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

[Nocturnal]

Slowly ticking up since the December drop. I have to imagine that unless Q4 numbers are really bad then we will see another sizable uptick. No?

We do have TOU as an option but it doesn't make sense for many to actually use it unless you have solar or a Powerwall. (You get a ~3 cent discount for off-peak, mid peak stays the same, and peak goes up ~5 cents.)

And getting a second meter installed to just charge your EV would be cost prohibitive for most people. (Driving 12k miles a year and charging 100% off peak at home would only save you ~$100/year.)

For sure I think many of the residential TOU options I've seen are poorly designed. The entire point of TOU is to deter heavy use during peak times...if most customers are worse off switching to that rate unless they make substantial changes to their usage then the whole thing is pointless.

The process of approving new rates between Utilities and the local PUCs is a mess. It's not an intelligent process. Drives me bonkers.

 

[kyzhk]

Friends don't let friends buy puts

Yes, instead of buy you sell them.

Sold one contract 02/15 $380 strike put for $42.11/share and for lol.

The way I think about it: "worst case" I get assigned on 02/16 to buy 100 shares $tsla at net $337.89/share which I don't mind, while leaving ~10% leeway for $TSLA to go up after Q4 ER i.e. I can capture at most $42.11 rise in tsla for profit.

Now that I capped 10% upside to TSLA for this trade, I am sure it will skyrocket way beyond 10% from today by 02/15. Thank me later.

 

[pz1975]

Friends don't let friends buy puts

Unless it’s in PCG.

 

[ggr]

Lets move all talk about profits and the ER out of here too, so that all discussion about things that can significantly move the stock price get banned, and all that is left is meaningless crap...

Oh, come on! It was an argument about the exact requirements for adding Tesla to the S&P. and then devolved into discussion about the meaning of "shall"!

 

[uselesslogin]

Does anyone know the median date to announce Q4 earning report date? Seriously.

February 15th. However, starting with the 2014 report and excluding the year of the Solar City acquisition it is February 10th.

 

[Cherry Wine]

February 15th. However, starting with the 2014 report and excluding the year of the Solar City acquisition it is February 10th.

I looked into this and posted the below a few days back. Past performance is not a predictor, etc.

Looking back at earnings call dates -- both announcements and the calls themselves -- if folks want to try and use the data for positioning purposes.

Some tidbits from the data:

• Both the mean and median date of announcement for all quarters going back to Q1 2016 is the 19th day following quarter end.
• Positive quarters within this period weren't exclusively announced early - Q3 '16 was announced on the 7th day following quarter end, well before the mean/median date of announcement, whereas Q3 '18 was announced on the 22nd day following quarter end.
• Q4 calls going back to Q4 '13 are announced later on average in the following quarter, with average day of following quarter as: 2013: 29th, 2014: 29th, 2015: 25th, 2016: 33rd, 2017: 33rd, for a mean of 30 and a median of 29.

2016:

Q1: Announced 4/20 (LOL) / Held 5/4 (EPS: -2.13)
Q2: Announced 7/19 / Held 8/3 (EPS: -2.09)
Q3: Announced 10/7 / Held 10/26 (EPS: 0.14)
Q4: Announced 2/2 / Held 2/22 (EPS: -0.60)

2017:

Q1: Announced 4/13 / Held 5/3 (EPS: -2.04)
Q2: Announced 7/11 / Held 8/2 (EPS: -2.04)
Q3: Announced 10/19 / Held 11/1 (EPS: -3.70)
Q4: Announced 2/2 / Held 2/7 (EPS: -4.05)


2018:

Q1: Announced 4/19 / Held 5/2 (EPS: -4.19)
Q2: Announced 7/19 / Held 8/1 (EPS: -4.22)
Q3: Announced 10/22 / Held 10/24 (EPS: 1.75)

 

[Bullish_Bear]

February 15th. However, starting with the 2014 report and excluding the year of the Solar City acquisition it is February 10th.

Thanks. I deleted my original question post because I misunderstood the materials I quoted.
So the median date to announce Q4 ER date is 1/29, and the median date to report earning is 2/15, based on the information in this thread.
Hopefully I am not misunderstanding anything this time

 

[Pezpunk]

 

[Fact Checking]

Oh, come on! It was an argument about the exact requirements for adding Tesla to the S&P. and then devolved into discussion about the meaning of "shall"!

It is still a relevant question of whether there's a realistic chance for the S&P committee to deviate from its own rules.

I.e. whether TSLA will be included for sure, and on what date inclusion is expected to be announced.

This question is IMHO very much on topic for price action: $TWTR rose from $28 levels to above $47 after it had an ER that enabled it to be included in the S&P 500 Index last June - a +65% rise in the stock price.

We might be just 4 months away from $TSLA inclusion in the S&P 500 index.

Is it still too soon to talk about it and the pricing of relevant option chains, such as the June expiry? Is it too soon to make sure we all understand the possible outcomes?

Mod: fine with this. --ggr

 

[ReflexFunds]

Bloomberg NEF 2019 EV market forecasts:
Global sales +40% to 2.6 million (following 70% growth in 2018).
China 1.5 million. Europe 0.5 million. North America 0.425 million. Japan & South Korea 0.1 million.

This looks conservative to me, particularly in Europe & North America.

 

[aubreymcfato]

This is interesting:
The world’s largest roofing company just launched a new solar startup
Not like a Tesla solar roof, but if they get a product like that it will be a major competitor.

 

[KarenRei]

I looked into this and posted the below a few days back. Past performance is not a predictor, etc.

The big question is whether one should expect any arbitrary Q4 to be late (e.g. time required for year-end filings), or just interpret that as an artifact of how few datapoints we have. Raises the question of whether I should roll options (on a SP high) to March rather than 15 Feb. And if so, whether I should wait for the announcement or roll over sooner for less theta decay.

My thoughts are I should probably set a cutoff... say, if there's no announcement by the Friday the 25th or Monday the 29th, then I should roll over. Maybe not even to March, maybe just 22 Feb .. heck, maybe I should just go ahead and do that. It'll probably cost me a contract or two to buy the extra theta if I do that, though (plus fees)...

 

[Electroman]

Holy sugar:

• I can certainly see manufacturers using the legal threshold of eye damage... That is how extremely dangerous laser products can be made, sold and profited from today.
• I can totally see taxi companies "tuning" their LIDAR to make their semi-autonomous fleets more profitable in rain and snow. Just like trucking companies are "tuning" their ICE diesel trucks today, to have higher engine power and less urea fluid maintenance costs... with 10x emissions of carcinogens. It's even completely legal in some U.S. states.
  
• And since LIDAR is infrared, humans won't even notice any LIDAR hazard or eventual malfunctioning LIDARs ...

If LIDAR goes mainstream, I strongly recommend IR foils on your cars even in Nordic countries.

Sorry, this seems more like fear mongering to me like how EV FUDsters do - the electric field of the big battery underneath will slowly fry your brains, our Grid will collapse, batteries are a great fire hazard and our homes will burn to ground when we are sleeping at night, regen braking will create more loss of control in slippery roads, yada yada. I saw similar fear mongering for fuel cells too, like how the whole thing will explode and take the whole neighborhood down when you have a fender bender. Technically high pressure gas in a container has a high risk of explosion, but the product will not be allowed to come to market unless that is addressed. And guess what, that has been adequately addressed. No doubt fuel cells are fools cells, but not because of danger of explosion.

So, if and when LIDAR is approved and goes mainstream, obviously it will be done in a way that is safe for humans and property.

 

[ReflexFunds]

Bloomberg NEF 2019 EV market forecasts:
Global sales +40% to 2.6 million (following 70% growth in 2018).
China 1.5 million. Europe 0.5 million. North America 0.425 million. Japan & South Korea 0.1 million.

This looks conservative to me, particularly in Europe & North America.

BloombergNEF 2019 forecasts, 2018 results and initial 2018 predictions.

• EV sales: 2.6 million. 2018: 1.9 million (initial 2018 forecast was 1.5 million)
• Energy storage: >10GWh. 2018: 8GWh (forecast was >4GWh)
• Solar capacity additions: 125GW to 141GW. 2018: 109GW (forecast was >107GW)
• Wind capacity: >70Gw. 2018: 53.5GW (forecast was >59GW).

In 2018 EV final results were c.27% ahead of BNEF's Jan-18 predictions and Energy storage beat by 100%.

 

[TradingInvest]

Sorry, this seems more like fear mongering to me like how EV FUDsters do - the electric field of the big battery underneath will slowly fry your brains, our Grid will collapse, batteries are a great fire hazard and our homes will burn to ground when we are sleeping at night, regen braking will create more loss of control in slippery roads, yada yada. I saw similar fear mongering for fuel cells too, like how the whole thing will explode and take the whole neighborhood down when you have a fender bender. Technically high pressure gas in a container has a high risk of explosion, but the product will not be allowed to come to market unless that is addressed, and guess what that has been adequately addressed. No doubt fuel cells are fools cells, but not because of danger of explosion.

So, if and when LIDAR is approved and goes mainstream, obviously it will be done in a way that is safe for humans and property.

Tell us what level of laser is safe for human to stare into. Use physics and common sense to judge what is fear mongering, what is real risk.

 

[MarcusMaximus]

Sorry, this seems more like fear mongering to me like how EV FUDsters do - the electric field of the big battery underneath will slowly fry your brains, our Grid will collapse, batteries are a great fire hazard and our homes will burn to ground when we are sleeping at night, regen braking will create more loss of control in slippery roads, yada yada. I saw similar fear mongering for fuel cells too, like how the whole thing will explode and take the whole neighborhood down when you have a fender bender. Technically high pressure gas in a container has a high risk of explosion, but the product will not be allowed to come to market unless that is addressed, and guess what that has been adequately addressed. No doubt fuel cells are fools cells, but not because of danger of explosion.

So, if and when LIDAR is approved and goes mainstream, obviously it will be done in a way that is safe for humans and property.

Of course, LIDAR is already being used, and we already see it being powerful enough to damage a camera sensor. This is already a problem *right now*.

 

[printf42]

Sorry, this seems more like fear mongering to me like how EV FUDsters do - the electric field of the big battery underneath will slowly fry your brains, our Grid will collapse, batteries are a great fire hazard and our homes will burn to ground when we are sleeping at night, regen braking will create more loss of control in slippery roads, yada yada. I saw similar fear mongering for fuel cells too, like how the whole thing will explode and take the whole neighborhood down when you have a fender bender. Technically high pressure gas in a container has a high risk of explosion, but the product will not be allowed to come to market unless that is addressed, and guess what that has been adequately addressed. No doubt fuel cells are fools cells, but not because of danger of explosion.

So, if and when LIDAR is approved and goes mainstream, obviously it will be done in a way that is safe for humans and property.

LIDARs are always on and keep rotating, these things should be tested/certified with a different threshold comparing to say laser pointers or construction instruments which would only be turned on for small fraction of time and towards very controlled direction.
Anyone familiar with how the existing ones are tested?

 

[Cherry Wine]

The big question is whether one should expect any arbitrary Q4 to be late (e.g. time required for year-end filings), or just interpret that as an artifact of how few datapoints we have. Raises the question of whether I should roll options (on a SP high) to March rather than 15 Feb. And if so, whether I should wait for the announcement or roll over sooner for less theta decay.

My thoughts are I should probably set a cutoff... say, if there's no announcement by the Friday the 25th or Monday the 29th, then I should roll over. Maybe not even to March, maybe just 22 Feb .. heck, maybe I should just go ahead and do that. It'll probably cost me a contract or two to buy the extra theta if I do that, though (plus fees)...

It's a tough call. A lot of unknowns. The difficulties of trying to time events we don't have control over can be frustrating.

 

[Nocturnal]

Of course, LIDAR is already being used, and we already see it being powerful enough to damage a camera sensor. This is already a problem *right now*.

LIDAR has been used for decades by police for speed monitoring. How has this not come up before? In that use case they are shooting it right at your windshield (and presumably face).

 

[Zhelko Dimic]

...regen braking will create more loss of control in slippery roads, ...

Actually, this one is something to be aware off.
I disabled regen brakes couple of times because it was scaring me how I felt loss of traction when it would kick in. Couple of extreme situations only in over 2 years...