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Short-Term TSLA Price Movements - 2016

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Til Bankruptcy Do We Part Shorts
These shorts are convinced that Tesla is going to the corporate boneyard, it’s just a matter of time. After all, haven’t all U.S. car companies except for Ford and Tesla gone bankrupt in the past and isn’t it true that every other auto company founded within the past hundred years has gone out of business? The acquisition of SolarCity makes these shorts positively giddy when they contemplate the possibilities. Why consider normal trading ranges for TSLA when they’re convinced it’s goint to zero? What the “Til Bankruptcy Do We Part” shorts have correct is that the game ends with one party going bankrupt, but that someone (unbeknowst to them) may not be Tesla.
I thought that the correct name for this type of short is:
Dumber Than Dirt Shorts
 
Agreed. And when you come up with a number like 10T, call it a 'lazy thought' but then discuss at length why it's possible - it feels like two ships passing in the night. The guy who's got all the information, is the driving force, and the most practical person on the planet just recently suggested 1T after being laughed at for suggesting a 700B Apple valuation shortly before that. Now I'm getting uncomfortable 'from longs that have lost capability for critical thinking'.

Couple of possible answers, you choose one like:
- He'll come to see it my way. After all he's already upped his estimate from 700B to 1T, right? ;)
or
- Elon needs to be careful what he's saying to not be ridiculed, I don't. Elon is in a spotlight, and he needs to consider worst possible interpretation of his words, I post in a friendly forum. (So, yeah, 700B comment was already calling for trouble when he said it)
but the real answer is
- I think of future in terms of probabilities. 10T may happen and chances are perhaps 1%? I can also see Tesla potentially dropping to $50 share price, maybe also 1% chance? And everything in between...
 
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I thought that the correct name for this type of short is:
Dumber Than Dirt Shorts
An example (Paul Santos):
http://seekingalpha.com/article/3992399-tesla-gigapotemkin-village
Tesla to often the source of the most bizarre stories in the market, at least when it comes to large-capitalization companies. Yesterday it again confirmed as much, by putting on a show which was the modern-time equivalent of the fabled Potemkin Villages.

For those who don't know the story, the term "Potemkin Village" refers to XVIIIth century events in Crimea, just after it was conquered by Russia. Potemkin was the governor of this new but devastated region. At the time, this region then dubbed the "New Russia" was visited by Catherine II and several ambassadors.

It is told that during this trip and to impress the guests, Potemkin would quickly set up gorgeous fake villages in the parties' path, complete with fake inhabitants. Overnight, these fake villages would be dismantled and set up further downriver (the ambassadors were traveling by boat).

Of course, opinions diverge on the truthfulness of these events, but the term "Potemkin Village" was enshrined forever, as meaning "a construction built solely to deceive others into thinking that a situation is better than it really is".

It's in that regard that it fits yesterday's events so well. Perhaps by coincidence, Tesla broke ground on the Gigafactory during 2014, the same year Russia "got back" its "New Russia" (Crimea), but what we'll see paints a much more coincidental Potemkin village.

Of course you can sign up for more of this drivel:
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I noticed I got a "Funny" feedback. It is kind of funny, but it's also pretty sad that people who are that dumb form a significant percentage of the population.
 
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An example (Paul Santos):
http://seekingalpha.com/article/3992399-tesla-gigapotemkin-village
I noticed I got a "Funny" feedback. It is kind of funny, but it's also pretty sad that people who are that dumb form a significant percentage of the population.

I have to admit, it's Paulo Santos I can't wait to see humiliated the most as Tesla becomes more and more successful. He has been so incredibly nasty and condescending! I really look forward to his increasingly frantic short articles, then his eventual white flag of bankruptcy.
 
An example (Paul Santos):
http://seekingalpha.com/article/3992399-tesla-gigapotemkin-village
I noticed I got a "Funny" feedback. It is kind of funny, but it's also pretty sad that people who are that dumb form a significant percentage of the population.
No way I will click on that link. Santos is a hopeless Tesla hater.
I gave it a "Funny" because it made me laugh because it is so true. At the same time there are far too many dumber than dirt people in this country. That fact is depressing. But it allows a few of us to make money when others believe the garbage that shills like Santos spread.
 
Great segment of Elizabeth Warren grilling the CEO of Wells Fargo, plus some Trump and Obumble information:
Sen. Warren Calls for Wells Fargo CEO to Resign & Face Investigation Amid Growing Scandal | Democracy Now!
We get reaction to this week’s Senate Banking Committee hearing where Senator Elizabeth Warren grilled Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf over a growing scandal at the major Wall Street bank involving thousands of employees who took private customer information to create 2 million fake accounts in order to meet sales targets. The scandal dates back to at least 2011, and CEO John Stumpf admits he’s known about the practice since 2013. Wells Fargo has been fined $185 million. "John Stumpf let 5,300 people take the fall for his criminal behavior," says Nomi Prins. Prins is a former managing director at Bear Stearns and Goldman Sachs and previously an analyst at Lehman Brothers and Chase Manhattan Bank. Prins’s latest book is called "All the Presidents’ Bankers: The Hidden Alliances That Drive American Power".
 
Great segment of Elizabeth Warren grilling the CEO of Wells Fargo, plus some Trump and Obumble information:
Sen. Warren Calls for Wells Fargo CEO to Resign & Face Investigation Amid Growing Scandal | Democracy Now!

I warned author of this post it rightfully belonged on the Macro thread but I don't know how to do that; AudubonB might.

Putting on my political science background hat, this is not a partisan post. Most of us here probably agree the banks have gotten away with near murder if not the crime of manslaughter toward the greater economy. How that relates to our concern of FUD against TSLA, I don't know, it's probably a stretch. No penalty issued. If someone reports it I'll reassign to AudubonB since I hope to be out of the Mod business by October 1.
 
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Thanks, I was about to do the same...

The fact that Jason Wheeler mentioned that this quarter will have two weeks less in the production schedule during the Q2 ER might indicate that either they knew and planned for the heavy end of Q3 push, which should bode well for their guidance on GM. Another way to read it is that they indeed were planning for some change in production process, whether it is related to the additional hardware, as mentioned by @3Victoria, or, perhaps they are planning for blending MS production into new Body Line (#2) to be produced along with MX. Another possibility might be that they are working on introducing 100D (without the P).
Maybe I haven't been following this factory closure as closely as you, but my first assumption (after first reading about it here two minutes ago) was making room for Model 3 production line build out.

Also, it helps to explain why people were getting the run-around about vehicles that won't make it into production before the end of the quarter being pushed back a whole two weeks: it wasn't about not trying to meet guidelines because they already made their goal, but it was about the idea that the factory just wasn't going to have the ability to do it because if the parts weren't in before the shut, it was shut, period.

Furthermore, the fact that the run-around quotes had deliveries for those customers pushed back only 2 weeks (rather than "at least 2 weeks") tells me the shutdown isn't to hugely reformat the existing lines which would require re-tuning. This goes against my theory that it was for making room for Model 3. It's still not an exclusive theory: shutting down could make JUST ENOUGH room to allow some Model 3 buildout without unduly impacting the re-startup of the older lines.

Another theory is that they already stopped producing cars now, at least partially, and will have a whole 3 weeks to fine-tune some new shape car, or at least a new factory format (move, reset the machines).

By now, they must have at least some ideas about what they want to do for Model 3, and any other future format changes coming in the pipelines. How far they would be toward reformatting for that I have no idea, but it's entirely possible (from the outside looking in) some random subset of that will be attempted now.
 
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I find that car forums in general are tough communities that tend to beat up on members, NASIOC probably being one of the most historically infamous web boards. TMC less so, but there is still some of that.

I would NOT encourage anyone to go 100% in on TSLA or more than 100% in (like with a margin account). It is far too dangerous IMO to link one's financial future to the fortunes of a single company. Random stuff happens. There are things that go on behind the scenes in the company that we don't have any clue about. I know too many people who suffered greatly in 2001 and 2008 because they were far too heavily weighted in 1 company or 1 industry sector in their retirement accounts.
No tesla is not going to be a $10T company that's ludicrous
It does have a shot at $1T valuation which is approximately 33 times current market cap in the stated time frame of say 10 to 20 years but that is wild speculation at this point
I'm 120% long TSLA (100% my money plus 20% margin)
Am I nervous like this dude who is 100% plus long
Not really
I sleep like a baby
But then everyone's risk tolerance is different
My 2 cents: don't go all in a stock if you can't handle the heat
And don't be a cry baby
Nobody likes a cry baby
Listen to Gordon Gekko in Wall Street 2
 
Speaking about demand, the fact that Tesla cars are underrepresented in the Norteast / Middle Atlantic is well known. During an average week I normally lucky to see one Model S.

Something remarkable , though, happened this weekend. During three round trips, one 1.5 hour long to NYC and then back, and two local trips, each about 20 mins in one direction I saw seven (!) Teslas: one MX and six MS, all but one of them with "refreshed" design.

This is just one data point, but it seems like demand levers are working.
 
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What keeps me in TSLA stock is belief it's the best long term investment I've seen. I am all in Tesla. I'm actually more than 100% all in. Trying to get to only 100% in.

I believe Tesla is the only currently existing company that has _some_ chance of hitting 10T capitalization during my lifetime, say 20-30 years.

What keeps me mostly out of this forum are longs that have lost capability for critical thinking, and are making it uncomfortable for other participants to offer any critique of Tesla.
That's not the reason you get criticized. DaveT critiqued Tesla at great length for a few days and didn't get criticized. He did receive quite a bit of generally respectfuo disagreement and discussion. The difference is that he offered intelligent reasons for his criticism.

You're reasons mostly boil down to how you feel rather than any intelligent reasons, and claims that you know more than Elon, in spite of not having access to the same level of information.

Plus your claims that Elon should be more concerned with your medium term portfolio, than the mission statement of the company, which is transitioning the world to sustainable energy.
 
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I believe Tesla doesn't so much have a demand problem as a demand to production effort. Let's not even call it a problem. As production capability rises, they need to be sure that the ongoing demand MATCHES the greater production capacity. This keeps customers happy because they are not waiting a long time for their cars. As TM adds capacity it will need to add demand. It is somewhat tricky but they seem to be managing it pretty well. It is never going to be perfect.
 
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I
Firstly, this is not an investment theses, nor is it my goal. It's just a lazy thought, one possible future of them all. Some of the reasoning Tesla could hit 10T in 20-30 years:

- What we know of Tesla today may be tiny subset of what Tesla is in 15-20 years. Tesla's vision and goalposts are pushed forward constantly, and Tesla the company has proven adept at keeping at existing opportunities, while pivoting and developing skills towards new ones (eg. becoming leader in autonomous driving). This is driven by Musk's ambition, and also by his capability to rally company and great talent behind himself. Honestly, this aspect of the company is worrying me to some extent, as I feel Elon is constantly on the edge of burning out workforce, one slip away from minor or perhaps major disaster. Yet, this is also a reason that Tesla's limits are undiscovered, and more importantly they're undiscoverable from this vantage point. Here is one example: we knew about Master Plan. But Master Plan didn't say anything about eliminating dealer from equation, developing autopilot, incoming autonomy and possible shared mobility. These are all opportunities that opened up along the way, as original goals of Master plan were being pursued.

- Tesla started as a car manufacturer, and it now affects many industries with massive revenues/capitalization: car manufacturing, dealerships including service centers(I believe 600B market cap industry in NA alone!), parts supplies, vehicle supply chain (increased vertical integration and bringing higher value work back home), it owns internal software for supply chain mgmt, there is autonomy (drivers are 7% of workforce in NA!!!) and potential shared mobility, gas stations, gas drilling/exploration, electrical energy supply, peaker plants replacement, grid balancing, bringing electricity to countries without grid, electricity storage for all sorts of purposes we haven't though about yet, cargo transportation (semis)... I don't know where Tesla will end up, and they can't pursue _everything_, but opportunities in front of them are MASSIVE. There is no other company that has natural entry into so many different industries. And for every $ disrupted industry loses, disruptor is likely to pocket at least some dimes.

- And final two elements to big numbers, natural inflation and "winner takes all" evolution of the markets. What do I think with later? It's my sense market capitalization have been growing faster than rate of inflation, perhaps much, much faster). It used to be oil companies at the top, and they have natural limits to growth. Today's kings are tech companies, you know, software that eats world, yadda, yadda. In any case, this is unprecedented period of time, where small number of individuals can create something through software, and Tesla is doing that, with extension into the real physical world of production. But I do see them as kings of tech first, and everything else secondary. So I believe that companies that do well will get bigger not only absolutely, but also relative to the median participant in S&P500, with this effect stronger the further we look in the future. And serendipitously, Elon's ambition and Tesla's open opportunities could make Tesla absolutely the largest of these new giants.
Or maybe not, as I'm not sure if future as I describe it will be interesting to Elon... First part for sure will be interesting, but money is in the later part (transition from 1T -> 10T), and that could be just a "boring execution" for Elon, so he may not care about it. and succession is always tricky...

It's late and these are poorly organized thoughts - perhaps I'll come back to clarify and rewrite. Hopefully it makes some sense in this form.

Again, I see this as a potential future, far from even remotely probable, and yet, if you look where Tesla was in 2010, I think most people would be blown away with where it is now.

So yes, I see Tesla under-performing short term, and OVER-performing long term. And that comes to expectations management (I am so tempted to say Elon sucks at it, but I don't want to ruin preceding feel good content ;)
I have to disagree. TSLA is likely to outperform handily both short as well as long term but the trillions of $ market cap is fantasy at its best. Normally, I would empathize with someone who is 100% plus long TSLA since I'm 120% long TSLA myself but I'm having second thoughts about the wisdom of these wild speculations that I'm hearing
It's easy to throw out big #s but the way to make big money in the stock market is to be optimistic in a bull market, pessimistic in a bear and at all times not losing touch with reality
The reason why I'm superlong TSLA is not because I'm some wild eyed bull with endless yarns of unrealistic fantasy but because this is a bull market that we are in and I admire Elon Musk and i believe that TSLA is a stock whose time has come. The very fact that this stock has gone nowhere fast over the last 3 years or so is bullish because as Papafox said that sooner or later there will be a resolution of this range either with a big move upward or downward and it does not take a genius to figure out the direction of the impending move
 
Maybe I haven't been following this factory closure as closely as you, but my first assumption (after first reading about it here two minutes ago) was making room for Model 3 production line build out.

Also, it helps to explain why people were getting the run-around about vehicles that won't make it into production before the end of the quarter being pushed back a whole two weeks: it wasn't about not trying to meet guidelines because they already made their goal, but it was about the idea that the factory just wasn't going to have the ability to do it because if the parts weren't in before the shut, it was shut, period.

Furthermore, the fact that the run-around quotes had deliveries for those customers pushed back only 2 weeks (rather than "at least 2 weeks") tells me the shutdown isn't to hugely reformat the existing lines which would require re-tuning. This goes against my theory that it was for making room for Model 3. It's still not an exclusive theory: shutting down could make JUST ENOUGH room to allow some Model 3 buildout without unduly impacting the re-startup of the older lines.

Another theory is that they already stopped producing cars now, at least partially, and will have a whole 3 weeks to fine-tune some new shape car, or at least a new factory format (move, reset the machines).

By now, they must have at least some ideas about what they want to do for Model 3, and any other future format changes coming in the pipelines. How far they would be toward reformatting for that I have no idea, but it's entirely possible (from the outside looking in) some random subset of that will be attempted now.

Not sure, but may be you missed the portion of my post that talked about blending of Model S into the (new) Body Line #2 which currently produces body in white for MX only. The reason for this blending *is* to make room and equipment used by Body Line #1 available for Model 3 production.
 
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Couple of possible answers, you choose one like:
- He'll come to see it my way. After all he's already upped his estimate from 700B to 1T, right? ;)
or
- Elon needs to be careful what he's saying to not be ridiculed, I don't. Elon is in a spotlight, and he needs to consider worst possible interpretation of his words, I post in a friendly forum. (So, yeah, 700B comment was already calling for trouble when he said it)
but the real answer is
- I think of future in terms of probabilities. 10T may happen and chances are perhaps 1%? I can also see Tesla potentially dropping to $50 share price, maybe also 1% chance? And everything in between...

a) There's a big difference between 1T and 10T. 700B to 1T can just be the matter of inflation over the next few decades, but he changed from 700B to 1T after his Master Plan Part Deux, suggesting he simply recalculated once he put it all together. Apple is currently at 600B. Imagining a company at 10T pretty much means it's ruling the world and is a monopoly. Not happening in our lifetime...which is the time frame you originally gave.

b) Hahahahaha. While Elon has shown on occasion to temper his words and exhaustively explain at times, if he thought 10T was where his company was going, he'd say so. He wasn't watching his words when he first suggested an Apple evaluation.

c) There's future *possibilities* and future *probabilities*. We aren't going to see (possibility or probability) Tesla at a 10T evaluation in the time frame you suggested. We'll be long dead before anyone is talking 10T for Tesla. Let's get to the first 1T before we start adding another zero.
 
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I have to admit, it's Paulo Santos I can't wait to see humiliated the most as Tesla becomes more and more successful. He has been so incredibly nasty and condescending! I really look forward to his increasingly frantic short articles, then his eventual white flag of bankruptcy.

He's on my list as well, though not nearly as close to the top as your list. I've got at least a dozen names ahead of him.
 
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