Seeking Alpha and Tesla: Fair or FUD?

[SteveG3]

Perfect example of negative bias inherent in the SA team, they take a mostly positive review of the Model 3, pick out some negatives, and create a "Breaking News" item about it.

Tesla fan has a few issues with Model 3 - Tesla Motors (NASDAQ:TSLA) | Seeking Alpha

Wow, Seeking Alpha didn't just pick out some negatives from a mostly positive review... to my view they fabricated a big negative by editing the reviewer's words to reverse their intended meaning. They did this with the very first point of their "summary," creating this,

"Some of the exterior panels weren't as perfectly aligned as I'd like them to be ... More than acceptable in my opinion ... I did have to slam the driver’s door a little harder than I would like to in order for it to fully close though."

from this,

"Some of the exterior panels weren’t as perfectly aligned as I’d like them to be. However, while there were some slight imperfections, overall it was more than acceptable in my opinion.

I probably wouldn’t have even brought it up if this wasn’t a topic that’s been so widely discussed. I did have to slam the driver’s door a little harder than I would like to in order for it to fully close though...."

I'm not going to bother checking all their other points for fact or fact reversal via editing.

 

[ValueAnalyst]

Wow, Seeking Alpha didn't just pick out some negatives from a mostly positive review... to my view they fabricated a big negative by editing the reviewer's words to reverse their intended meaning. They did this with the very first point of their "summary," creating this,

"Some of the exterior panels weren't as perfectly aligned as I'd like them to be ... More than acceptable in my opinion ... I did have to slam the driver’s door a little harder than I would like to in order for it to fully close though."

from this,

"Some of the exterior panels weren’t as perfectly aligned as I’d like them to be. However, while there were some slight imperfections, overall it was more than acceptable in my opinion.

I probably wouldn’t have even brought it up if this wasn’t a topic that’s been so widely discussed. I did have to slam the driver’s door a little harder than I would like to in order for it to fully close though...."

I'm not going to bother checking all their other points for fact or fact reversal via editing.

Could it be that the article was changed after the SA editor/poster quoted the original wording? Just playing devil's advocate...

 

[SteveG3]

Could it be that the article was changed after the SA editor/poster quoted the original wording? Just playing devil's advocate...

VA, I'll give you Bitcoin to dollars odds that that is not what happened.

 

[ValueAnalyst]

VA, I'll give you Bitcoin to dollars odds that that is not what happened.

If that's not what happened, it should be pretty straightforward for the author to dispute it.

FYI: I have zero insight into the News side of SA.

 

[BozieBeMe2]

I have agreed before that the TSLA discussion boards on the platform are bad, but it's important to note that Seeking Alpha is multiple orders larger than just TSLA boards and the few bad apples that continuously bash TSLA and give the platform a bad rep among TSLA investors. There are 13,000+ contributors that write daily on thousands of stocks and millions of unique monthly visitors visit the site. We already discussed all this...

In other words, as I have always said, this group is forming a biased opinion based on one small piece of a very large platform, and regurgitating this opinion among the group, despite facts... that reminds me of another group.... @MitchJi is basically the @mmd of TSLA bulls. He's just extra salty today, because he's looking to blame others for today's losses since his crystal ball doesn't seem to be working... but I'm done replying to this thread, because my original attempt was to share what I see from the inside, and now it's turned into a waste of time because of the said person.

I agree with you wholeheartedly, I no longer read SA because of the based FUD slant that their Tesla articles provide. This is a shame because SA was a daily read for me in order to judge the market.
It would behove SA to pay attention to how many readers are now painting them with the same negativity.

 

[Marconi]

Perfect example of negative bias inherent in the SA team, they take a mostly positive review of the Model 3, pick out some negatives, and create a "Breaking News" item about it.

Tesla fan has a few issues with Model 3 - Tesla Motors (NASDAQ:TSLA) | Seeking Alpha

I have been a commentator at Seeking Alpha since 2004 and have found SA to be a place to naysayers of anything related to Tesla. It is if they gather themselves under one roof to vent their frustrations at the accomplishments of EM. At every juncture, 98% of these crack heads that supposedly are the best financial analyst the world can bring forth, all act and seem to be denigrators and doomsters of the future of Tesla et.al. It appears to me that it must come from envy or some sort of racial bias against Elon Musk. It is sad because mostly everybody that reads SA is mostly well educated, high-income bracket, market investors. And to get these type of murky assessments of how EM is creating super companies that bring ahead of time products to market, it seems to me very inappropriate even in the borderline of illegal practices by unfair persecution and bias comments aimed to seed doubts on prospectors and possible investors in his companies stock. Maybe is time Corporate takes a step towards gathering evidence and presenting the possibility that the enemies are trying to get to the gates. IMO, it is rampant, constant and disgusting the way SA comments hit the waves of would-be investors. Not good for business.

 

[JRP3]

It appears to me that it must come from envy or some sort of racial bias against Elon Musk.

I'm sure there are many reasons for some people to dislike Musk and Tesla. Many people simply fear change, especially radical change, others have a vested interest in established industries which Tesla threatens. These people are reacting out of fear and no rational argument is going to sway them.

 

[Electroman]

These poor money losing angry desperate bear authors, don't really bother me. In fact they are source of good humor. And @Marconi - I don't think any half-serious retail investor takes these Tesla articles seriously. Almost all of them know this is all FUD and they completely tune out. Institutional investors have their own sources and they don't care what comes in SA.

What bugs me is the high bias of SA editors against Tesla. It shows in their selective coverage and news items.

There are a few Tesla supporters who make a point to comment and refute many of the bear points. I see PVGO sometimes fighting a lonely battle. And JRP3 too

 

[TMSE]

These poor money losing angry desperate bear authors, don't really bother me. In fact they are source of good humor. And @Marconi - I don't think any half-serious retail investor takes these Tesla articles seriously. Almost all of them know this is all FUD and they completely tune out. Institutional investors have their own sources and they don't care what comes in SA.

What bugs me is the high bias of SA editors against Tesla. It shows in their selective coverage and news items.

There are a few Tesla supporters who make a point to comment and refute many of the bear points. I see PVGO sometimes fighting a lonely battle. And JRP3 too

Eli Hoffman, the CEO of SA, is a shameless charlatan aiding and abetting this charade.

 

[Marconi]

What bugs me is the high bias of SA editors against Tesla. It shows in their selective coverage and news items.

One of the major factors to stop writing at SA was exactly what you said. Well, hope one day they will feel the heat and pay hard for their shortsightedness

 

[SteveG3]

Eli Hoffman, the CEO of SA, is a shameless charlatan aiding and abetting this charade.

hmm... earlier today, I was actually starting to wonder who founded SA, given that,

"thestreet.com" was founded by good ol' Jim,

and, "Business Insider" was founded by this guy, permanently banned from the securities industry,

Henry Blodget - Wikipedia

So, the key tool Jim talks about is making a false narrative and then getting people in the media to repeat it.

It sure looks like Jim and Henry realized that they could make money going on the other side of that little game and creating a media company to serve up as a media vehicle for their friends still on the trading side to push out their false narratives. That's when I started wondering if SA was created for this same seeming purpose. Then, I see your post tonight, lols. Of course, I don't know enough about Hoffman first hand to have a strong opinion on this... are there things publicly known about Hoffman on the level of Cramer outing himself on spreading false stories, and Blodget being banned for life for his securities law violations?

 

[JRP3]

I've had a few conversations with Eli, he generally seemed reasonable, even though at one point he caved into John Petersen's complaints and temporarily banned me, while at the same time admitting he had no issue with the content of my posts.
Here is Eli's view of what Seeking Alpha is, or should be

 

[GoTslaGo]

VP of content:

SA Editor George Moriarty's Articles | Seeking Alpha

Quote:

George Moriarty is Executive Editor and VP Content at Seeking Alpha. He joined the company in January 2012 as Managing Editor of Opinion & Analysis and works closely with CEO Eli Hoffmann and other company leaders on content and publishing initiatives for the Seeking Alpha contributor community. George has worked as a financial journalist and editor since 1997, most recently as Editor-in-Chief at Merrill Lynch Wealth Management Online Platforms. Prior to Merrill, he was Executive Editor at TheStreet.com.

End quote.

Merrill has been consistently bearish on Tesla. You know about TheStreet.

 

[Electroman]

While the editors at SA do not miss a chance to highlight any perceived negative news - such the one about SC usage, or picking out a few critical observations from a generally positive review - its been a week now and I don't see any news item on the Consumer Reports customer satisfaction report.

So much for providing a fair and balanced platform

 

[JRP3]

To balance this thread a bit here is a really bad bullish article on SA. Though the fact that SA editors chose such a poor article to represent the bull side doesn't say much about their "fairness".
Tesla Pickup Truck, A $100B Market Space - Tesla Motors (NASDAQ:TSLA) | Seeking Alpha
The author decided that the Semi Pickup drawing showed the actual Tesla pickup sitting in the bed of the Semi Pickup, which is ridiculous on a number of levels, the main one being the pickup had no aerodynamic improvements and basically looked just like an F150. The article is not worth reading, I just linked it because it exists.

 

[ValueAnalyst]

To balance this thread a bit here is a really bad bullish article on SA. Though the fact that SA editors chose such a poor article to represent the bull side doesn't say much about their "fairness".

The bolded sentence inherently assumes that the number of bull vs. bear articles submitted are the same/similar.

Could you please provide support for this inherent assumption? Thanks.

 

[Electroman]

JRP3 made no reference to the quantity, but to the atrocious quality of the bull articles. What I inferred was, the relatively few bull articles are all so silly, it seems it actually bolsters the bear case

 

[JRP3]

The bolded sentence inherently assumes that the number of bull vs. bear articles submitted are the same/similar.

Could you please provide support for this inherent assumption? Thanks.

You made an assumption about an assumption which I did not make. I assumed nothing about quantity, I just know much better writers have had articles rejected, which no doubt dampened their interest in submitting further articles. SA created at least some of the inequality in bull/bear articles by their own actions.

 

[TMSE]

You made an assumption about an assumption which I did not make. I assumed nothing about quantity, I just know much better writers have had articles rejected, which no doubt dampened their interest in submitting further articles. SA created at least some of the inequality in bull/bear articles by their own actions.

I have said it before, and say it again. SA management are a bunch of pond scum doing the bidding for Oil/ICE mafia. Corrupt bastards.

 

[Electroman]

Good article today about delivery numbers from Value Analyst.

With the same numbers you would see, 'the sky is falling' drama from the shorts