Short-Term TSLA Price Movements - 2016

[Tslynk67]

"Please tell me what has changed after the AP2 announcement."

would you buy a used car that doesn't have bluetooth connectivity?... I wouldn't... would you buy a used Model S today for the same price that you would have prior to the announcement?... I wouldn't.

I cannot argue against this and the previous points you made. The refresh cycle for Tesla is very fast for the moment, but with increasing volumes I expect that to slow-down somewhat. Right now they're mostly in innovation and refinement phases, mass-production will necessarily scale this back, as will the cheaper entry-point of the cars - maybe they'll settle into an annual cycle like most manufacturers. Nevertheless, there will still be innovation, that's for sure.

Regarding depreciation and desirability of older cars - I have a crappy old RWD P85, which is the most amazing car imaginable. Not as "good" as the newer cars, granted, but delivers 95% of the Tesla experience, the quiet, smooth and yet brutal acceleration, etc. For those that have never owned a Tesla, this is a dream car, regardless of any options. There will always be people to buy them and for a good price too. Obviously not for those that sell their car every tome Tesla comes up with something new, but for people like me, who will keep the car 4-5 years, I believe the resale value will be very good compared to other marques.

 

[vgrinshpun]

There were 1,330,153 shares available for shorting at Fidelity (as of 9:45am), interest continue to fall, 5.5% today.

There are 1,702,950 TSLA shares available for shorting at Fidelity, interest rate fell dramatically over past couple of weeks, just 2% today. TSLA is still listed as hard to borrow by Fidelity, but it is clear that availability of shares improved greatly.

Next week ER and explanation of financials in conjunction with the acquisition can't come soon enough.

 

[dalalsid]

So what are chances we hit <$195 today?

 

[myusername]

So what are chances we hit <$195 today?

max pain remained elevated for the week and sits at $207.50... $200 will be fought for hard to kill the 6500 contracts open there... might see the typical day of drop with high volume on open and recover up on low volume. there's about 9k contracts at $195... many of which are mine... if it breaks down hard it will be a good day for the short options traders!... but they usually have a good hold on it during friday expirations.

 

[Runarbt]

So what are chances we hit <$195 today?

Pretty good i think. i have cash at hand now and will load up during the day. I have no worried about themefium to long term outlook. Really hope the shorts do their thing and push down today so i can get in for less.

 

[Yggdrasill]

"Please tell me what has changed after the AP2 announcement."

would you buy a used car that doesn't have bluetooth connectivity?... I wouldn't... would you buy a used Model S today for the same price that you would have prior to the announcement?... I wouldn't.

Probably 90-95% of cars on the road today don't have bluetooth - are they worthless?

No. They have dropped in value, but for most car owners, cars are a means of transportation. All other features beyond being a means of transportation are optional.

AP 2.0 likely will cause a drop in value for AP 1.0-equipped cars. And AP 3.0 likely will cause a drop in value for AP 2.0-equipped cars. That's how progress works - there's always something better coming. The Tesla's though at least have some future-proofing. Down the line, every 2017 car made by every other car company will be obsolete to a much greater extent than a 2017 Tesla, and thus most likely have a much greater drop in value.

Even so, the value of current cars won't go to zero over night. There's around 1.3 billion cars in the world, and only around 100 million cars are produced per year, which means that new cars can be as attractive as you can imagine, and it will still take over 13 years to replace the cars on the road today. Any process will be gradual.

 

[racer26]

Not at all sarcastic. I think there'll be many elements of society that won't react well to driver-less cars, least of all taxi-drivers, for instance. Stealing them will be difficult, that's clear, disabling them simple.

True, but autonomous cars won't be violating the law either, so it frees up police working traffic enforcement to do actual police work stopping the criminals.

 

[drinkerofkoolaid]

Not at all sarcastic. I think there'll be many elements of society that won't react well to driver-less cars, least of all taxi-drivers, for instance. Stealing them will be difficult, that's clear, disabling them simple.

Can you name one major new technology that every element of society supported when it was first released? There is always an adoption curve. Additionally, there are always people who are the last adopters. There are many people who don't support the use of cellphones, computers, the internet, vaccinations, and just about anything you can think of.

Vaccinations are a great example!

 

[Runarbt]

So what are chances we hit <$195 today?

Pretty good i think. I have cash at hand now and will load up during the day. I have no worries about the medium to long term outlook. Really hope the shorts do their thing and push down hard today so i can get in for less.

Will enter through the back door (scty).

The fundamentals are so soo good and improving at a steady rate so the short cant hold it down forever.;-)

 

[Drax7]

Elon Musk is a rule breaker. The more the media dislikes him, the more likely
The Disruption. A necessary condition for a rule breaker is an antagonistic
Media. This concept was postulated and observed by the Motley Fools
Back in the late 1990. It still applies.

Barron's headline back in 2000, Amazon dot bomb , is a perfect example.

 

[The Blue Owl]

Barron's headline back in 2000, Amazon dot bomb , is a perfect example.

Hadn't read this article before. It's perfect!

Amazon.bomb

"Once Wal-Mart decides to go after Amazon, there's no contest," declares Kurt Barnard, president of Barnard's Retail Trend Report. "Wal-Mart has resources Amazon can't even dream about."
​

Priceless.

This entire "analysis" is made of choice quotes like this one. Recommended read of the month.

 

[BobSk]

It seems Tesla's ride sharing network will be available soon, maybe in 12~18 months. When it happens, It will have immediate earnings impact and completely different earnings expectation for 2018 and beyond. The model 3 reservation list will grow fast.

Initially it's just a startup car company. Now it is becoming a tech company that does energy generation + energy storage + car + ride sharing + ? + ?

It's becoming a software/service company + one of the most innovative company + the most efficient manufacture. Shorts will have a hard time to understand the coming changes.

 

[vgrinshpun]

max pain remained elevated for the week and sits at $207.50... $200 will be fought for hard to kill the 6500 contracts open there... might see the typical day of drop with high volume on open and recover up on low volume. there's about 9k contracts at $195... many of which are mine... if it breaks down hard it will be a good day for the short options traders!... but they usually have a good hold on it during friday expirations.

If you are really short $195 calls this week you are trying to pick up pennies in front of a steam roller.

I do not think that rolling out in case we stay above $195 will be a good option.

 

[NOLA_Mike]

Low trading volume today so far.

I suspect we are in "wait and see" mode now (low trading volume, price moves at the whim of market makers) until earnings report next week. Or, as @DaveT suggested until the $SCTY merger resolution.

 

[Bgarret]

Good interview with James Albertine of Stifel....but who slapped the title on this? Also, nary a mention of Tesla Energy - no one sees the monolithic structure rising in the Desert - must think it is the Raiders new Nevada stadium not a battery factory and revenue stream that could rival or surpass auto revenues. Their ignorance is our opportunity.

Elon Musk diverting attention from bigger problems?

 

[WarpedOne]

We also still do not know what is Jim Keller really doing at Tesla. His explanation of his returning to AMD from Apple was that he really likes doing CPU design and likes new challenges. I expect he didn't get tired of microprocessor design and completely changed his profession.
Now we learn Tesla is doing deep neural networks and using nVidia chips to run them because no other CPU can do it better.

1 + 1 = x

x : a new Tesla chip designed to run deep neural networks for AI tasks
This chip will run future Tesla autonomous cars, trucks, vans, buses but it will also be general enough to be used in other AI tasks.

Will tesla take over the whole our future?

 

[ZsoZso]

Regarding the ability to upgrade sensors / GPU for later more advanced versions of AP suite:

My Model S was built just 2 weeks before the AP1 hardware was introduced. After the AP1 announcement I have asked Tesla if there was any possibility to retrofit the new hardware to my car. The answer was, that the cost would be prohibitive, because my car is missing the wiring harness in the body panels, so they would have had to take apart and rebuild the entire car.

On the other hand, if a car already has the harness for the right number of sensors/cameras/GPU and it is only a matter of replacing them with newer versions, the cost would be much more reasonable: new parts + labor cost to swap them.

 

[AudubonB]

I made an autonomous Mars rover years ago in college using a couple of sonar sensors front/back. But thats probably irrelevant to your question, most people I know have no clue about tesla except car enthusiasts.

Why were you using sonar rather than radar, and did we meet you about six weeks ago in Paxson when you'd had a flat tire on the Denali Highway on your rental motorbike?

On edit: One of the lesser frustrations of being a Moderator is trying to determine why forum members SO frequently use those lower-right emoticons. What, for example, was remotely "Funny!" about this post? I certainly thought there were many features about the prior platform through which TMC appeared; there were technical reasons it had to change but certainly the response mechanism of the former was superior to what we now have.

 

[NOLA_Mike]

Today is a monthly as well as a weekly options expiration day. Max Pain is supposedly at $205 but frankly the pain level looks pretty close to the same anywhere from $200 to $210 to me so I wouldn't count on that for much.

 

[FredTMC]

It seems Tesla's ride sharing network will be available soon, maybe in 12~18 months. When it happens, It will have immediate earnings impact and completely different earnings expectation for 2018 and beyond. The model 3 reservation list will grow fast.

Initially it's just a startup car company. Now it is becoming a tech company that does energy generation + energy storage + car + ride sharing + ? + ?

It's becoming a software/service company + one of the most innovative company + the most efficient manufacture. Shorts will have a hard time to understand the coming changes.

I'm looking forward to seeing "Tesla Network" begin in test market (cities).

A driver will need to be in each car just like Uber in Pittsburgh

The big difference is that after X months of operation, it will become obvious/common that the driver in the tesla never needs to touch the controls.

Once it becomes rare to see any YouTube videos of drivers needing to take control, and tesla's data around safety is published, maybe some bold city will allow driverless Teslas on a trial basis (maybe limited to 35mph initially)

Bottom-line: regulations will be slow to change, but tesla will be the leader in demonstrating capability / safety.