*By Kavitha Shastry* Tesla was a notable standout Tuesday in a market that was flooded largely in red. The electric automaker saw shares rise nearly 13 percent after Citron Research, the firm run by short-seller Andrew Left, turned [positive on the stock](https://citronresearch.com/citron-reverses-opinion-on-tesla/), calling its story "too compelling to ignore." It was a major reversal from the company, which nearly five years ago said Tesla ($TSLA) would be drowned out by rivals by the time it got its product on the market. Now, though, Left says it's "destroying the competition." He pointed to sales of the mass-market Model 3 and even the higher-end Model S, which are both well ahead of similar offerings from brands like Lexus and BMW. And while the company has certainly struggled with meeting demands over the last several years, it delivered more than 80,000 vehicles in its most recent quarter, more than double what it did the three months before. Citron's report came out shortly after Tesla said it would post third quarter earnings after the bell on Wednesday, about a week earlier than many expected and, as Left pointed out, the earliest release by the company in two years. It's an important report from Tesla ー CEO Elon Musk has promised the company, which has been burning through cash as it ramped up production, would be cash flow positive in the second half of the year. But despite the positive sales numbers, there are still a lot of questions. "Coming into the third quarter, it's just a huge wildcard, because we just haven't seen this kind of scale from Tesla yet," Daniel Sparks, contributing senior tech analyst at Motley Fool, said in an interview with Cheddar Tuesday. "You have a super capital-intensive business that's highly vertically-integrated, so it makes predicting Tesla's profitability very hard. It means that when Tesla brings a new product to market, costs are going to be extremely high." But Left thinks the accelerated timeline is a good sign. "Does anybody think that Tesla decided to move up its earnings release date because of bad news?" he wrote in his report. Left hasn't changed his mind on one thing, though ー he's still suing Tesla and Musk over the now-infamous "[funding secured](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1026872652290379776)" tweet, claiming the CEO's statements manipulated the price of the company's stock. Musk was also sued by the SEC, charges that were officially settled last week and resulted in him agreeing to step down as chairman of the company for three years. Even with Tuesday's gains, though, Tesla shares are still about 25 percent lower than where they were before Musk's tweet. For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/what-to-watch-for-teslas-next-earnings-report).
