Edited by Peter Hillerberg1 min readStories are generated from ORTEX data and reviewed by the ORTEX team. How we publish
Options markets are keenly focused on two auto names this week. Tesla reports Q3 results on 21 October. GM follows the day before, on 20 October.
Tesla carries a short interest of just 2.5% of free float. Its ORTEX short score is 31, low by historic standards. Days to cover sits at 0.26, meaning bears could exit fast. Analysts still see 12% upside from current levels. The stock is down 21% year to date.
GM looks different. Its analyst return potential is 24%, the highest of the two. Its ORTEX stock score is 77, against Tesla's 69. Days to cover is 0.82, slightly more constrained.
Real-economy data adds texture ahead of both prints. ORTEX alt data shows German car registrations are running 133% above the same quarter last year for GM, using a dataset that leads GM revenue by 15 days with a strong fit. For Tesla, the same German car dataset is running 269% above prior-year levels, leading revenue by 43 days. Both readings cover all three months of the quarter. These are not forecasts of the print, but they point firmly in one direction.
European battery-electric car registrations hit 32,458 in September 2026, a record for the month and up 40% from September 2025. Diesel registrations fell 18% in the same period to just 1,712 vehicles. That structural shift matters for Tesla's longer-term narrative.
With MSCI World rank date falling today, index rebalance flows add another layer. Fabrinet's overnight drop pushed its MSCI exit probability to 90%, implying $779M of forced selling on 30 November. That kind of mechanical flow can distort options pricing across the broader market.
Short sellers show little appetite to press either auto name ahead of results. The real risk sits in the earnings themselves.
ORTEX Market Intelligence content is generated by AI from a snapshot of ORTEX's proprietary data and reviewed by the ORTEX team. Content is informational only and does not constitute investment advice.
