CEO Elon Musk hit his goal of selling 10% of his stake in Tesla
In November, electric vehicle maker Tesla Inc's (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk took to Twitter (TWTR) to ask his followers if he should sell 10% of his stake in the company. Musk has officially hit that goal, offloading a total 13.5 million shares to make more than $14 billion off the sales.
Over the last month, however, Musk also exercised options to buy around 16.4 million stock options, which has actually increased his stake in the company. Tesla stock is getting a boost following the announcement, last seen up 4.8% to trade at $983.92.
Call traders are targeting TSLA with enthusiasm today, with 381,000 calls across the tape already, which is double the intraday average. Most popular is the weekly 12/23 1,000-strike call, followed by the 980-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 the close tomorrow.
Now may be a great time to weigh in on TSLA with options. This is per the security's Schaeffer's Volatility Scorecard (SVS), which sits at a relatively high 74 out of 100, suggesting Tesla stock has exceeded option traders' volatility expectations during the past year.
The equity has cooled off since hitting a Nov. 4, all-time high of $1,243.49. When we last checked on Tesla stock, it had just pulled back to the historically bullish 80-day moving average, which it has since conquered. Year-to-date, TSLA is up 39.1%.