Markets · Dossier

Tesla

TSLATSLA.USTesla is the most heavily traded single-name story stock in the US market: a ~$1.2 trillion company that still moves 3-5x the index on delivery reports, earnings, and a single Musk headline. As of early August 2026 it trades near $309, down roughly 30% on the year, with $14-15 billion changing hands daily.

Primary symbol
TSLA
Avg daily range
4.0%
Sources cited
46
As of
2026-07-31

The instrument

Instrument
Tesla, Inc. common stockNASDAQ Global Select Market, ticker TSLA
Price
~$309 as of early August 2026day range $301.97-$315.50 on 2026-08-01; refresh before relying on it
Market cap
~$1.18-1.23T as of early August 2026$1,178B per stockanalysis.com (2026-07-29); ~$1.23T per companiesmarketcap.com
2026 performance
down ~30% YTD52-week range $297.38-$498.83
Average daily volume
~47-48M shares (3-month)other lookback windows show 35-66M; ~$14-15B/day in dollar terms at ~$309 (derived)
Options market
consistently among the heaviest single-stock options flow in the Russell 3000e.g. ~3.0M contracts in one session, late May 2026 — ~300M underlying-share equivalent
Cash session (ET)
09:30-16:00 regularpre-market 04:00-09:30, after-hours 16:00-20:00; overnight 20:00-04:00 exists at some brokers — verify per broker
Futures
CME single-stock futures live since 2026-07-27100-share standard + 10-share micro, financially settled, ~23h/day on Globex; first US SSFs since OneChicago closed in Sep 2020

How it moves

TSLA’s 10-day realized volatility ran 73.8% annualized (1-month: 79.1%) as of 2026-07-23 — roughly a 4.5-5% daily standard deviation, with typical daily ranges of 3-5%; we use 4% as the corridor input. That is 3-5x SPY, whose 15-20% annualized vol works out to about 1% a day, and single-day moves of 5%+ are routine rather than exceptional. Beta estimates vs the S&P 500 cluster at 1.5-1.9, but beta understates the idiosyncratic risk: earnings and headline days regularly land far outside anything index-linked.

Average daily range

4.0%

mid-2026 realized volatility · source

The scheduled events

WhenWhatWhy it matters
First ~2 trading days of each quarter Quarterly delivery report Q2 2026: 480,126 deliveries vs ~406k consensus (+25% YoY), reported 2026-07-02. Numbers drop pre-open, when liquidity is thinnest.
4x/year, after the close Earnings Historical average post-earnings move ±6.6-7.0%; the options-implied straddle averaged ±7.5% and overestimated ~50% of the time over 12 quarters. Q2 2026 (2026-07-22): revenue beat, EPS miss, 1.4% operating margin — stock fell 14.5% the next day.
Any time Musk / corporate-structure headlines SpaceX absorbed xAI in a ~$1.25T all-stock deal (Feb 2026); Tesla invested ~$2B in xAI (Jan 2026); Musk hinted at a Tesla-SpaceX merger on the Q2 2026 call, with analysts putting combination odds at 80-90% by early 2027.
Ongoing through 2026 Robotaxi rollout news Target of ~a dozen US states by end-2026, running slower than promised; robotaxi progress headlines have moved the stock ~+4% intraday.
Precedent: 2025-06-05 Political headline risk −14% (~$152B of market cap, 11th-worst day ever) on the Musk-Trump feud over EV credits and government contracts — then a bounce the next day on hopes the spat would simmer down.

The extremes on record

  • 2020-09-08 — −21.1% — worst single day ever (S&P 500 index snub) (source)
  • 2025-04-09 — +22.7% — largest up-day of the last 3 years (broad tariff-pause rally) (source)
  • 2024-10-24 — +22% — best day in 11 years (Q3 2024 earnings blowout, +$150B market cap) (source)
  • 2025-06-05 — −14% — Musk-Trump feud, ~$152B market cap loss, 11th-worst day ever (source)
  • 2025-03-10 — −15% — worst day in five years at the time (source)
  • 2026-07-23 — −14.5% — day after the Q2 2026 earnings report (EPS miss, 1.4% operating margin) (source)

This instrument inside the corridor

The rulebook draws a corridor on a simulated $100,000 account: a daily floor at −5% and a phase-one target at +10%. Those two published percentages, priced in this instrument’s average day:

Inside the corridor Simulated · computed, not measured
An average day's range
4.0% of $309 ≈ 12.36 points
Worth per full contract (TSLA)
$1,236 per average day
Worth per micro (TSLA.US)
$124 per average day
Daily floor: −5% of the $100,000 sim
$5,000
Contracts until one adverse average day breaches it
4 full contracts ($4,944 of range) — at 5, one ordinary day ends the account
Perfect average days to the +10% target ($10,000), 1 contract
≈ 8.1 days of full-range capture
…at the max size above (4 contracts)
≈ 2.1 days of full-range capture

SIMULATED. Range inputs: 4.0% average daily range (mid-2026 realized volatility), reference price $309. Perfect capture of a full day’s range does not exist; this is geometry, not a promise. Conventions: math assumes a 100-share lot (one CME standard SSF, or 100 shares cash) — $100 per $1 move, $1 per $0.01 tick; the micro column is the 10-share CME micro SSF or 10 shares cash. CFD lot sizes vary by broker (1 share or 100 shares per lot on MT4/MT5 are both common) — check your broker’s contract spec before sizing.

Ways in

ChannelSymbolWhat it actually is
Cash equity TSLA NASDAQ-listed; any US equity broker. Regular 09:30-16:00 ET plus extended sessions 04:00-09:30 and 16:00-20:00.
Listed options TSLA Weeklies; among the deepest single-name options books in the market — ~3.0M contracts in a single session in late May 2026.
CFD TSLA.US Widely offered at retail CFD brokers (Trading212, XTB, OANDA, LiteFinance, IFC Markets); lot conventions and dividend/swap handling vary per broker.
CME single-stock futures (standard) TSLA SSF (100 shares) Live since 2026-07-27, financially settled, ~$31k notional at ~$309; Globex Sunday evening-Friday afternoon, ~23h/day.
CME single-stock futures (micro) TSLA micro SSF (10 shares) Same launch, 10-share size — ~$3.1k notional at ~$309; part of the 55-standard + 22-micro CME launch batch.

Do prop firms let you trade it?

Availability is a rulebook question, not a marketing one: an instrument a firm lists but voids trades on around its scheduled events is only half offered. Check the current terms before relying on a row below — firms change theirs without notice, and we publish ours.

FirmOfferedThe detail that matters
up·me opens at v1.2 The corridor above is our published rule set for it. The instrument list ships with rulebook v1.2, before anything can be bought — the row you can hold us to. Create an account to be in the first cohort when it opens.
FTMO (CFD prop) true Curated US share-CFD list includes TSLA. Equity-CFD leverage is low — listed as ~1:3.3 normal / 1:1 swing in secondary sources; confirm on ftmo.com/symbols before relying on it. Dividends adjusted via swap; news-trading restrictions on Normal accounts (2-minute news window rule) may bar holding TSLA through earnings — verify current wording. (source)
FundedNext (CFD prop) Stellar CFD accounts list forex, commodities, indices, and crypto as primary classes; TSLA share-CFD availability is unconfirmed — check the terminal or fundednext.com/symbols. News and weekend trading are allowed on CFD accounts, more permissive than FTMO. (source)
Futures props (Topstep, Apex, etc.) false Historically CME index/energy/metals/FX futures only — no TSLA. Whether any firm has added CME single-stock futures since the 2026-07-27 launch is not yet confirmed (no permitted-product listing found as of 2026-08-02): not yet — verify per firm. (source)

How traders blow up on it

The same account-ending patterns recur on this instrument often enough to have names. None of them requires being wrong about direction.

  1. Fading the earnings gap, sized for the average. The average post-earnings move is ±6.6-7%, but the tails reach −14.5% (2026-07-23) and +22% (2024-10-24). A fade position sized for a 7% move is destroyed when the tail shows up — and over the last 12 quarters the tail direction has been genuinely unpredictable (the implied straddle overestimated only ~50% of the time). (source)
  2. 0DTE premium bleed. 0DTE hit a record ~61-65% of SPX options volume in May 2026, and in TSLA more than 44% of options volume was 0DTE after just one day of listing. Rapid dealer-hedge unwinds produce erratic intraday price action, and late buyers of same-day options routinely lose the entire premium. (source)
  3. Headline whipsaw runs stops both ways. Single tweets and political headlines have produced −14% days (Musk-Trump, 2025-06-05) and +4% robotaxi pops — then reversed on the follow-up headline (shares bounced 2025-06-06 on hopes the spat would simmer down). Stops placed on either side of the range get run in the same week. (source)
  4. Extended-hours liquidity trap. Market-maker and ECN participation in pre/post sessions is voluntary, so books are thinner, spreads wider, and gaps faster. Earnings land at ~16:05 ET and delivery numbers drop before 09:00 ET — precisely when liquidity is worst. (source)
  5. CFD drawdown-rule breach in one adverse hour. Prop daily-loss limits (~5%) collide with TSLA’s 4-5% average daily range: a full-size TSLA CFD position can breach the cap in a single adverse hour, and earnings gaps can jump past any stop — gap risk with no intraday fill.

On the forecast desk

Questions this dossier suggests, in the form the forecast desk uses: a resolution rule and a named source, published before any probability is. These are drafts — nothing below is open for forecasts, and none has a desk number yet.

Draft — not yet a live question

Will Tesla report Q3 2026 vehicle deliveries of 500,000 or more?

Resolves by the headline total in Tesla’s official Q3 2026 production & deliveries press release (ir.tesla.com), expected ~2026-10-02 based on the Q2 precedent (released 2026-07-02).

Draft — not yet a live question

Will TSLA close at or above $350 on 2026-09-30?

Official NASDAQ closing price (nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/tsla, cross-checked against Yahoo Finance history). Threshold is ~+13% from the ~$309 early-August 2026 reference; adjust the strike at publish time.

Draft — not yet a live question

Will TSLA move 7% or more (up or down) on the first trading day after its Q3 2026 earnings report?

Resolves yes if |close(next session) / close(earnings day) − 1| ≥ 7%, using official NASDAQ closes. Earnings scheduled 2026-10-28 after the close per TipRanks — confirm the date on ir.tesla.com. Benchmark: the historical average earnings move is ±6.6-7%.

Sources

Every number above is drawn from one of the documents below; a figure that cannot be traced to one does not belong on this page. Corrections: hello@upme.com.

  1. NASDAQ — TSLA quote page
  2. Yahoo Finance — TSLA quote (price, avg volume)
  3. StockAnalysis — TSLA market cap
  4. CompaniesMarketCap — Tesla market cap
  5. CNN Markets — TSLA (YTD, 52-week range)
  6. Investing.com Pro — TSLA 3-month average volume
  7. Stock Options Channel — unusual options volume, May 2026
  8. Stock Options Channel — unusual options volume, July 2026
  9. Fidelity — US stock market hours
  10. Schwab — extended-hours trading (sessions, liquidity caveats)
  11. Wall Street Numbers — TSLA realized volatility
  12. Zacks — TSLA beta
  13. Finbox — TSLA 5-year beta
  14. Market Chameleon — TSLA stock moves around earnings
  15. Interactive Brokers — TSLA earnings, historical insights and market expectations
  16. CNBC — Tesla Q2 2026 vehicle deliveries (2026-07-02)
  17. Electrek — Tesla Q2 2026 deliveries 480,126
  18. CNBC — Tesla Q2 2026 earnings report (2026-07-22)
  19. Money365 — Tesla Q2 2026 earnings analysis (−14.5% next day)
  20. Seeking Alpha — SpaceX-xAI merger and Tesla implications
  21. Electrek — Musk hints at Tesla-SpaceX merger on Q2 2026 call
  22. ARK Invest newsletter #496 — robotaxi rollout status
  23. Yahoo Finance — robotaxi expansion moves TSLA intraday
  24. CNBC — Tesla −14% on Musk-Trump feud (2025-06-05)
  25. Forbes — Tesla 11th-worst day ever (2025-06-05)
  26. CNN — Tesla −21.1% worst day ever (2020-09-08)
  27. Market Chameleon — TSLA largest historical up-moves
  28. TradingView/Zacks — Tesla best day in 11 years (2024-10-24)
  29. CNBC — Tesla worst day in five years (2025-03-10)
  30. CME Group — single-stock futures launch press release (2026-02-10)
  31. CNBC — CME launches single-stock futures, 23h/day (2026-07-27)
  32. Wikipedia — OneChicago (US SSFs ended 2020-09-18)
  33. Trading212 — TSLA.US CFD instrument page
  34. XTB — Tesla US stock CFD
  35. Spreadbet.ai — what stocks you can trade on FTMO
  36. FTMO — account specifications FAQ
  37. PropFirmMatch — FTMO leverage (secondary source; confirm on ftmo.com/symbols)
  38. FundedNext — tradable assets on CFD accounts
  39. QuantVPS — FundedNext vs FTMO comparison
  40. PropFirmMatch — Topstep permitted products
  41. Investing.com — Cboe Q2 2026: 0DTE at record 65% of SPX volume
  42. AInvest — 0DTE volatility and market strategies, 2026
  43. Hargreaves Lansdown — Tesla shares bounce after Musk-Trump spat (2025-06-06)
  44. RoboForex — TSLA CFD contract specification (lot-size example)
  45. Tesla Investor Relations — official releases and dates
  46. TipRanks — TSLA earnings calendar (Q3 2026 date; confirm on IR)

Trade it inside published rules

The corridor this dossier prices — the −5% daily floor, the +10% target, and every other limit — is published, versioned and dated in the rulebook, before any account exists to apply it to. When the product launches, this instrument trades inside those rules or it does not trade here.

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