As the highly anticipated “Robotaxi Day” on 10/10 draws nearer, the vested interests in Tesla appear to be furiously ramping the stock up via the options market.

The call options at 250 strike that expired today traded 375,539 contracts, which amounted to a whopping $9.4 billion in notional value (see image below).

This is 3x the average traded value seen in recent months. Despite expiring today, the 250 calls were up by 291% at their high this morning. Tesla’s stock price closed up by 3.9% at $250.

I mention this because, when Tesla goes down, the momentum to the downside could be equally vicious and many will get rug-pulled.

And this story below about a retail investor in Vancouver shows how crazy things can get in Tesla’s options market: he went from $88,000 to $415 million by trading Tesla options and then lost everything.

Happy Friday!

Story here: cbc.ca/news/canada/brit…