There are the dizzying “Teslanaires” who will understandably talk your ear out about how amazingly well they’ve done this year, and then there’s the other, much darker side of the business.
Those bets against Elon Musk.
According to S3 Partners, short sellers lost more on Tesla TSLA,
than any other company. And it is not far away. We are talking billions and billions more.
This “is not only the biggest mark-to-market loss for any stock this year,” S3 director Ihor Dusaniwsky told Bloomberg News, but “the biggest annual mark-to-market loss I’ve ever seen. . “
In total, Tesla bears posted more than $ 38 billion in mark-to-market losses as the stock exploded this year at gains of over 700%. The second biggest money loser for the short shellers? Apple AAPL,
at nearly $ 7 billion, S3 reported.
And Musk is clearly enjoying every minute of it, with taunts like this:
Amid the carnage, there are far fewer Tesla shorts these days, with short-term interest rates dropping to 6% from the float from 20% a year ago. For example, Kynikos Associates founder Jim Chanos revealed earlier this month to Bloomberg that betting against the stock was “painful” and that he was reducing the size of his short position in his hedge fund.
“The shortage is going on all year round. It’s been an oblique straight line down, ”S3’d Dusaniwsky explained to Bloomberg. “The great thing about Tesla, unlike other stocks, is that the vast majority of private shareholders will never be sellers. They love the stock, they love the car, they love Elon Musk, and they are adamant long-term shareholders. “
Tesla shares are on track to end the year with a rebound, hitting 1% early in Thursday’s shortened trading session as the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA,
and S&P 500 SPX,
also obliquely higher and the Nasdaq Composite COMP,
was a bit off.