2017 Investor Roundtable: TSLA Market Action

[Bgarret]

Not a technician, but I enjoy watching the technicals and seeing how they may match up with both fundamentals and events. Working right now on a theory we may pull back to around the 345-350 mark (about the fibbonocci retracement from the run from 305-375), consolidate for a bit, let the RSI drop, then coil for the following upcoming announcements:

1. Australian RFP Stationary Storage winner (late June)
2. Q2 & 1H 2017 Model S & X deliveries (July 4 weekend)
3. Announcement of Model III July delivery event (early July)
4. Model III delivery event and release of configurator (late July)
5. Q2 earnings call and update of Model III production (early August)
6. Announcement of Tesla Semi reveal event (late August)
7. Tesla Semi reveal - (September)
8. Q3 deliveries w/ Model III to estimate ramp (October 3)

If Model III ramp is going even passingly well, the other events will amplify the effect. If the ramp isn't going well, none of the other milestones will make much difference. There are some good technical discussions ongoing on the Technical Analysis page relating to Elliot Wave theory and short & long term indicators - with good, regular contributions by @austinEV, @Jonathan Hewitt, @geneclean55 & our resident published guru @Curt Renz. Keep an eye out for @highend, who just nailed the most recent moves and has had some good success from Poland in the past.

I once viewed Technical analysis with about the same esteem as Ouija boards and voodoo dolls. To not pay attention to technicals and those who REALLY pay attention to technical analysis is an additional risk in investing.

Good luck all....cheers.

 

[StapleGun]

Is this the breakdown people talk about? High volume , large price drop.

The breakdown people talk about? Sure. Just like the shorts have been saying for years "Watch out TSLA is going down to $357!"

 

[Starno]

TSLA is like a SpaceX rocket : launch, land, re-launch.

 

[ggr]

I will look into it, but at the moment, my current broker only allows me to buy and sell actual stock. At the moment, I can't sell the stock and jump to a different broker due to tax reasons. I'll be able to do so maybe a year and a half from now essentially tax free, so I'll switch to a different broker then.

You don't have to sell stock to change brokers. Just open an account at the new broker, and ask them to pull the stock from the old broker. Lots of forms, probably take a week during which it will be hard to trade, but no tax implications at all.

Edit: just saw your later post about using Robinhood. I'd never heard of them. I'm not sure it's legal for them to refuse to let go of the shares. Note that I said to get the new brokerage to pull the stock... many brokerages make it hard to transfer out from their end.

 

[mejojo]

I'm using Robinhood right now for the free transactions. On their site, they say they don't support broker to broker transfers right now, but intend to add it in the future.

If you think this is bonkers, you're not alone, so I do. Luckily, this is all excess money to me. That doesn't mean I want to lose it, but at the moment, I don't see any immediate risk unless the SP somehow falls under 322 and I get hit with a margin call.

Not that I have done this in the last 10 years or more, but you *could* be able to have certificates issued and take them to a new broker.

I recall doing that once a while ago.

 

[jhm]

I skimmed through it for now and will dig in deeper, but:

4% annual dilution?! Over ten years that's nearly 50%! I'll be surprised if there's any... That's a huge difference between our views.

What is the logic for the very important assumption? And please don't say that's been the historical trend.

You lost me there tbh...

Go ahead and post your questions in the BFPT thread. It's best to keep the detailed discussion in one place.

No historical trends are used. You'll need to get deeper into the construction of the model to see how implied discounts work.

 

[Wenche]

I will look into it, but at the moment, my current broker only allows me to buy and sell actual stock. At the moment, I can't sell the stock and jump to a different broker due to tax reasons. I'll be able to do so maybe a year and a half from now essentially tax free, so I'll switch to a different broker then.

You don't have to sell stock to change brokers. Just open an account at the new broker, and ask them to pull the stock from the old broker. Lots of forms, probably take a week during which it will be hard to trade, but no tax implications at all.

Edit: just saw your later post about using Robinhood. I'd never heard of them. I'm not sure it's legal for them to refuse to let go of the shares. Note that I said to get the new brokerage to pull the stock... many brokerages make it hard to transfer out from their end.

I transfered my shares to IB in 2013, asking my broker to transfer them to IB, it took 3 weeks. When I asked IB to transfer money from my norwegian bank, the money was in my IB account in less than 36 hours. Always use your new broker to pick up the shares or funds.

 

[DragonWatch]

@Jayjs20 MikeC said

I think you should be able to transfer your shares from broker to broker and keep the same cost basis. You're not required to sell the shares and transfer cash.

While I am only licenced to drive my MX, MikeC is correct ~ unless you signed something that you forgot to read. I have moved my accounts over the years several times until I finally was able to find an outfit that allowed me to manage my own account and only charged me about $8 per trade On my last major transfer into my primary account the losing company charged me about $450 for some bogus story for which I have made up by 7 or 10 times over.

Do a better job of researching your new company. Also, be aware that laws have changed aimed at protecting you, and in some cases slow you down ~ just saying. The new company should be able to confirm for you any tax or penalties before getting entangled in a messy move. If they cannot, well, then maybe they are not the right team to work with after all

Good luck

 

[winfield100]

Hardly a crash, but just remember, you only lose if you sell when you're down...

well, i'm thinking seriously about selling 11-13 shares, to fund a _very_nice_ vaca on Kaua'i, instead of the 23-28 shares I would have had to sell a mere 6 months ago and visit my kid, and the PV/Battery array there, and maybe write a Seeking Alpha article about the Tesla Energy for "pin money", worth maybe a free dinner, and graciously thank MarkBS and MS for paying for 1/2 of my trip with their stock tips; , snorkeling, luaua's, drinks with parasols, lollygagging about, enjoying life, ahhh, life is good (poppa fox, you near lihue, or hanalei?)(tho i may stay on mainland until after the eclipse)

 

[Tslynk67]

well, i'm thinking seriously about selling 11-13 shares, to fund a _very_nice_ vaca on Kaua'i, instead of the 23-28 shares I would have had to sell a mere 6 months ago

Well you're clearly not yet down, so all's cool! Same for me, TSLA has to drop below 173 before I go underwater.

I few months ago, we decided not to sell in order to buy a holiday house, but to hold 10-15 years. Since then I've come more to the idea of having a core holding, which is in my personal trading account, and another, much smaller 5% position, in my company trading account, which I can play around with a bit. The former is a high-performance retirement plan, the latter an opportunistic shorter term savings account.

 

[Lhan]

TSLA is like a SpaceX rocket : launch, land, re-launch.

 

[EinSV]

Short interest updated: TSLA Short Interest

View attachment 230578

According to this data, there was essentially no net shorting or covering from Feb. 28 to May 31 (short interest decreased by negligible 53K/32M shares or 0.17%), as the SP rose from 249.99 to 341.01. So the 92 point rise over those three months was almost entirely due to buying pressure, not short covering.

Will be interesting to see where we end up by June 15 -- appears as though there has been some covering since May 31 based on @SBenson's data but not sure whether shorts started piling back in on Friday or not.

 

[Bobfitz1]

well, i'm thinking seriously about selling 11-13 shares, to fund a _very_nice_ vaca on Kaua'i, instead of the 23-28 shares I would have had to sell a mere 6 months ago and visit my kid, and the PV/Battery array there, and maybe write a Seeking Alpha article about the Tesla Energy for "pin money", worth maybe a free dinner, and graciously thank MarkBS and MS for paying for 1/2 of my trip with their stock tips; , snorkeling, luaua's, drinks with parasols, lollygagging about, enjoying life, ahhh, life is good (poppa fox, you near lihue, or hanalei?)(tho i may stay on mainland until after the eclipse)

That is a genius plan! I'm overdue for a return visit so I might do the same next year.
Sometime after the Ron Barron video (where he says he expects 4x current SP by 20xx and 3x more by 2024, then 3x again, etc.)
I did some back of napkin calculations and saw that in another year or two, I could sell $30K worth of my stock each year as a retirement income boost until I kick. As the SP goes to 1000 then a few years later to 2000, and out, the number of shares you need to sell gets smaller and smaller. So taking out 30K each year reduces shares held at a slower and slower rate. With 30K extra you can look forward to plenty of Hawaiian and similar vacations every year. At some point during each I won't forget to offer a toast to MarkBS and the other shorts!

 

[holysmoke17]

I'm using Robinhood right now for the free transactions. On their site, they say they don't support broker to broker transfers right now, but intend to add it in the future.

If you think this is bonkers, you're not alone, so I do. Luckily, this is all excess money to me. That doesn't mean I want to lose it, but at the moment, I don't see any immediate risk unless the SP somehow falls under 322 and I get hit with a margin call.

I was in a similar situation back in January. I was using Robinhood but wanted to be able to trade options. I was able to do an ACAT transfer to another brokerage. The fee is still listed on their website so I assume they still support them? If I remember correctly the transfer is initiated from the new brokerage and takes at least a few days to complete. Feel free to message me directly if you have any specific questions.

 

[zdriver]

Will be interesting to see where we end up by June 15 -- appears as though there has been some covering since May 31 based on @SBenson's data but not sure whether shorts started piling back in on Friday or not.

Ihor posted this Friday morning -

Ihor Dusaniwsky‏ @ihors3
$TSLA record short interest topping $11 billion for first time, at $11.4 billion today. Shorts down $5.2 billion in YTD MTM P/L @S3Partners

Followed by after close -

David‏ @DStevems
Replying to @ihors3 @S3Partners
I see a revision coming

Ihor Dusaniwsky‏ @ihors3 13 hours ago
Not on this one, I double checked it!


Seems to imply short interest in dollars remained about the same, even after price decline.
$11.4b/$373 = 30.56m shares
$11.4b/$357 = 31.93m shares
= +1.37m shares

If that's true, they better hope the upward pressure doesn't continue next week, or there will be 1.37m more shares suddenly looking for an exit...

 

[⚡️ELECTROMAN⚡️]

I don't mean to brag, but I got all out at 306 and sat on the sidelines for three weeks, thinking there would be a downturn. Yesterday I let my emotions get the best of me and went all back in at 375. For some reason this makes me laugh... and almost cry at the same time. I think I need a better strategy

 

[EinSV]

Ihor posted this Friday morning -

Ihor Dusaniwsky‏ @ihors3
$TSLA record short interest topping $11 billion for first time, at $11.4 billion today. Shorts down $5.2 billion in YTD MTM P/L @S3Partners

Followed by after close -

David‏ @DStevems
Replying to @ihors3 @S3Partners
I see a revision coming

Ihor Dusaniwsky‏ @ihors3 13 hours ago
Not on this one, I double checked it!


Seems to imply short interest in dollars remained about the same, even after price decline.
$11.4b/$373 = 30.56m shares
$11.4b/$357 = 31.93m shares
= +1.37m shares

If that's true, they better hope the upward pressure doesn't continue next week, or there will be 1.37m more shares suddenly looking for an exit...

That's a very interesting data point.

If the tweet is accurate, the 31.94M shares short would suggest about a 3% increase in shares shorted from May 31 (30.96M) while SP increased another $16 from $341.01 to $357.32, which would imply the last $107 in SP increase ($249.99 to $357.32) was entirely due to buying, with shorting actually increasing a bit. I am not sure I completely trust the accuracy of these tweets since they seem to be in some tension with the daily data posted by @SBenson, but even if the tweet is off by a bit it seems as though most and possibly all of the $107 price increase in the past 3.5 months has been due to buying pressure, not short covering.

 

[kenliles]

basically this was a flash crash.
[ ]
the market put up a good bounce of the flash crash low just now but hard to believe this is "the" bottom with the vix at 11.

'flash crash' metaphorically perhaps - not by the current meaning established by the 2010 inceptive event though--

This drop was produced from a market-wide secular rotation - precipitating from a market squeeze occurring over the last months and highly accelerated recently. The squeeze is between a lagging Equities market trading on growth and momentum (recently turning to and now correcting from- Tech)- squeezed by the massive Bond market in the other direction; While uncertainty in all markets moves higher from very low levels, induced from equally historic catalysts.
--Money flows as we approach historically divergent Bond-Equity correlations of current conditions against future expectations, each coming to grips with same; Equities catching up to Bonds IMO.
(see discussion and data markers in the macro thread)

TSLA effect:
1) This is NOT coming from anything specific to Tesla- It's macro induced pure and simple. The only tentacle specific to Tesla is actually positive (net positive, not as an absolute). Tesla is migrating from a high risk, startup, capital-poor investment to a viable Tech-Hybrid high growth. It's actually part of luvb2b's recent play that many here assumed had failed to manifest- It did not.
It's happening, independent of and front-run by the above conditions prescribed. The market is deciding preemptively to make that transition (induced by it's desperation for any growth sources).
This will give Tesla some cushion along with it's pending growth on the receiving end of segment and equity exit volatility -
(IOW drops less than others due to correlation to mature risk (Apple/Amazon/etc) rather than massive drops of a highly leveraged concern.

2) Despite VERY strong catalysts coming for TSLA in the coming months. It will not be immune to macro effects (clearly demonstrated). As such, my call is this is early indication of pending risk from the above described (and see macro thread). These volatile macro and sector wide drops will be INCREASING in coming months and take on greater urgencies as this squeeze works through. The unknown is whether it will induce something longer in term (Recessive or Bull to Bear secular transition). Regardless of that though- I'm strongly advising core strong TSLA but common only. All Option and Margin investments remitted to discretionary roulette wheel entertainment only.

We are right at a crossroad here on which way our Investment macro world is going to go- and although we are in historically virgin territory, my best call from data and experience says extreme caution but strongly invested - 6 months outlook: Orange Alert: market volatile

If a metaphor would help:
The macro clouds are now deep and dark with intermittent thunder and visible funnel clouds forming.
Stop putting your Life needs outdoors;
Come inside, close the door and windows-
Crack a bottle of Merlot and enjoy Life.
When the first tornado passes, don't f... go outside hoping to play before the next one hits.
Just Crack another-- and relax...

2 pennies for my TMC friends--

 

[zdriver]

If we go off his last datapoint, from ~midday on June 7th, when the price was ~$357:

Ihor Dusaniwsky‏ @ihors3 Jun 7
$TSLA short interest is $10.4 billion. Today's 5% rise cost shorts $534 million in mark to market losses- YTD down $5.1 billion. @S3Partners

=29.13m shares, difference 2.8m shares shorted in 2.5 days. Subtract "assumed" added shorts today, and you get +1.43m shares shorted Wednesday afternoon and Thursday. Not totally unreasonable if 1.37m added short shares happened Friday, considering most of the time when I see people seriously talking about shorting TSLA, the intention is a quick trade - no more than a few days to a week usually.

Perhaps @SBenson can clarify the numbers S3 reports for EOD Friday?

 

[winfield100]

If we go off his last datapoint, from ~midday on June 7th, when the price was ~$357:

Ihor Dusaniwsky‏ @ihors3 Jun 7
$TSLA short interest is $10.4 billion. Today's 5% rise cost shorts $534 million in mark to market losses- YTD down $5.1 billion. @S3Partners

=29.13m shares, difference 2.8m shares shorted in 2.5 days. Subtract "assumed" added shorts today, and you get +1.43m shares shorted Wednesday afternoon and Thursday. Not totally unreasonable if 1.37m added short shares happened Friday, considering most of the time when I see people seriously talking about shorting TSLA, the intention is a quick trade - no more than a few days to a week usually.

Perhaps @SBenson can clarify the numbers S3 reports for EOD Friday?

I expect this short data is both extremely salient, and extremely pricey, and proprietary