Short-Term TSLA Price Movements - 2016

[drinkerofkoolaid]

Yahoo must be desperate for cash. The Country Caller, a newspaper that appears to be based out of India and barely qualifies as news continue to end up in the Yahoo feed? I thought Yahoo charged a lot to get continually syndicated?

I suggest you read the Authors section the website. The website's Author's bios are very funny. One of their main writers is genuinely a stand up comic by trade.

Authors - The Country Caller

 

[neroden]

Normally I'd think that's a bad idea, because LEAPS lose time value a lot faster during the latter portion of their lives.

But for J18 Tesla I think it's worse, either really bold or pretty foolish.

Note that the original comment in this train of thought was suggesting a *synthetic long* -- sell a put and buy a call at the same strike price and same expiration date. This is *guaranteed* to execute and turn into stock; your exposure is the same as owning the stock. (There is a bizarre corner case where the stock is *exactly* at the strike price on the day of execution, where you could end up owning twice as much stock as you intended, but it's highly unlikely.) If you're a US investor, the downside of a synthetic long is that you lose long-term capital gains treatment, and you have to watch out for the section 1260 tax treatment. In an IRA that doesn't matter, however.

 

[neroden]

For those holding onto SCTY shares, does it even really matter if SCTY tracks TSLA share price much since what you'll be getting is solely based on the price of TSLA when the deal is done (.11%)?

Depends entirely on how you evaluate the risk of the merger NOT happening.

 

[neroden]

Your calculations omit an important factor. There have been lenthy discussions on here regarding the amount of electricity used to refine a gallon of gas. As I recall many articles state that it takes more kW to refine a gallon than to power an EV an equivalent number of miles. (Google electricity used to refine a gallon of gas) You will also see EM quoted on this subject.

This is an urban myth. In fact, it takes more ENERGY to refine a gallon of gas than to power an EV for the equivalent number of miles, but that energy comes from burning crude oil; it isn't in the form of electricity.

 

[neroden]

So, I keep holding and will vote 'no'.

Be aware that a no vote will be seen as a "vote of no confidence" in Elon Musk and will probably cause both SCTY and TSLA stock to crash in the short term.

 

[neroden]

Here's my conspiracy theory:

SolarEdge is pretty much finished if merger happens. Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs were underwriters for their IPO and GS was pumping it up to $50 at one point. I have a feeling that SEDG underwriters and their friends with benefits would 'prefer' TSLA SCTY merger to fail.

Well, it's interesting to note that GS has been selling out of TSLA and SCTY even while other institutions have been buying in.

 

[TrendTrader007]

Well I got TSLA Jan18 calls with strike prices of 250, 290 and 300 all of which I bought about 4 months ago
I try to realize long term capital gains on my LEAPS
I have held FB Jan 17 calls with strike prices of $120 $95 $130 $150 $155 since July 2015 when FB was at $88 or so . I have tripled my money in about a year and plan to realize long term capital gains when I sell them by the end of year
TSLA should go up in the next several quarters so I made a long term bet
No guarantees of course
Currently I am down by 60% on all my TSLA calls but if TSLA takes off as I expect it to in the next several months then I will make a killing
I am willing to lose all my money
I go for broke and that is just my style
Does not work for most investors
Works for me

 

[neroden]

BYD is also a company that has big ICEV investments

But they don't care about them. The founder and mastermind has made very clear that he only owns the ICE investments because he bought an existing car company to get the license to make cars in China (it's hard to get that license). He is actually *willing* to destroy the existing ICE business, unlike most automakers.

I do think they're absolutely focused on the (enormous) Chinese market and won't really try to go overseas in a big way while they're still working on that. But after looking at BYD and the other Chinese companies, I revised my estimates of future Tesla sales in China downward -- a lot.

 

[anticitizen13.7]

Except that MobilEye's system is camera based and Tesla is switching to a radar based approach. No doubt, the camera is still absolutely necessary it's just that you might assume that MobilEye's camera based system may not hold up as the best approach over the long haul. If all that's required is a camera (and not the hardware/software processing that MobilEye currently provides) then there may be multiple suppliers to provide that.

Granted, I have no idea how easy or difficult it would be for them to adapt to technology that may or may not prove to be better. This is all just speculation on my part.

Mobileye doesn't really provide a complete "system". Their focus is visual processing, which alone isn't enough for true self driving. This is why they have an alliance with Delphi, a large auto components supplier.

If you like MBLY use todays gift from "Trippin" Trip Chowdhry to add, Tesla Autopilot Radar Focus Spells Mobileye Bad News|Trip Chowdhry

I still don't understand how "Trippin" Chowdhry still has a job doing any kind of analyst work. Is it actually his job to publish this nonsense, or are his bosses simply too stupid to fire his ass?

Agree, we don't know what this will look like in 10 years but the biggest problem I see with anything "light" or "visible spectrum" based is that it won't work in fog, heavy rain, and may become limited in other low visibility situations.

In the same way that living things have different senses to navigate the world, a machine or robot should likewise have different senses to account for different situations. Radar and Camera will not displace each other anytime soon. They are both necessary and complimentary technologies for a complete self driving solution.

 

[Intl Professor]

BYD. Their primary market is China and they've only offered commercial vehicles (not cars) outside China... but that's no reason to count them out. They're a true EV player. China's a huge market.

Also, Buffet invested in it. So did I on news of his investment, but our new wealth manager sold it. No regrets but he also sold Nvidia which went up three times within the next 18 months!

 

[techmaven]

If you like MBLY use todays gift from "Trippin" Trip Chowdhry to add, Tesla Autopilot Radar Focus Spells Mobileye Bad News|Trip Chowdhry

It seems to be very hard to find real, concrete information on the state of the development towards autonomous driving. Lots of hoopla. Lots of disagreement in the research literature and very little knowledge being shared about the systems themselves.

We should be at a point where we have some reasonable view of the various approaches that people had taken and whether or not they will lead to a development arc that leads to some sort of autonomous driving. But, I guess which should be expected, we have more divergence that not.

One of the biggest issues is whether or not one can just to Level 4 directly. Or what these levels really even mean:
A Critique of NHTSA and SAE "Levels" of self-driving

For example, it is possible for Google to deliver a SAE and NHTSA Level 4 bus that is not SAE Level 5 and does fully unmanned operation, but only along pre-selected bus routes. It would be Level 4, but not the Level 4 everyone is probably thinking what Level 4 means.

Geohot is working on Level 3, and he dismisses Level 4... as something that he knows nothing about, primarily because what does Level 4 even really mean. Certainly from TMC Connect 16, there is apparently significant divergence between those that believe in going straight to Level 4 and whatever that means and those that believe in releasing the intermediate steps into general operation.

The issue is, we might be at some sort of Level 3 for a very, very long time. And the only way to prove that a vehicle is actually Level 4 is to drive it around a *lot* at Level 3. And a lot means a whole crap ton of a lot here. And each implementation might need to achieve that level of driving around to be considered Level 4.

In any case, clearly Tesla's approach is not radar centric... the latest code allows for the radar to be the primary sensor in some cases. Before, it could not be... it was supplemental to the camera. And the camera currently used in Tesla's AutoPilot is not a full color camera. I think Tesla's approach of increment improvements in the field is going to allow them to achieve more than other approaches.

To bring that back to the short term thread, I would guess that the new AP sensor suite is still a bit away. I would guess it ships in the S/X before the 3 and it might make sense that there would be two levels of AP sensor suites. One that is the current level of hardware, and another with 4 radars, potentially 9 or cameras for a lot more money. So it makes sense to maximize the AP abilities within the current hardware setup. In the Mercedes DrivePilot system, for example, all that extra hardware doesn't really provide that much in terms of actual driving results.

I do look at the various other efforts that have LIDAR as part of the solution, that are claiming Level 4 in 2019/2020 and wonder where they are coming from... there must be something in the their roadmaps that make them think they can achieve it, but I don't see it.

As for MBLY, Geohot wasn't very charitable towards them. And I suspect that if MobilEye could get Tesla on the right development arc, Tesla wouldn't have had to drop them.

 

[neroden]

Ok, I'll bite. I see the supposed* advantage for Solar City ("free/low" cost storefronts), but what's in it for the car side of the transaction?

It's not for the cars, it's for the Powerwalls and Powerpacks. The synergy from Tesla's POV is for Tesla Energy.

 

[neroden]

I don't understand when narrative changed so much, so that retail storage became important? It was supposed to be about utility level storage.

Musk actually said that the merger was particularly important for utility-level storage, citing the Kauai'i project.

 

[racer26]

BYD. Their primary market is China and they've only offered commercial vehicles (not cars) outside China... but that's no reason to count them out. They're a true EV player. China's a huge market.

I had previously spoken to BYD as you noticed.

BYD is also a company that has big ICEV investments and does not compete in most markets that Tesla is in. The majority of their product line (everything except e5, e6, Qin EV300 and K9 buses) are ICEVs or PHEVs, and BYD mostly just sells in Asia (with a few notable exceptions). BYD is also only using LiFePO4 chemistry in these cars, unlike TSLA's more advanced batteries built in partnership with Panasonic. I'll give you that BYD *is* probably the most credible threat to Tesla if they decide to spread their wings, being the only automaker currently building >2 BEV models, but I still don't really see them as a threat. They're probably doing the best of any ICEV automaker on building no-compromises EVs though.

But they don't care about them. The founder and mastermind has made very clear that he only owns the ICE investments because he bought an existing car company to get the license to make cars in China (it's hard to get that license). He is actually *willing* to destroy the existing ICE business, unlike most automakers.

I do think they're absolutely focused on the (enormous) Chinese market and won't really try to go overseas in a big way while they're still working on that. But after looking at BYD and the other Chinese companies, I revised my estimates of future Tesla sales in China downward -- a lot.

Perhaps he is willing to nuke the ICEV part of their business. Do you have a good source citation on that? We all know that killing their ICEV businesses is the only way that the incumbents will be able to compete with Tesla, but none of them (except perhaps BYD) seem to be willing to do that.

Either way, you've cherrypicked the easier argument there. The real argument is that BYD lacks the more advanced battery tech and is using older LiFePO4 cells. Which is fine, and will work, but they will forever play second fiddle to Tesla in the performance department. There's definitely a market for high-range EVs that don't break the bank, and nobody really needs a 2.5s 0-60.

BYD is the closest thing to a competitor in the EV arena Tesla has, and it appears that will continue to be the case for quite some time. We know though, that Tesla is not interested in competing with others in the EV market, their whole goal is to thoroughly thrash the ICEV market.

 

[neroden]

okay for what it is worth here is my take:
I simply will never buy short term options again UNLESS i am 99% sure of success.

That's why I sell options instead. Time decay is on my side. I made money on two sales of SCTY puts even though SCTY went down, because time decay was on my side.

 

[neroden]

Is it really necessary to see the color if position of each of the red, yellow and green light in the cluster is standardized?

Yes. Because it isn't actually 100% standardized.

http://gizmodo.com/the-story-behind-syracuses-upside-down-traffic-light-1545301615

There are also horizontal traffic lights with the red, yellow, and green in parallel. There's supposed to be a standard order for them too but some are reversed.

 

[neroden]

Train crossings can use different configurations. And sometimes you have one light to the right to give special meaning for those turning. Sometimes that light can be orange (cautious turn) or red (no turn). At least that's what I have encountered.

Oh, there are also blinking-yellow lights (simply mean "caution") and blinking-red lights (which are equivalent to a stop sign). You HAVE to be able to distinguish those two, and they're generally a single light (no position indicator).

 

[CALGARYARSENAL]

Chanos presenting at Delivering Alpha Tuesday. My prediction is that he has covered his shorts.

He is a weasel and is likely long now.

 

[SBenson]

As we are celebrating Autopilot progress, it's worth nothing that the competition is getting further behind on their own:

It Sounds Like Apple's Self-Driving Car Hit a Big Roadblock

Google's Self-Driving Car Project Is Losing Out to Rivals

 

[NOLA_Mike]

$SCTY up 7% - starting to narrow the gap