Elon Musk Sells About $5 Billion in Tesla Shares, US Futures Positive

*OspreyFX would like to state that traders should research extensively before following any information given hereby. Any assumptions made in this article are provided solely for entertainment purposes and not for traders to guide or alter their positions. Please read our Terms & Conditions and Risk Disclosure for more information.

Key Takeaways

• Elon Musk sells around $5 billion in Tesla stock over the past three days
• US stock futures hover higher early Thursday after a losing trading session

Elon Musk Sells About $5 Billion of Tesla Stock

Elon Musk has started offloading some of his heavy stake in his car company Tesla. That became clear after a number of financial filings were released by the Securities and Exchange Commission. An example of the series of documents shows Mr. Musk is selling thousands of his Tesla shares. In total, the chief executive has sold more than 4.5 million shares of Tesla stock worth about $4,997 billion.

Still, if he is to keep his promise made on Twitter, he would sell at least 12.5 million more shares worth roughly $15 billion.

Over the weekend, Mr. Musk released a Twitter poll that asked whether he should offload 10% of his Tesla holdings. He then said he would abide by the results. In turn, more than 3.5 million votes were cast. About 59% of them said “Yes”.

Musk Held Over 170 million Shares on Monday

Starting the week, Elon Musk held more than 170 million shares. In other words, he needs to sell about 17 million shares in order to keep his word.

While the news whacked the price of Tesla early in the week, Wednesday’s trading session helped the stock recover. In more detail, over the first two days of this week, Tesla lost more than 15% of its worth. On Wednesday, however, the EV maker’s stock finished higher by over 4.3% as traders recouped some of the losses.

That said, Tesla could experience increased volatility during the regular session today.

Where Are Stocks Headed?

Meanwhile, US futures point to the upside in pre-market trading before the opening bell in New York on Thursday. More specifically, Dow Jones futures were up about 0.1%, while S&P500 futures gained 0.2%. In addition, Nasdaq futures jumped 0.3%.

Stocks on Wall Street finished Wednesday’s session in the red with the Nasdaq Composite leading the losses. The tech-heavy index lost 1.6% on the day, followed by a 0.8% loss for the S&P500. Additionally, the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.6%.

Against this backdrop, the financial markets were rattled by the latest inflation report for the US economy. More precisely, the consumer price index for October showed prices rose 6.2% on an annualized basis. In other words, the jump marked a 30-year high as that pace of price growth was last seen in 1990.

What’s the Latest News on Bitcoin?

It’s interesting to note that immediately after the report was released, the price of bitcoin shot up by nearly $3,000.

On the one hand, that helped bitcoin make an all-time high of $69,000, surpassing its previous record set on Tuesday. On the other hand, the upside swing showed traders and investors consider the orange coin to be protected against inflation.

Furthermore, the Ethereum coin also pushed to an all-time high. The price of Ether gained about 7% to reach a fresh record of $4,862 per token.

Today, bitcoin is trading near $65,500 per coin, while ether is gravitating towards $4,700 apiece. The broad cryptocurrency market has been on a tear lately as it has topped $3 trillion in value.