Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the Perpetual Investors' Roundtable

[Vitold]

Confession:

Yesterday I liquidated my TSLA position at open (my broker

*cough* SpaceX *cough*

Heck, possibly even Tesla if you count the government loans that they paid back.

More like SLS, GM and whomever got F35 contract.

 

[replicant]

My gut feeling based on what he has said last year on multiple occasions, including 20/20 interview and reason why his lawyers sought to introduce settlement negotiations into this case.

So you don't *know*, you just have a gut feeling?

Why not say "I think he wants" instead instead of putting words into someone's mouth?

 

[Antares Nebula]

While I'm sure Elon doesn't like the restrictions, he did agree to them and was complying. What Elon's lawyers are fighting here are not the restrictions per se, but the SEC's insane and illegal interpretation that all of Elon's tweets should be sent out for review.

I don't think it's quite like that. The SEC is not saying all tweets. But the problem is it's very hard to define exactly what tweets should be scanned. This was revealed when the judge repeatedly pressed the SEC on their "clear and unambiguous" claim. Judge was like if it's so clear, then tell me what it means, and the SEC really couldn't (see my joke in an earlier post). The use of the additional phrase "that could reasonably be considered to be material" in addition to simply "material" was the problem, and the judge zeroed in on that.

It's going to be very interesting to see what new agreement they craft.

 

[Todd Burch]

What about taxes ?

Unless I'm mistaken, the wash sale rule applies. If you buy back the same securities within 30 days, the proceeds from a sale (or the losses from a sale) are not claimable. But I am an engineer, not an accountant.

 

[Prunesquallor]

We and all our loved ones, friends, family... we're all going to die younger because of their greed and we're all going to be sicker while alive.

How can this possibly be allowed to continue?

On the bright side... faster charger network buildout?

 

[Antares Nebula]

non-rhetorical question: what's in it for Elon / Tesla to agree to *anything* at this point if the SEC can't win their contempt case?

I don't know about that. There will be ramifications as the judge pointed out. We don't want to be greedy here. Likely result of all this is no contempt finding, no fines or penalties, but simply a more clearer and still reasonable agreement. No harm, no foul. A big victory for Elon and a loss for the SEC.

 

[S3XY]

UPDATE - Tesla To Host Autonomy Investor Day | Tesla, Inc.

View attachment 393978

I preferred Good Friday, but they're doing it on the questionable "Earth Day". But I'm here on Earth every day!

And you (and the rest of us) are why earth needs a day.

 

[KarenRei]

But the drop in S/X deliveries really spooked me as I know that's where a good portion of GMs come from currently.

This was true until late last year. Now Model 3 margins are similar to S+X margins. High-end 3s return a lot more profit than low-end S+X.

Q1 '18 M3 margins were ~-20%
Q2 '18 M3 margins were ~0%
Q3 '18 M3 margins were ~20%
Q4 '18 M3 margins were ~20% with a significantly lower ASP.

 

[Vitold]

So you don't *know*, you just have a gut feeling?

Why not say "I think he wants" instead instead of putting words into someone's mouth?

He did not say so recently and I do not know what he think now. However,
right after the settlement it was clear he intended to fight SEC about it and matter was not over. Possibly he only settled because lawyers told him that it was unenforceable and was planning on challenging it once SEC tried to enforce it.

 

[Intl Professor]

It actually was for a project I was working on... using GEANT4 to simulate a lithium-burning ADS (spallation-driven reactor) concept that I had, inspired by the powerful 16MeV beta- decay (7Li -> 8Be -> 2 * 4He); the idea was that if you had a high neutron economy you could get 16 MeV in nonthermal beta power (collimated and decelerated, for very high efficiency) for 20-25 MeV per fast neutron, then multiplied, with a efficient combined cycle thermal power plant regenerating 60% of the spallation/multiplication waste heat and yielding an excess of power.

Really should get back to that project at some point, but it got less interesting after I realized that I'd forgotten to account for the energy lost from the system by the electron antineutrinos - actually the majority of the 16 MeV on average :Þ Also, the more promising isotope (7Li) would have required cold neutrons due to its terrible (n,γ) cross section; using 6Li with fast neutrons for a (n,2nα) reaction was an alternative being examined (but with significantly reduced energy output). Both concepts would have required an extremely effective nonthermal energy recapture process in the spallation target to have a chance, which I was going to have to simulate but never got around to. Probably not possible, but I still should have finished the project, though.

Neutron multiplication was absolutely essential, and I was looking into the possibility of using unrefined beryllium ore as the multiplier, since beryllium is so expensive; I was curious as to how much of a penalty that would pose and whether it'd be worth it. Not that the ore is cheap, mind you.

I thought that was obvious.

 

[humbaba]

OT but relevant I think.

The new 8.5 update for Nav on Autopilot is a HUGE step forward in the system. At least that was my first impression this morning when I tried it for the first time. VERY impressed. This stuff is happening folks...and people are going to want it.

Dan

I'm curious as to specifics -- I'm itchy to try it but haven't had a chance yet. Maybe I'll take a drive this weekend, but next week is when I'll pit it against ~300 miles of interstate, including a stretch where an earlier version lost its mind.

 

[mongo]

I don't think it's quite like that. The SEC is not saying all tweets. But the problem is it's very hard to define exactly what tweets should be scanned. This was revealed when the judge repeatedly pressed the SEC on their "clear and unambiguous" claim. Judge was like if it's so clear, then tell me what it means, and the SEC really couldn't (see my joke in an earlier post). The use of the additional phrase "that could reasonably be considered to be material" in addition to simply "material" was the problem, and the judge zeroed in on that.

It's going to be very interesting to see what new agreement they craft.

Gonna go ahead and disagree with you there, yes they are...

from Bloomberg

Judge Nathan asks about what other Musk tweets might have violated the SEC agreement.

Crumpton says the agency has not made a determination on the other posts but that they're looking at the Feb. 19 tweet as the ``clearest'' example of a violation.

The SEC lawyer says the agency didn't know that Musk was not seeking pre-approval until it asked about the problematic tweet in February.

“It wasn’t until we saw the Feb. 19 tweets that we were confronted with the obvious evidence of non-compliance," Crumpton says.

None of the pre Feb 19th tweets were anywhere close to material (Feb 19th was not either)

And who can forget:

“Its not that we rushed into court on the first opportunity," Crumpton says in her rebuttal. "There have been a number of tweets over time.”

 

[Dan Detweiler]

I'm curious as to specifics -- I'm itchy to try it but haven't had a chance yet. Maybe I'll take a drive this weekend, but next week is when I'll pit it against ~300 miles of interstate, including a stretch where an earlier version lost its mind.

Here is what I posted on our local group's Facebook page.

Good morning Tesla friends! Just got back from a short drive to try out the new 8.5 Nav on Autopilot update. Short response...this seems to be a fully function complete FSD for highway use. Very impressed. That said, some very interesting observations.

First some background. I was on the highway in moderate traffic with light rain (but with the spray from the traffic I am sure the system thought it was much heavier). I had the driver acknowledge turn lane turned off and the turn lane notification set to both wheel vibration and chime. In the future I will probably turn off the chime but each to his/her own. I also set it to automatically default to "no acknowledgement on each trip' so any time I put in a destination it will automatically go to these settings. There are other options.

First off, it seems the system would not engage without first acknowledging the driver presence, aka torque on the wheel. It wouldn't engage for me the first time I tried for this reason and gave me a red prompt to put my hands on the wheel. Very smart I think.

Next, the on ramp performance seems MUCH more confident. My exit is a two lane on ramp and it smoothly accelerated and moved over one lane then did the same to enter the highway flow of traffic. MUCH BETTER!

Next thing I noticed was that it seems to require the same "driver presence" verification before performing any lane changes. In other words, it would signal but would not move over until my hands were on the wheel. Again, I think this is very smart on Tesla's part. Keeps people from abusing the system I think.

Next thing I noticed was that it appears to be more sensitive to poor weather. It went from Nav on Autopilot to regular Autopilot three times during my trip for this reason. Each time it would re-engage when the rain let up or when traffic cleared out and there wasn't as much spray. Lane changes were all smooth and confident. It would wait for an opening and then smoothly accelerate into the new lane. It would then return to the right lane to get out of the passing lane much more readily I think than before.

Overall, on this short trip, I was blown away. Can't wait to try it on dry roads and a longer trip. Sorry for the lenghy post but thought some of you might be interested. Of course, everyone will have different opinions, but I think this is a BIG step forward for the system. Can't wait to see what Hardware v.3 has to offer when the time comes.

Hope that helps.

 

[imherkimer]

Gonna go ahead and disagree with you there, yes they are...

from Bloomberg




None of the pre Feb 19th tweets were anywhere close to material (Feb 19th was not either)

And who can forget:

 

[lascavarian]

Not quite caught up here but for what it is worth:

Just heard it reported that the market in China is closed today and I presume the uptick rule is still in play today.

 

[replicant]

Possibly

 

[Krugerrand]

Have an app that delays any tweets made by Musk during market hours (including pre-market & after-market trading hours) delayed until there is no trading activity in the US. Continue to have all tweets monitored after-the-fact by legal, as is already in place.

If Elon really wants to get a tweet out during market hours, has to go through a review process unless utterly clear it is non-Tesla. If he really wants to get a Tesla tweet out during market hours, than get the Tesla account to tweet it out, and Elon can retweet it. In this scenario, Elon not having direct access to the Tesla account, and those that do, needing legal's approval to post an Elon tweet request for the Tesla account.

Elon can't mess this arrangement up in a 'violation,' sense. He can only mess up in the sense of tweeting on his Tesla account during restricted hours and then 5 minutes later, when he sees there's been no response to his tweet, remembering there is the tweet-delay portion of the day, and what he just tweeted is in limbo until later in the day.

Drop the confusing terms of the existing agreement.



SEC can take away from this that Elon will not tweet material information re Tesla during market hours.

Elon can take away from this that he can tweet as he did before this whole mess, but, during an explicit timeframe... 5pm to 1am Pacific time, his tweets will have a delayed release. Elon won't have to remember when to stay on or off his twitter account. I'm sure he won't like being restricted re immediate feedback, but, he's a busy guy, and it gives him a good chunk of the day without any of the awkward attempts to restrict him in the settlement. He'll just get in the habit of doing his tweets late in the day... which is when they tend to happen already.

Investor can take away, this would be a response to keep an event like the $420 tweet from occurring again without clarification/correction before being traded on. With this, investors would continue to have the benefit of Elon being able to communicate in this way that he feels is critical for Tesla. Yes, he'd be restricted to an 8 hour window each day to tweet without review, but, how much time a day does Elon hit twitter anyway? He's said maybe 15-20 minutes... plus, he'd have the ways to tweet anytime described above.

What are the alternatives?

• Is there some realistic negotiation of the ~contains, or could reasonably contain material information~ phrasing of the existing policy we think is going to happen?
• Do we think there will be any negotiation that will be agreed to that doesn't allow both the SEC and Elon/Tesla to feel like they can say they walked away with what mattered to them? What else can we see happening that would let both parties say that?

I really think it is in investors interest that Tesla/Musk & the SEC do work out an unambiguous solution in this two week window set up by the Judge. Put aside the "who wins over who" tunnel vision, and just pick something realistic and unambiguous that meets the basic interests of all parties.

I disagreed because you’ve forgotten that the $420 tweet didn’t actually cause that much SP change at the time of the tweet. The SP had already significantly climbed because of the Saudi SP stake announcement via the MEDIA.

Your whole premise is therefore off. Investors had just as much time to get clarification/correction on the tweet as they did the media’s news.

Secondarily, just which investors are wanting to help? If ‘us’ then the act of Elon tweeting at will is more advantageous to us than many other forms of communication that ‘we’ don’t actually get access to until after the fact. Like when CR leaks a downgrade of Model 3 to certain publications. Like when institutions get private time to ask Tesla questions, or get tours of the factory and time to ask questions. Like when the media gets a private conference call and we don’t get a transcript until the next day or ever. Like when media get to test drive a car before most potential customers.

If its ‘other’ investors you want to help with your suggestions - I say **** ‘em.

I ‘almost’ find it hard to believe that so many want to tie the hands of the person trying to not only save us but also make our lives better and more fun.

The ‘establishment’ is broken, being run by dishonest scumbags and you want to give those scumbags even more control and power. Um...no.

That $420 tweet was about as fair for ‘all’ investors as it gets. ‘All’ had the exact same time and opportunity to trade or not trade on it. The only thing that makes that situation better for ‘some’ is if trading was halted before revelation for information gathering.

 

[ZsoZso]

I have feeling about how the SEC would like to resolve the ambiguity of the settlement language, i.e. how to decide what counts as material and requires approval:
- it is up to their masters, i.e. the ShortSellers
- so perhaps they should appoint one to review and pre-approve Musk's tweets
- how about Mark B Spiegel ? He seems to be an active and high profile twitter user
- I'm sure the judge would love that suggestion

 

[UncaNed]

Confession:

Yesterday I liquidated my TSLA position at open (my broker doesn't do pre-market trades). In hindsight I think it was a huge mistake and I'm buying it all back this morning. It hurt my cost basis by about $8/share. I was expecting a drop to continue throughout the morning and wasn't sure if there would be negative SEC repurcussions but neither happened.

I am a long (or have been traditionally) and have been pretty much all-in since not long after the IPO. I held when we dropped from $380 to the $250-280 range multiple times, when I could have been "smarter" and played the volatility. But the drop in S/X deliveries really spooked me as I know that's where a good portion of GMs come from currently.

With the easing pressure of the SEC debaucle and some reflection, I realized there are lots of good things to come, so I'm all in again this morning.

The mistake cost me a few thousand bucks in the short term, but I'm still confident that long-term I'll be in really good shape. (Stock would have to drop a lot for me to come out with a loss overall due to TSLA, so I'm luckier than most).

Moral of the story: Don't sell at a bottom. (Smacks forehead aggressively).

I hope you came out ahead! If not, I really hope it's an IRA account and you didn't learn about WASH rules the hard way. Looking back, I've done some incredibly stupid things that I should have known better. I'm staying long on TSLA. SP will continue to roller coaster and will rise eventually.

 

[humbaba]

I hope you came out ahead! If not, I really hope it's an IRA account and you didn't learn about WASH rules the hard way. Looking back, I've done some incredibly stupid things that I should have known better. I'm staying long on TSLA. SP will continue to roller coaster and will rise eventually.

I hope @Todd Burch does as well. I'm pretty new to investing and made a mistake last year that I thought was resolved without impact. Then I got a tax surprise. Fortunately, I'd purchased my M3, which tax break meant all was forgiven (by a rather large margin, I'm very small fry).

I love my M3 -- not only is it the best car currently made, it saved me from accidental tax liability