Elon Musk will love it: Tesla’s short sellers have lost more than US airlines so far this year



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According to S3 Partners analysis, short investors in Tesla – those who have bet in the market that its shares will lose value – have lost $ 35 billion on those positions so far this year.

“There is nothing like it that I can remember,” said Ihor Dusaniwsky, S3 general manager and short circuit expert.

Tesla’s short sellers lost $ 8.5 billion in November alone, as the company’s shares climbed 46% in the month. That’s more than the $ 6.7 billion Tesla himself lost in the 11 years since the results were first released in 2008 at the end of last year.

This must be sweet justification for Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who has made no secret of his hatred of short sellers.
And You’re here (TSLA) is a stock that investors seem to love or hate.

For anyone who believes the company is a paradigm-shifting clean energy leader with unlimited potential, there are other investors who believe it is an out-of-the-box niche player that will soon be overwhelmed by larger and more established automakers.

This is why there has been so much interest in Tesla shares for a long time, with these convicts currently owning around 6% of total shares. That’s much higher than the 1% or 2% short-term interest in most other large cap companies.

And it was in that year that Tesla became one of the largest capitalization companies in the country. After years of losing money as electric car production ramped up, the company started to make a profit at the end of 2019. And the stocks have taken off, gaining over 600% since the start. of the year. It is now worth about as much as the next six most valuable global automakers – Toyota (TM), Volkswagen (VLKAF), Daimler (I go), General Motors (GM), BMW and Honda (HMC) – combined, although having only a fraction of the turnover of one of these companies.

Why the losses are so important

When investors sell a stock short, they promise to sell the stock at a later date at a fixed price. If the stock price goes down, they make money by being able to buy stocks at a lower cost than they agreed to sell them. But if the share price goes up, they lose money. Potentially a lot of money.

Tesla’s meteoric rise in shares this year has caused pain, unlike anything seen in the market before, as many investors have taken a short position and the company’s shares have become so expensive.

Dusaniwsky said many shorts have closed their positions – the number of Tesla shares held by short sellers is down 63% so far this year. But he said many are still unwilling to change their minds despite the losses.

“You have shorts with a strong conviction that hold their trades,” he said.

There are other large cap stocks on which shorts have suffered big losses this year as the market came back from the March sell-off. But they represent a fraction of the losses incurred on Tesla because there are far fewer investors holding short positions. The second biggest loser in shorts is Apple (AAPL), but those losses totaled $ 5.8 billion for the year. Amazon (AMZN) is No. 3 with short losses of $ 5.6 billion.

The combination of Tesla as a very large cap stock with so much short interest staying in place despite huge losses is what makes this so unique, Dusaniwsky said.

“It’s really a unicorn short,” he says.

Musk himself questioned whether the stock was worth its current market value.

“I even said the stock was too high. I mean what am I supposed to do?” he rolled his eyes in an interview with Mathias Doepfner, CEO of tech and media company Axel Springer, on Tuesday.

Musk also warned his employees in an email this week that if they don’t work to control costs and investors start to doubt forecasts of big profits to come “our stock will immediately be smashed under a hammer. ! “

Premium shorts that stay put

One of the market’s main short investors, Jim Chanos, admitted he reduced his long-held short position in Tesla even as he continued to doubt the company’s long-term outlook.

“We always have a [short] position, “he told Bloomberg this week.” It was painful, clearly. “

And another major short seller, Michael Burry, who rose to fame as the focus of The Big Short book thanks to his bet against the housing bubble and mortgage-backed securities just before the Great Recession, revealed in a since deleted tweet that he also took a short position on Tesla.

“So Elon Musk, yeah, I’m running out of Tesla, but some free advice for a good guy… Seriously, issue 25-50% of your stock at the current ridiculous price. If there are buyers, sell that. #TeslaSouffle, “read the tweet.

Elon Musk warns employees Tesla's stock could 'be smashed like a blow under a hammer'

But despite lingering doubts in some short films, Tesla wins over other skeptics.

Goldman Sachs revised its recommendation to buy stocks up from neutral on Wednesday and set a 12-month target price of $ 780, 31% above Thursday’s close.

Goldman predicted that despite Tesla’s small overall market share, it could become one of the world’s largest automakers, selling 15 million cars a year by 2040. By comparison, global leader Volkwagen has sold 11 million cars last year.

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