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Tesla Short Sellers Actually Made Over $1 Billion After Musk's Taking-Private Tweet (fortune.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Fortune:
Investors betting that Tesla stock will lose value -- so-called "shorts" -- have made $1.2 billion since CEO Elon Musk first tweeted about taking the company private. Much of that gain came on Friday, after the New York Times published a revealing, emotional interview with Musk that drove Tesla stock down nearly 9%. The tally comes from a report released Friday by stock analytics firm S3 Partners. The Friday collapse helped reverse a price spike after Musk's August 7 Tweet saying he was "considering taking Tesla private at $420," about 18% higher than the stock's market value at the time.
According to S3, the subsequent surge in Tesla stock cost short positions $1.3 billion. But soon after, it became clear that Musk had exaggerated the certainty of his funding, and the SEC began a probe of his statements, driving the stock back down. On Friday, the Times interview with Musk detailed his 120-hour work weeks, lack of social life, and reliance on Ambien to sleep. That sent the stock down 9% in one day, for a total drop of 19% over 10 days. That gave $2.5 billion back to the shorts, for a net gain of $1.2 billion since Musk's going-private tweet.
Tesla remains the most-shorted stock on the American stock exchanges, and the researchers note that only 4% of shorts have actually cashed in these on-paper gains.
According to S3, the subsequent surge in Tesla stock cost short positions $1.3 billion. But soon after, it became clear that Musk had exaggerated the certainty of his funding, and the SEC began a probe of his statements, driving the stock back down. On Friday, the Times interview with Musk detailed his 120-hour work weeks, lack of social life, and reliance on Ambien to sleep. That sent the stock down 9% in one day, for a total drop of 19% over 10 days. That gave $2.5 billion back to the shorts, for a net gain of $1.2 billion since Musk's going-private tweet.
Tesla remains the most-shorted stock on the American stock exchanges, and the researchers note that only 4% of shorts have actually cashed in these on-paper gains.
I guess. I am more impressed by people like Linus who have single handedly changed all of our lives for the better. I see people like Musk and I just see another businessman who hit it big during the dotcom and is now feeding his massive ego.
He's a white South African, a fact I'm surprised that never gets brought up. White South Africans are racist as fuck. Have you ever met one?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
The shorts are literally the only group who has an economic interest in scrutinizing an asset. Without this kind of rigor you get more money being thrown at fantastic enterprises like Theranos. Nobody cares that they are holding lemons as long as the price keeps rising. So, yeah, I don’t know what “flip speculators” are, but short sellers are very much beneficial to the market’s well-being and by extension our resource allocation as a society.