TU-TESL

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(photo source: official website) according to foreign media reports, Tesla's short sellers have lost $3 billion since the end of 2018. On January 3, short sellers lost $500 million a day after Tesla announced that it delivered more than investors expected in the fourth quarter and pushed its share price to a record high. Data from S3 partners, a financial analysis firm, shows that in the first two trading days of 2020 alone, Tesla's short positions lost about $900 million; in the past year, Tesla's short positions lost $2.9 billion in mark to market. On January 3, Tesla announced that it delivered 112000 vehicles in the fourth quarter, surpassing expectations of 104960. In 2019, the company's total delivery volume is close to 367500 vehicles, exceeding its expected bottom line of 360000-400000 vehicles. On the back of the positive news, Tesla shares rose 3.7% to $446.21, bringing their gains in the past three months to about 90%. Tesla's share price has risen in the past quarter, thanks to the unexpected profits it made in Q3 and signs of capacity improvement at its new plant in China. Tesla said on January 3 that its Shanghai plant has more than 3000 vehicles a week. Ihor dusaniwsky, managing director of predictive analytics at S3 partners, said Tesla's overall short selling share was about $11.9 billion. Although some traders have cut losses in the past few months, the January 3 rally does not seem to have significantly forced more short sellers to give up shorting Tesla. S3 partners said about 21% of Tesla's shares are short at the moment, down from 28% in October last year. Some skeptics believe that Tesla's market value will be overtaken by old car companies such as GM, and others, while the progress made by Elon Musk, Tesla's CEO, has broken the outside suspicion. On January 3, Garrett Nelson, an analyst with CFRA, wrote in a report to customers: "we believe that the sustainability of performance and gross margin in the first half of 2020 is still in doubt; we would like to point out that Tesla has started to reduce prices in China and faces competition from a large number of other electric vehicle products in the United States, and at least 25 new models will appear this year." Nelson raised the target price of Tesla's shares by $80 to $400 and maintained its "hold" rating. In June last year, concerns about demand for the model 3 sedan drove the company's share price to its lowest level since 2016, but Tesla's share price surged 150% after that. The rise in share prices has raised Tesla's market value to $80 billion, compared with $52 billion for general motors and $37 billion for Ford.