CEO Elon Musk yesterday tweeted that the company had met its production goal
Shares of Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) are higher in early trading, after CEO Elon Musk tweeted the company produced 7,000 cars in one week, including 5,000 Model 3 electric sedans -- meeting its end-of-June goal. What's more, the firm has reportedly raised its Model 3 production goal to 6,000 vehicles per week by late August. At last check, TSLA is up 5.4% to trade at $361.30.
It's been a choppy year of trading for Tesla, which traded as low as $244.59 in early April and as high as $373.44 in early June -- the stock's highest point since September. And while a pullback from here was quickly contained by its 320-day moving average, TSLA could run into trouble near $360 today, a region that served as a ceiling in January and February. The electric car producer remains 10% higher year-to-date.
In the options pits, traders have bought to open calls over puts at a faster-than-usual clip during the past two weeks. Data from the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX) shows TSLA with a 10-day call/put volume ratio of 1.53, ranking in the 96th percentile of its annual range.
Interestingly, short interest fell 4.6% during the most recent reporting period, but these bearish bets still represent nearly 30% of the stock's total available float -- which suggests some of the recent call buying could be shorts hedging. Regardless, some of today's upside could be a result of bears hitting the bricks, considering it would more than three days for shorts to cover, at TSLA's average price of daily trading,