Earnings Catalyst Puts Tesla and GM in the Options Spotlight

A dense earnings week is shaping up as the main driver of options positioning. Tesla reports Q3 results on 21 October and General Motors drops its numbers today. Both stocks sit at the heart of the market's focus.

Tesla carries a short interest of just 2.5% of free float. Its cost to borrow is an ultra-low 0.35%. That tells its own story: short sellers are not pressing bets into the print. The signal from ORTEX alt data is bullish. German car registrations, which lead Tesla revenue by 43 days with a strong fit, are running 269% above the same quarter last year across all three months. Options traders leaning call-side into the report have a data backdrop to point at.

GM is in a similar position. SI % of free float sits at 2.4%. German car registrations, a leading indicator for GM revenue with a 15-day lag and strong fit, are running 133% above year-ago levels. Analysts see 24% upside on consensus. The stock is up just 3% year to date, leaving room for a positive reaction.

Away from earnings, MicroVision is flashing the most unusual retail-attention signal in the market right now. Wikipedia page views for the lidar maker hit 10.0 standard deviations above their own history on 19 October, according to ORTEX alt data. The stock carries a short interest of 22.9% of free float and a cost to borrow of 96.5%. Availability of shares to borrow sits at just 0.04% of SI. Any sustained attention spike risks a sharp squeeze in a name where borrow is essentially gone.

European battery-electric car registrations reached a record 32,458 vehicles in September 2026, beating the prior peak of 30,539. That backdrop supports the bull case heading into EV-linked prints this week.