A stock-market rally fizzled for a rare change, possibly because AAPL’s after-hours leap Tuesday on strong earnings wasn’t quite strong enough to knock the crowd’s socks off. It was impressive, to be sure — a 19-point jump amounting to about 6%. But this evidently wasn’t quite powerful enough to be regarded as freakish. Tesla demonstrated what freakish is all about after the close, ripping shorts’ testicles off with an 84-point thrust to a so-far high of 659.95. This was somewhat above the ambitious, $639 rally target I sent out to subscribers on Jan 14, when the stock was trading more than $100 lower.

The rally is unlikely to have a discernible impact on the the broad averages as the week draws to a close, however, because TSLA, unlike AAPL, is not regarded as a respectable stock that moves higher to discount future earnings, but rather as a rabid badger impelled by one of the most vicious short squeezes in history. TSLA reported ‘strong’ Q4 earnings after the close, and the imbeciles who were short ahead of this news richly deserved what they got. So will the analyst who ostentatiously predicted TSLA will hit $6000 a share, but that will be another story for another day. For what it’s worth, the company would have lost $28 million in Q4 if not for regulatory credits, according to Wolf Street editor Wolf Richter.