Tesla Inc. shares roared to a record high on the eve of their inclusion in the S&P 500, punctuating a 2020 rally that has propelled the electric-car maker into the ranks of the most-valuable U.S. companies.
Big swings in shares of the Fremont, Calif., company overshadowed a blah day for the broader market that saw the Dow industrials drop 124 points, or 0.4%, to 30179. Tesla trading was heavy throughout Friday before rising to a fever pitch in the last moments of the market day, when index funds that track the S&P began preparing to purchase billions of dollars worth of Tesla stock to match their holdings with the broad index.
Tesla shares soared in the morning before slumping in late-afternoon trading and trading in and out of the red throughout the last hour. They finished up $39.10, or 6% to $695, a closing record—some $40 a share above their last trade in the moments before the market-closing auction at Nasdaq. Traders had said the firm’s addition to the broad index raised the possibility of an epic squeeze as index funds scrambled to buy shares.
Investors who followed the up and down through the last chunk of the trading day suffered “a little bit of whiplash there,” said Mike Bailey, a director of research at FBB Capital
Submitted December 18, 2020 at 08:11PM by freddyjohnson https://ift.tt/34rB7oU
