Short-Term TSLA Price Movements - 2016

[geneclean55]

Agreeing on the obvious.

If shares are available for shorting, all at once on Monday, I believe there will be likelihood for the larger drop than rise due to gradual covering, but ultimately, nothing is certain.

I seem to remember reading back through this thread that it might be frowned upon by SEC, if shares are recalled all at once. Perhaps its the same case when making shares available to short.
Also, it has been speculated on this thread that a major institution may have been selling during the share recall and that this tempered any price increase. Perhaps the same institution will buy when many shares become available for shorting.

 

[dha]

This is really fantastic:

MKBHD is a majorly influential YouTuber (3.7 million subscribers) and just picked up his P100D today! This video will get millions of views. Name one other automaker whose customers will provide this level of free advertising!

 

[Hogfighter]

I'm of the opinion that the major institutions didn't bother recalling the majority of their shares because they are fairly certain of the outcome already.

This is why we only saw a modest rise in price, rather than a full-blown squeeze. Whatever the reason, if we only saw slight upward pressure this past week, we should see negligible downward pressure on Monday.

 

[Bgarret]

I'll try. Just had a kid so he is occupying some of my time.

You got it all wrong...you'll have so MUCH MORE time....1am, 2am, 3am.....best way to make all happy, take the midnight feeding, let mama get some well-deserved sleep, drop some wisdom and start introducing your progeny to their future.

Congrats.

 

[MitchJi]

The question many will ask then is why not wait to bail them out at $10, or $1 then?

I get that and the SMP1 and the SMP2. But what about my November calls?! Just kidding but that's the most common reason for the pages and pages of complaints on this thread.

I'll try. Just had a kid so he is occupying some of my time.

Congratulations! Raising children is a very difficult job, and it's a marathon, not a sprint.

I hope you will find the following story useful:

Emperor Akbar once asked his very dear minister, Birbal, "Tell me, how easy is it to bring up a child?" Birbal replied, "Your Majesty, to bring up a child is the most difficult job in this world. Because children are innocent: they don't know what is right or what is wrong, and they don't have any knowledge of the things of the world. It is very hard to convince them to do anything. So I would say that it is the most difficult work in the world to take care of the children." But Emperor Akbar replied, "I don't believe that; I don't agree with you. Because no doubt children don't know anything, but whatever they ask for, you give them, and that's all. They will do whatever you want them to do. The only thing you have to do is always fulfill their desires."

Birbal replied, "Well, you cannot always fulfill their desires, because they don't know what they are asking for." Emperor Akbar said, "No, I don't agree with that. You should prove this, that it is the most difficult work in the world." Birbal said, "Okay. Now I will become your child and you become my parent. Then let's see how easy it is for you to take care of me, to fulfill my desires."

So Birbal pretended he was the son of Emperor Akbar and he started asking for things. First, he said, "Father, I want an elephant." Now you know that Emperor Akbar was an emperor, he was the king of everything, so it was not difficult for him to get an elephant. So an elephant was brought. And then Birbal said, "Now I want a small glass." A glass was brought. Then Birbal said, "Okay, father, I want to put this elephant in this glass."

Now Emperor Akbar said, "How is that possible? The glass is too small and the elephant is very big! How is it possible?" He tried to convince him that it was not possible. But Birbal said, "No, I want to do that! Otherwise I will weep."

So Emperor Akbar tried in many other ways to convince him that it was not possible. But Birbal wouldn't accept that and he started weeping. Finally Emperor Akbar said, "Now I agree with you that it is a very difficult thing to take care of a child. But what is the solution for this?" Birbal replied that the parents should have a lot of patience. Because if they have patience and if they keep trying to convince the children, if they keep trying to raise them in a good way, in the end they will become successful in taking care of their children.

So that is why I will say that no doubt it is the most difficult job in the world to take care of the children, but unless we have patience there is no way out of this problem. I agree that children are stubborn and that they have the will power. But if you have patience, you can win their hearts. If you keep trying, patiently, eventually you will become successful, and then they will do whatever you want them to do.

 

[madodel]

This is really fantastic:

MKBHD is a majorly influential YouTuber (3.7 million subscribers) and just picked up his P100D today! This video will get millions of views. Name one other automaker whose customers will provide this level of free advertising!

Already has over 70,000 views. Can't wait to see his videos on v8.0. Too bad it's not an X though.

 

[Seesaw]

And lastly, the vote. IMO, I believe the merger will go through. A failed vote would signal falling investor confidence in*i Musk and decline in credibility. So much of Tesla's valuation is based on the Musk factor, personally I know I would not be in this stock tomorrow if he is no longer with the company. So investors essentially revolting against him would IMO in turn take the stock down, which would then impact their ability to raise capital and hamper the underlying business. The large institutions know this. So instead of voting no, and then hanging onto a sinking boat, it would make much more sense for those who dissent to simply sell their shares. The latest decline may very well have been due to this. This leaves a much larger portion in favor left to vote, making a pass more likely. This is just my opinion though, and would not play an arbitrage based on it unless it is money you can lose. I do know that if the vote is rejected I would be selling my Tesla shares at least until the smoke clears afterwards.

Thanks for your post, very interesting and intelligent insight. I do however disagree with institutions needing to agree to the merge to keep investor confidence in Tesla.

If the merge were to fail (and it wont - all signs point to a successful merger vote), then the market I think will react positively, I would see TSLA rocketing upwards on the news. In the end they are paying 2.6 billion dollars for a company that is 3.4 billion in debt (recently paying 7.4% cost in capital!) and is losing money every day while also seeing a slowdown in installations.

In the end things go against management every day - Tesla has had their fair share of them! A failed merger would be spun as dumb and conservative investors not understanding the genius and vision of Musk and life would go on.

SolarCity does nothing new, its not disruptive. There are 14,000 solar companies in the US alone that do the same thing (well not exactly the same - most probably make money). I can think of nothing that SolarCity that adds to the market. Its a house of cards that requires hugely expensive sales methods to keep up installations to help pay for the financing for the existing installations.

If the merger were to fail then Tesla could develop its own solar cell production at the Giggafactory in Nevada - probably with the assistance of Panasonic that has very promising solar cell technology. It would be significantly cheaper than buying SolarCity and would allow for a innovative and lean business model that isnt held ransom to the PPAs, and other financing complexities that SolarCity is shackled with.

 

[Zhelko Dimic]

Why would a top solar industry exec take a options heavy comp package before merger is done unless he was convinced it was near certainty that the deal would go through and his stock options wont become worthless?

That's what execs do.

Lots of theories around timing of hire and announcement and connection to merger success - no merit to these. This tells us Tesla believes merger will probably work, but nothing more than that. If Tesla felt they'll need this position, they can't wait for vote results to go and headhunt. Many decisions are made with imperfect set of data. It just has to be that way to avoid bottlenecks.
You hire good people when you can find them, they're available and timing works for both company and exec. In current job market, exec's availability would be of greater weight than company's desire for a particular start date. Could you imagine exec who would start 2 months later because timing could improve voting results? People don't like being pawns in the chess game...

 

[Rarity]

With $5 million in stock grants/options, I sure hope he is a rock star.

 

[trentxintong]

That's what execs do.

Lots of theories around timing of hire and announcement and connection to merger success - no merit to these. This tells us Tesla believes merger will probably work, but nothing more than that. If Tesla felt they'll need this position, they can't wait for vote results to go and headhunt. Many decisions are made with imperfect set of data. It just has to be that way to avoid bottlenecks.
You hire good people when you can find them, they're available and timing works for both company and exec. In current job market, exec's availability would be of greater weight than company's desire for a particular start date. Could you imagine exec who would start 2 months later because timing could improve voting results? People don't like being pawns in the chess game...

I think this is an indication that Tesla believes the merger is going to go through.

 

[trentxintong]

Personally I feel Tesla will be far better off if the merger fails. Happy to be proven wrong though!

Short-term definitely yes. But long term, I think its important for Tesla to get into the energy generation business. I see the solarcity deal as somewhat a bailout with potential upsides.

 

[sundaymorning]

The merger is going to happen, and I will eat dirty socks if it doesn't...

 

[DaveT]

The merger is going to happen, and I will eat dirty socks if it doesn't...

Alright, we'all hold you to that one if the merger doesn't happen.

 

[Jonathan Hewitt]

I don't think anyone posted about the SpaceX news yet. Finding the cause should be good for Elon, which is good for Tesla.

SpaceX blames helium system for rocket explosion

SpaceX blames helium system for rocket explosion

 

[Ulmo]

With $5 million in stock grants/options, I sure hope he is a rock star.

I know 0 about him. But in the theory that he is good at what he does, this would be appropriate to hire someone like him. $5M? Hmmmm .... that's pretty out there. He better work for that. Personally, I don't see how an accountant can do what I think the main job is, the engineering, the massive lifting of integration work necessary to make this product integration flourish that I'd like to see, and this sort of smells to me like they're still looking at solar too much like it's about money, but the truth of the matter is that they have money stuff to clean up at Solar City and understanding solar is necessary to do it and they need an accountant to do that. I'm going to go with not only is this a good thing, but a great thing. I came on here just to be on the record that I'm in generally in favor of excellent personnel for the merger. The more I look at Tesla, the more I don't realize how its upper management functions, and how opaque it is to me. I'm probably going to slowly distance myself from it the less I know over the next few years.

There is an absolutely huge job of creating an energy market, engineering trading marketplaces, between utilities, customers, the sun, batteries, etc.., that has to run well in inverters and in Public Utilities Commissions, in regulated grid boardrooms and in transformers. If this guy is good at that fine level invention, the stuff of Englishmen from London who created whole trading marketplaces worldwide, and of programmers who build heterogeneous networks of computers that heal and think for themselves, then this is the guy for that combo job. Edit: from his Linked In, I think this isn't his forte exactly, but I don't know.

Like I said, I don't know the first thing about him. All three job positions I described need someone to fill them. He could be one or two of those, possibly. I'll read up a little.

Edit: just read https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-branderiz-aa5a705 ... I'll take it he's into accounting. As I said, they need someone for that. Seems like accountants that also know solar would be worth $1M or $2M, but I always value everything at around 20%-40% of its "market value" so that's ballpark of how much I'd usually be wrong by. Seems like a lot. Is that how much they pay everyone? My desire for a Tesla job just went way way higher than it used to be .... no wonder factory line workers were complaining so much about taxes!

Timing? Seems quite good timing to me. Tesla absolutely needs a finance person on this stuff right now. Heck, one month is a long time.

 

[Lessmog]

I don't think anyone posted about the SpaceX news yet. Finding the cause should be good for Elon, which is good for Tesla.

SpaceX blames helium system for rocket explosion

SpaceX blames helium system for rocket explosion

From Source:

At this stage of the investigation, preliminary review of the data and debris suggests that a large breach in the cryogenic helium system of the second stage liquid oxygen tank took place. All plausible causes are being tracked in an extensive fault tree and carefully investigated. Through the fault tree and data review process, we have exonerated any connection with last year’s CRS-7 mishap.

 

[RobStark]

I know 0 about him. But in the theory that he is good at what he does, this would be appropriate to hire someone like him. $5M?

Elon Musk does not give away Tesla's, SpaceX's or Solar City's money, in fact he is quite stingy about it.

Tesla blue collar workers make a little above the industry average, pay no UAW dues, but have San Jose Bay area living expenses. It is a little more expensive that GM factory workers living in Fort Wayne, Indiana. An entry level engineer at Tesla or SpaceX may make ~20% more than the industry average but has a workload that may be twice as much.

When Elon's work wife( aka executive secretary/personal assistant) of over 10 years, Mary Beth Brown, asked for a raise to the level of Vice President she was let go. Elon bounced all his ideas and strategy off of her and she felt instrumental in crafting policy for Tesla,SpaceX,as well as Solar City. Elon told her to go home and he would do her job as well as his without her to find out how difficult her job was and how important she was to him. Three weeks later Elon told her not to come back. At least according to Elon biographer Ashlee Vance.

BTW Weekend OT

 

[Cattledog]

VIN 219XX Model X in production as of yesterday, reported here:
Tracking Highest Assigned VINs of the Tesla Model X. | Page 15 | Tesla Motors

VIN 205XX out of production and in delivery mode as of yesterday, reported here:
https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/posts/1746442/

Totally anecdotal info, possibly lots of data gaps, but one week before the end of of June, VIN 4936, 58XX, 58XX, 7334, 73XX, 88XX and were being delivered, links to some below:
https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/posts/1595812/
https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/posts/1597621/
https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/posts/1597727/

Q2 shareholder letter said 4,638 delivered Q2, Q1 shareholder letter said 2,659 produced Q1, 507 produced Q4. So it seems like we could piece together that 7,000+ total were delivered before the end of Q2.

Not knowing if Tesla is skipping VINs, and not knowing how many 4XXX-8XXX were still to be delivered after the close of Q2, I'd imagine a target for Model X deliveries in Q3 will be around 12,000. My logic is at least 10,000 delivered between VIN 9000 and 20,000 and then perhaps a thousand on either side of that.

Makes me see a total Q2 delivery floor of 24,000 and an imaginable ceiling of 27,000.

 

[GBleck]

I agree, glare is a big problem and reason for the radar.. I consider that a corner case.

What is your source for Elon saying corner cases are a problem for Hotz's system?

Using machine learning your always going to have problems with low probability corner cases because they don't appear often enough in your training set. If you know what they are you can artificially create more examples. Just because your using an organically generated training set doesn't mean you can't use intentionality created examples.

 

[stealthology]

I'm of the opinion that the major institutions didn't bother recalling the majority of their shares because they are fairly certain of the outcome already.

This is why we only saw a modest rise in price, rather than a full-blown squeeze. Whatever the reason, if we only saw slight upward pressure this past week, we should see negligible downward pressure on Monday.

Some member(s) on here were speculating (keyword) that insti's may have done a gradual recall over the past several months and in effect it supported the share price a bit on the not so rosy Q2 results and deal announcement. Speculation is just speculation, maybe others can chime in here. Why wasn't SP dying earlier?

On a separate note: IMO if Q3 deliveries can provide at least a mini-pop, then if there are any fence sitting insti's they'll have more confidence voting for it. The really skeptical insti's probably sold already as many previous posters have theorized. Like jesse, I think the deal falling through won't lead to a crazy price rise, but rather more downward pressure. I think if Q3 doesn't lead to a decent SP increase, these borderline insti's will still vote yes just so SP doesn't continue downward. I'm also in agreement with jesse that if Q3 dissapoints, I will seriously consider exiting TSLA at least for the time being unless Elon has some tricks up his sleeves to announce. I personally feel VERY CONFIDENT that Tesla has a great Q3 based on the evidence, and at some point next week smart money steps in. Elon has too much to lose if this isn't a blowout Oct 3rd (Q4 fundraising). I do, as well.

Sorry this is a long post-- was Chanos right when he said about 90% of shares not owned by insiders, employees, etc are institutional? Seems kinda high.