2017 Investor Roundtable:General Discussion

[techmaven]

So is GS saying I should sell everything now, rebuy at $180, and keep doing that forever? I mean, there is no possible way TSLA ever breaks out as the business becomes more and more valuable as they build their brand and their business.

Well, now we get to see how strong the longs are in their beliefs. Note the length of time on those movements... 6-8 months. That would take us to basically September to November. Do people really expect such a down cycle? It would take another deliveries miss or something else. Last summer it was both the cap raise and the SCTY acquisition. This year, Gigafactory being online with TE as well as start up of Model 3 is very different. And good Q1 results changes things dramatically.

 

[CALGARYARSENAL]

Well, now we get to see how strong the longs are in their beliefs. Note the length of time on those movements... 6-8 months. That would take us to basically September to November. Do people really expect such a down cycle? It would take another deliveries miss or something else. Last summer it was both the cap raise and the SCTY acquisition. This year, Gigafactory being online with TE as well as start up of Model 3 is very different. And good Q1 results changes things dramatically.

Unfortunately, people listen to Goldman. Not so much Kallo. This blows.

 

[drinkerofkoolaid]

Remember - Goldman Sachs and Bank of America have the least credibility when it comes to providing honest research to their "regular clients", and tend to err on the side of being excessively conservative. Last year Goldman Sachs said Tesla is either worth $100, $1000, or something like $3,000, basically covering alll bases.

This downgraded doesn't pass the smell test. As far as I'm concerned, anyone who doesn't think SolarCity is a cash vacuum of that Tesla Energy is a big deal has no business analyzing Tesla's business model.

* If Trump decides to fight the transition to Electric Vehicles, it won't affect what the rest of the world does and will further distance the USA from the rest of the world when it comes to transportation. The rest of the world is rapidly moving towards EVs and Solar. The USA is catching up, but is moving much more slowley in terms of public acceptance.

It would be extremely SAD if American's truly opt for gas guzzlers and noisy trucks over EVs as an ode to "Traditional American values" or in response to the push by the oil and coal industries to convince Americans that the horse and buggy is the way to go. I don't think this will happen.

As I've said before, I find it very concerning that Trump is promising to revive coal country. He is promising false hope to the most disadvantaged people. Coal is a dead industry and its NOT because of Obama! Coal is not cost effective, is horrible for the environment, and the people who work in coal mines are typically taken advantage of by the coal companies. Trump might as well promise to revive the lead industry.

 

[Drax7]

Unfortunately, people listen to Goldman. Not so much Kallo. This blows.

You can be certain that hedge funds that are clients of Goldman got the call on Friday.
This Goldman analyst has to be discredited once and for all.

 

[EinSV]

You can be certain that hedge funds that are clients of Goldman got the call on Friday.
This Goldman analyst has to be discredited once and for all.

Goldman's David Tamberrino is rated Zero stars on Tipranks (didn't know that was possible!)

Ranked #4,325 out of 4,501 Analysts

Average return -- minus 37.9%

https://www.tipranks.com/analysts/david-tamberrino

In other words, a great contrarian indicator.

 

[AlMc]

Goldman's David Tamberrino is rated Zero stars on Tipranks (didn't know that was possible!)

Ranked #4,325 out of 4,501 Analysts

Average return -- minus 37.9%

https://www.tipranks.com/analysts/david-tamberrino

In other words, a great contrarian indicator.

Yes, but the 'bots' don't care. GS has many herd mentality followers. ,Speculation> Wonder if EM got wind of this 'downgrade' on Friday and put out the teaser about something happening with SpaceX?

The games that are played on WS just amaze me, and they should not

 

[Sudre]

Capture8577

• Sudre
• Feb 27, 2017

updown

I drew some orange circles! I could also type some text by them.

I am not saying that it's all clear and TSLA is going straight to 300 today. I'm just saying I personally don't put a lot of stock (pun intended) in pretty circles on charts. This point could easily be a circle with some reason why the stock went up in a year from now. Look at what GS is actually saying. Read it. Think about it. They say IMO everything for the future is great except we think management at Tesla is lying about the short term and Model 3 is behind.

 

[jhm]

So is GS saying I should sell everything now, rebuy at $180, and keep doing that forever? I mean, there is no possible way TSLA ever breaks out as the business becomes more and more valuable as they build their brand and their business.

Three times in row, this is like the setup for a joke. Ready for the punch line.

 

[EinSV]

Yes, but the 'bots' don't care. GS has many herd mentality followers. ,Speculation> Wonder if EM got wind of this 'downgrade' on Friday and put out the teaser about something happening with SpaceX?

The games that are played on WS just amaze me, and they should not

In the very short term, sure. But by definition since he has a negative 37.9% average return that means the market has tended to move sharply in the opposite direction from his recommendations, despite whatever temporary influence the Goldman name may have on the SP.

 

[CALGARYARSENAL]

Goldman is certainly testing the conviction of longs. Can they keep riding this roller coaster? That is the question. I don't have an answer. Disappointing to say the least.

 

[electracity]

Not sure how it is relevant to investors. It's part of Tesla's modus operandi. While I disagree with it from a customers perspective, there seems to be no backlash from investors over it. AP1 was at least 6 months late and it became a huge win for the company. As long as they manage to get it running in the same time frame it won't hurt Tesla in the long run. Will only hurt those who bought the car in that time frame.

You are missing the implications that Tesla doesn't appear to be competitive in developing full self drive.

 

[schonelucht]

You are missing the implications that Tesla doesn't appear to be competitive in developing full self drive.

That would be a worry indeed. But again, the competition is still playing catch-up. I still think that if Tesla gets AP2 on a significantly better level then AP2 in a time frame of 6 months it will all be fine. But you have a point that it will start to hurt very quickly if it takes Tesla in 2018 before they get there.

 

[racer26]

You are missing the implications that Tesla doesn't appear to be competitive in developing full self drive.

Doesn't appear to be competitive? Are you serious?

Regardless of the state of Tesla's current offering - which I test drove on Friday in a HW2 car, and I didn't think was that bad, Tesla is the only company offering a product like this to the general public.

Driving is a complex task, and getting to the stage where it is reliable for autonomous operation is going to require billions of miles of training data captured over a diverse set of driving situations. The *ONLY* way to get that data in a reasonable length of time is to do what Tesla has done, and put the hardware in every car.

No competitor has done the same.

My feelings on it? Yes, its not great on local roads - but they literally just launched the feature days ago, and it is a 'beta' feature. It requires the driver to be fully aware and ready to react. I certainly was able to see when it was doing something wrong and correct it long before any risk to me or the vehicle. Drivers of Teslas should be doing this - the system learns fastest from driver-takeover events - as those get flagged as problem spots.

 

[Krugerrand]

You should try to find something more intelligent than that to say.

I tried, but nothing else fit your insistence that people are being forced to work at Tesla. It's as if you believe they are being pulled out of their beds in the middle of the night only to have a gun pointed at their heads to sign a job contract there. It's a bizarre idea.

 

[neroden]

If only something existed where someone with a stock option could hedge their risk. Like.. some kind of market.

Indeed, it doesn't. You'd be surprised how many things are *unmarketable*, including non-vested options which might be worthless.

 

[esk8mw]

If only something existed where someone with a stock option could hedge their risk. Like.. some kind of market.

Actually, the vast majority of companies have an anti-hedging policy in place, meaning you can't short the company stock, buy puts or trade in other market-based derivatives (e.g., call options).

That doesn't mean you couldn't find some other appropriate hedge in the market (e.g., shorting the Nasdaq or something), but employees most likely cannot short TSLA or use TSLA options to hedge.

 

[FredTMC]

[QUOTE="FredTMC, post: 1988706, member: 11555"Last I checked its still a free country. Work wherever you like.

Don't get me wrong. I am not debating if Tesla can do it. Or even if what Tesla is doing is fair. I am just debating if the mail will fulfill it's purpose (ie, convince average workers on the floor that they are better of not trying to unionize)[/QUOTE]

Gotcha. Yep. That's the question.

 

[electracity]

The *ONLY* way to get that data in a reasonable length of time is to do what Tesla has done, and put the hardware in every car.

There is little evidence that the mobileye/Tesla approach to low bandwidth mapping works sufficiently to enable full self drive. There is also no evidence that Tesla has sufficient IP and knowledge in this area after breaking up with Mobileye.

Google and probably other have "rolled up their sleeves" and taken the adult approach to this hard problem. Musk and Uber have looked for shortcuts.

Installing inexpensive hardware *BEFORE* a computer science problem has been solved by expensive hardware and sensors is extremely risky.

 

[MitchJi]

Well, now we get to see how strong the longs are in their beliefs. Note the length of time on those movements... 6-8 months. That would take us to basically September to November. Do people really expect such a down cycle? It would take another deliveries miss or something else. Last summer it was both the cap raise and the SCTY acquisition. This year, Gigafactory being online with TE as well as start up of Model 3 is very different. And good Q1 results changes things dramatically.

That's assuming that the launch goes smoothly! If it's delayed by 2-3 months I now believe (after seeing today's price action) that a M3 delay could take us down to the low 200's if TE kicks in. Otherwise we could see the 180's again. I'm not saying that I believe it's going to happen. But I would not be surprised if it does. At this point I believe that Tesla is going to do their part well. But I'm less confident in the 3k suppliers.

I'll try to document this later, but on the call I believe that Elon's comments on the production mean that Tesla is designing the production line for a capacity of at least 10k cars per week. If they can get there smoothly then we won't see any huge dips before the resulting stratospheric rise when they hit those numbers.

We might see a big beat on the Q1 production numbers due to the "thousands of employees" hired to reduce overtime.

 

[30seconds]

Problematic AP2 roll out will probably affect demand (or at least margins). Autopilot is front and center on marketing materials and it seems clear that AP1 parity is substantially harder than Tesla anticipated.

I think this is an S+X problem for 2017 as initial demand for the 3 will be driven by it being an affordable and advanced EV alone.

Still, the company's timelines to Level 4&5 seem more questionable now