Traders short selling Tesla’s skyrocketing stock have lost $3.7 billion in 2017, eclipsing the combined losses of traders shorting Apple, Amazon and Netflix.
The Palo Alto, California, company’s stock has ended up being a battlefield between investors wagering CEO Elon Musk will transform the auto market and skeptics who question his aggressive production targets.
Those clashing views of the electric automaker have deepened in recent weeks, with short sellers boosting their exposure even as paper losses mount and Tesla’s stock strikes new highs.
Short bets versus Tesla have grown to $10.1 billion from $8.7 billion at the beginning of April, and throughout that time brief sellers have racked up paper losses of $1.4 billion, as per S3 Partners, a monetary analytics company. Tesla’s stock has climbed 15 percent in the very same duration and has risen 50 percent up until this year.
“You have your momentum people riding this stock up and making a wonderful return, and the essential people keeping their shorts and constructing them and stating ‘this cannot continue’ and waiting for the shoe to drop,” stated Ihor Dusaniwsky, S3 Partners’ head of research.
“It is among your classic yin and yangs on Wall Street.”
Overall this year, short sellers wagering against Tesla have lost $3.7 billion, much more than has been lost shorting any other U.S. stock, as per S3.
The next three most unpleasant stocks for brief sellers this year have been Apple, Amazon and Netflix. Short sellers have lost $1.5 billion betting versus Apple, $1.1 billion betting against Amazon.com and $776 million on Netflix, Dusaniwsky added.
