company is set to deliver its first right-hand drive Model S Performance Plus in the UK on June 7.
After years of being tagged as a speculative play, Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) is now garnering attention of some serious value investors like Ron Baron. Tesla shares were down 0.11% to $204.51 at 2:01 PM EDT on Tuesday.
