The equity earned a price-target hike to $940 from Canaccord Genuity
Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk announced yesterday that the electric vehicle powerhouse is moving its headquarters from Palo Alto, California, to Austin, Texas, due to high living and operating costs. Musk made the announcement at the company's annual shareholder meeting, noting the car and battery manufacturing complex it is building will take time to reach full production potential, even after completion. Still, TSLA earned a price-target hike from Canaccord Genuity to $940 from $768.
Options traders are already responding to the announcement. So far, 172,000 calls have crossed the tape -- double the intraday average -- as opposed to 114,000 puts. The most popular by far is the weekly 10/8 800-strike call, followed by the 790-strike call in the same series, with new positions being opened at both. This indicates traders expect more upside for TSLA by the time these contracts expire at today's close.
Today's options activity shows a sentiment shift. This is per Tesla stock's 10-day put/call volume ratio of 1.07, which stands above all other readings from the past 12 months at the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Cboe Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX).
The equity is moving lower in response to the news, last seen down 1% at $785.35. The last time we checked in with Tesla stock, the security was also enjoying some analyst love. Not much has changed on the charts since then, with the $800 level still acting as a ceiling for the shares.