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Investing.com — U.S. stock markets opened mixed on Tuesday as Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) chief executive Elon Musk decided to test the strength of demand for his newly-split stock by announcing plans to sell another $5 billion of it.
The rally this year in Tesla stock has been so violent that the new capital raise amounts to only a 1.1% dilution of existing shareholders. Had Musk tried to raise the same amount only two months ago, the dilutive effect would have been twice as strong.
Tesla stock opened down over 3%, but immediately pared losses to be down only 1.3% by 9:38 AM ET (1338 GMT).
The broader market was starting September in breather mode after its best August in three decades. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 79 points, or 0.3%, at 28,350, while the S&P 500 index was holding just above the 3,500 level, unchanged.
The Nasdaq Composite was up 0.5%, helped by a 34% rise in Zoom Video (NASDAQ:ZM) stock after the videoconferencing company reported a blowout quarter for the three months through July.
Zoom had posted a set of earnings after the closing bell on Monday that far exceeded even the most optimistic forecasts for both revenue and profit. The results were taken as a sign that the company is coping with the challenges of scaling up in the face of a huge surge in demand thanks to the shift for working and learning from home.
