If you want to upset bulls, make your stock go down. If you want to upset bears, make your stock go up. If you want to truly upset either of them, make the aforementioned actions happen really, really fast. But what if you want to do BOTH? Infuriate bulls and bears alike? IMPOSSIBLE, you say! Nonsense. Just ask the new Steve Jobs.
Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA)
Joking aside, as much I admired this guy (truly, truly admired), I hope he gets completely torched (to use his word) by the bears he harmed. It’s becoming increasingly apparent that the tweet sent out about “funding secured” for a $420 acquisition of Tesla was ill-conceived. I would call it also ill-advised, although by his own admission he didn’t get advice from anyone. He just impulsively sent it out. His well-trumpeted hatred for shorts is well-known, and surely it must have crossed his mind the effect his tweet would have of the bears (to be clear, I had NO position).
Can you IMAGINE what those short Tesla must have gone through? Think about the instant collapse in the prices of puts. Think about the margin calls, and the near-instantaneous losses as the stock rocketed nearly FIFTY BUCKS within minutes (and over $100 in total from 7/30 to 8/2). I suspect many accounts were closed, many puts were dumped, and billions of dollars were lost.
But, ya know, there’s always another side to any transaction, and we should all remember there were BUYERS at those levels too. And their result? They probably thought they were going to score an easy profit since the $420 purchase was a lock. But as it’s becoming increasingly apparent there is a man-child at the helm, they, too, are seeing losses of their own.
The bizarre thing is that if you erased the last 10 days, TSLA would still be the same price it was before. And yet with this upside-down “V” in the stock price that Elon created, he has brought upon himself a mountain of lawsuits, an SEC inquiry, potential criminal prosecution, and the possibility of losing the best job in the whole world.