Bank of America billed last week as “the world economy’s most important week of the year,” but the stock market didn’t exactly reflect that. In fact, investors bracing for the worst came out of last week’s potentially damaging flow of news with nary a scratch as the S&P 500 SPX, -0.21% finished the stretch mostly flat.
For those betting against Tesla TSLA, +3.53% , however, any reprieve could be short-lived, at least if what the boss had to say on Sunday is any indication. Here’s our call of the day, ripped straight from Elon Musk’s Twitter feed:
While Musk is reportedly busy on the factory floor “almost 24/7” trying to help fix bottlenecks and get Model 3 production up to his targeted 5,000 a week, he’s not about to let the opportunity to rattle some cages go by the wayside, so there he is, dropping another bold prediction for the stock.
Musk’s done his many times before, to be sure. In 2012, he warned of a “tsunami of hurt” that was coming for Tesla shorts, and, over the next year the stock surged almost 500%. Last month, he predicted the “short burn of the century” after he bought a big chunk of Tesla shares for himself.
Anyway, what makes his latest prediction rather unique is that he put a timeline on when he believes the stock will rally. To the day. The number just so happens to coincide with when the quarter comes to a close and the company reports those highly anticipated delivery and production numbers.
Does Musk know something the haters don’t? Maybe, but that isn’t stopping Tesla from being one of the world’s most-shorted stocks. Unfortunately for the shorts, shares are up almost 30% in the past month and are inching higher again premarket. It could all change quickly, of course, but for now, Musk is basically Olivier Rioux in this clip, and the short-sellers are the ones trying to contain him.
As for the rest of the market, there’s lots of red out there this morning.
The market
The Dow DJIA, -0.41% is down more than 200 points early, while the S&P SPX, -0.21% and Nasdaq COMP, +0.01% are also struggling. Gold GCU8, +0.00% and crude CLU8, -0.64% are both a bit higher. European markets SXXP, -0.83% are falling hard, led by weakness in Germany’s DAX DAX, -1.36% Asia ADOW, -1.31% largely closed with losses, though Chinese markets were shut for a holiday.
Cryptos are pretty much down across the board, with bitcoin BTCUSD, -0.22% and Ethereum ETHUSD, -0.25% both struggling to turn positive overnight.
The chart
If stocks can hold up through the rest of the summer, this will become the longest running bull market in the modern era. The Visual Capitalist blog puts it all in perspective with this chart, which shows every bull market since World War II.
“By looking at duration, total rate of return, and annualized rate of return, it really gives a sense of how these bull markets compare,” blogger Jeff Desjardin writes.
The quote
“I live in a border state. I appreciate the need to enforce and protect our international boundaries, but this zero-tolerance policy is cruel. It is immoral. And it breaks my heart” — Laura Bush, in a piece she wrote for the Washington Post.
