The electric car name remains heavily shorted
Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) confirmed today that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has issued subpoenas investigating production projections for its Model 3 vehicle. Should government enforcement occur, Tesla has said it could have “material adverse impact on our business.”
This isn't the first time the Feds and Tesla have battled it out. Elon Musk, the company's controversial CEO, was in hot water earlier in the fall for his famous tweet about "taking Tesla private." At last check, TSLA was up 0.5% at $346.40, but has spent most of the day in the red, sinking as far as $340.91 back around noon.
Overall, TSLA stock has had a volatile year, but has still managed to tack on 10% year-to-date. While the shares did pull back in early-October at the start of the broader market sell-off, they seem to have found a floor at the $250 level, an area that contained a sell-off back in late March. What's more, TSLA is fresh off its best week since May 2013 after turning in an outstanding quarterly report on Oct. 24.
Short interest fell by 1.8% in the last two reporting periods to 34.06 million shares, and represents a whopping 27% of TSLA's total available float. And in the options pits, near-term speculators have been more put-skewed than normal. This is according to Tesla's Schaeffer's put/call open interest ratio (SOIR) of 1.92, which ranks in the 84th annual percentile.