TSLA Gap Up History: Data on Continuation vs Fade

Tesla: The Gap King of the S&P

Tesla gaps up more than 1% on roughly 22% of all trading days — the highest frequency of any mega-cap. Gap ups greater than 3% occur on about 8% of days, versus roughly 2% for the average S&P component. The combination of high retail activity, overnight news sensitivity, and Musk's tweets make Tesla a perennial gap candidate.

This creates both opportunity and risk. Traders who understand the statistical behavior of Tesla gaps have historically extracted an edge; those who chase every gap without a framework have historically been chopped.

Base Rates: The Intraday Fade Is Real on Small Gaps

For TSLA gap ups between 1% and 3%, the open-to-close intraday return has historically averaged roughly -0.3% with a win rate of only 48%. In other words, fading small Tesla gaps on the same day has been a slight edge — though not a large one, and definitely not robust enough to trade without tight stops.

For large gaps (3%+), the picture flips. Open-to-close on 3%+ Tesla gap days has historically averaged roughly +0.6% with a win rate around 54%. Larger gaps are more often driven by actual news and tend to hold better.

• 1-3% gap up: open-to-close ~-0.3%, win rate ~48%
• 3%+ gap up: open-to-close ~+0.6%, win rate ~54%
• 5-day return after 1%+ gap up: ~+1.5% average, ~55% win rate
• 10-day return after 1%+ gap up: ~+2.6% average, ~56% win rate

Volume Is the Key Filter

Filtering Tesla gaps by volume dramatically changes the base rates. On days when Tesla gaps up 1%+ with opening-hour volume more than 150% of the 20-day average, the 5-day forward return climbs to roughly +3.4% with a win rate near 62%. Low-volume gap ups (below average volume) have averaged closer to flat forward returns.

This matches the broader market wisdom: volume is validation. Gap ups that print heavy volume have institutional participation behind them; gap ups that print light volume are usually retail or overnight drift, and they fade at much higher rates.

The Overnight Gap vs the Opening Drive

One of the most interesting Tesla gap patterns is the divergence between overnight and opening-drive behavior. Tesla often gaps up on overnight news, then either accelerates or reverses in the first 30 minutes of the regular session. Historically, if Tesla is up at 10:00am ET relative to the open, the probability of closing up on the day is roughly 68%. If it's down at 10:00am relative to the open, the probability drops to around 39%.

That's a significant divergence for a simple filter. Traders waiting for the first 30 minutes of action before taking a position have historically captured a meaningful edge on gap days.

Putting It Together

A systematic approach for Tesla gap days might look like: wait until 10:00am ET, check the direction versus the open, then use Chart Library's pattern search to compare the current 30-minute chart against historical analogs. Take positions only when both the directional filter and the pattern analogs agree.

Here's the API call for pulling the intraday intelligence snapshot:

curl -H "X-API-Key: cl_..." \ "https://chartlibrary.io/api/v1/intelligence?symbol=TSLA&timeframe=rth"

Related reading: our post on NVDA gap up follow-through covers the contrast between Tesla's gap behavior and a less retail-dominated name.