Short-Term TSLA Price Movements - 2016

[neroden]

This is good to know. I have a margin account, and have both core shares and options specifically in TSLA. I did get a phone call last fall from my brokerage asking if I wanted to participate in share lending (interest would be paid, and all sorts of other chatter about how it would be backed).

Right. If you sign up for that program ("securities lending fully paid"), *then* they can lend your cash shares out -- but they pay you interest.

If you have borrowed on margin, they can lend the shares out without even asking you and they don't have to pay you interest.

It was explained to me to set maximum limit positions at that time, otherwise they may be used with or without my consent. I had several options trades in at the time -- so perhaps that's the confusion. I could have sworn they were referring to actual cash shares, and not margin though.

They may have been explaining how things work at their brokerage *if you sign up for Securities Lending Fully Paid*.

 

[neroden]

Outperforming the indexes 2:1... TSLA as a conservative hedge. Didn't see that one coming.

Heh, actually this is part of why I originally bought Tesla stock. "Hmm, a company which sells into the luxury market (not affected by unemployment rates) which has waiting lists for its cars, which has no complex financial risks... should do better in times of general economic trouble than most stocks"

 

[Cosmacelf]

I am on that list. They did contact me to ask the specifics of my storag/solar/inverter setup (off grid) and said that a local installer would be in contact with me; that was three months ago and still no word. I am not in a hurry now, since waiting for a fully rationalized all-Tesla system appears to be the way to go.

Exactly. I am on the list too and haven't even been contacted. The reality is that integrating Powerwalls into all the diverse customer installs is VERY complicated, and requires EXPENSIVE system engineering time, let alone the cost of the actual components.

And Elon has probably just torpedoed short term Powerwalls sales as people sit on the sidelines waiting for that awesome integrated product he alluded to.

I am still trying to digest the implications that a 2 year Solarcity corporate bond is STILL yielding 14% on the markets right now. That is the steal of a century if you think a combined Tesla/Solarcity company will be able to refinance a $500M bond in 2 years...

 

[Papafox]

How to explain TSLA's relative resilience this morning?

Some shorts have been using Brexit as a vehicle for closing their TSLA short positions. Looks like a net change today of about half a million shares. We're down to 5 1/2 trading days before the Q2 delivery numbers are released and a little over a month away from gigafactory event.

From tracking short interest thread

 

[steve3]

Obviously, Mr. Musk believes that all his various plans for Tesla does not require raising additional capital. One key aspect of this is that they have applied for the building permit to build the 2nd phase of the Gigafactory.
<snip>
When Mr. Musk and Mr. Straubel was talking about 50-50, Tesla Energy and Tesla Motors, they weren't talking in 2020. They are talking about possibly 2017 and/or 2018.

This.
Although I don't have the finance experience to model the numbers, I've been postulating that TM is seeing they already have enough cash for M3 launch, and 2017&2018 TE business ramps fast enough to cover accelerated M3 ramp cash flow needs. Are you seeing this, Techmaven?

Would be very impactful if they could demonstrate actual cell production at the gigaparty next month, spitting out battery cells "faster than a machine gun," and post some TE guidance.

 

[techmaven]

Look, the bottom line is that Tesla Energy has been a dud so far. They were supposed to have sold a bunch of Powerwalls and Powerpacks starting 3Q last year - that's 9 months ago. Instead there has been no measurable revenues from Tesla Energy. Yeah, I know, they decided to move Powerwall production to the gigafactory for economies and that delayed them. OR they were seeing such anemic sales that they decided they might as well move production to the gigafactory since they weren't selling many anyways and/or compatible inverters have been so slow to reach market that the addressable market is minuscule.

Coming to market with a new utility and commercial scale energy storage product was never going to be a short sales cycle. We're talking utilities here, not usually the fastest moving companies. So it made sense for Tesla Energy to get its feet wet... they've already been building stationary storage packs (predecessor to PowerPacks) and to get some PowerWalls into the channel and see how things go. Given the lack of sales effort thus far, I believe Tesla Energy has been in exploratory mode ahead of a real big product push. It make sense that they will need a couple or 3 generations of iterations to get the products, sales, and other pieces in place before scaling up massively.

And yes, Tesla has very much agreed to buy a certain number of cells from suppliers putting them behind the eight ball.

Of course, but you have differentiate cells bound for Tesla Motors vs cells bound for Tesla Energy. Not the same.

 

[neroden]

Are the Spanish,Portuguese and Italians going to have an angry populist movement against being subsidized by Northern Europeans?

More a populist movement demanding that they get the subsidies that they deserve as compensation for being part of the Eurozone.

See, if they leave and get their own currencies, then their currencies drop, and they get an *effective* subsidy from that -- their export industries will boom and Northern Europeans will buy the "cheap products" from Spain, Portugal and Italy instead of the expensive German products.

In order to have incentive to stay in the eurozone, they need to have direct subsidies which compensate for the problem of being unable to devalue their currency. Get it?

Germany has been abusing the eurozone as an export market. By tying everyone else into the Deutschemark -- and make no mistake, the euro is managed basically as if it was the Deutschemark, which is a huge problem -- they make it easier to sell German products and harder to sell everyone else's products. It is perhaps not obvious to Germans that this is abusive and it needs to be rebalanced. The better way would be for the Germans to leave the euro and go back on the Deustchemark (the DM would rise against the euro and the same rebalancing effect would happen), but nobody seems to be considering this.

For a US comparison: The US subsidizes Mississippi continuously. If we stopped doing so, you can bet they'd be agitating to secede so that their new currency would drop and they could sell more exports of cotton or whatever.

 

[Foghat]

Look, the bottom line is that Tesla Energy has been a dud so far. They were supposed to have sold a bunch of Powerwalls and Powerpacks starting 3Q last year - that's 9 months ago. Instead there has been no measurable revenues from Tesla Energy. Yeah, I know, they decided to move Powerwall production to the gigafactory for economies and that delayed them. OR they were seeing such anemic sales that they decided they might as well move production to the gigafactory since they weren't selling many anyways and/or compatible inverters have been so slow to reach market that the addressable market is minuscule.

As people have pointed out, there is only one inverter than is compatible with Powerwall, and once you add in extra StorEdge costs, it isn't an easy sell. Solar panels are hard enough to sell since you are essentially competing on price (the electricity that different system produce is the same, a true commodity).

Solarcity was supposed to be their big Powerwall and Powerpack channel. It is very possible that due to product integration issues, Solarcity hasn't been as great a channel as Tesla would like.

And yes, Tesla has very much agreed to buy a certain number of cells from suppliers putting them behind the eight ball.

Solarcity just installed a multi Mwh Powerpack system in Kuaui, the have multiple Powerpack installs for Walmart, BJ's wholesale, among many others this and last year installed. There are also many other "pilot" full microgrid installs that we've only a few hints about, such as the "identified" island *complete island* micro-grid.


For powerwall, I also think they are working with California on a new business model to allow traditional utilities to make money off infrastructure as a service, which would deconflict many of the resistence of incumbent utilities to encourage rooftop solar and tesla Powerpack/powerwall business models related to the grid.

Also for powerwall, first installs where announced to start in September of 2015 I do believe and it seems that what has happened, but I do think they have delayed wide implement in us in order to deploy powerwall 2.0 to most of the orders in que now.

Bottomline, I think any delays are more related to tesla product modifications and possible policy-technical requirement actions then anything to do with sale problems. It usually is this anyway with tesla as we've seen from constant production constraint issues as opposed to any demand issues.

 

[Intl Professor]

Randy Carlson has a sane appraisal of Brexit on Seeking Alpha. It probably doe not, however, match the technical virtuosity already presented here. I post the link out of respect for his general wisdom.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/398...5df0fabc1b048ac5b9003381a324d7f&uprof=46#alt2

Motley Fool as one might expect is urging watchful waiting and no panic, just as many mirror here. Truthout, a generally progressive site, but usually factually on target, points out in detail why the referendum is still subject to a vote by Parliament and is not the official notification to the EU starting the two year process. Further, there is already a petition to Parliament to schedule another referendum. And, as noted by several sources and reported on this thread, Scotland may try to exit through referendum.

I think this is just a financial panic and for good reason since London is such an important financial center. Though the right wing French party(ies) look to exit as well, France and Germany are really the backbone of the EU since its early days as the European Iron and Steel community, evolving into the Common Market, etc. They will do everything they can to save the union. Look at this as a non-military civil war which the north and west will win over the east and to the south.

 

[DesertCO]

Right. If you sign up for that program ("securities lending fully paid"), *then* they can lend your cash shares out -- but they pay you interest.

If you have borrowed on margin, they can lend the shares out without even asking you and they don't have to pay you interest.


They may have been explaining how things work at their brokerage *if you sign up for Securities Lending Fully Paid*.

That certainly clears it up a bit - thanks!

 

[sunhelm]

Have there been any significant numbers of Powerwall installs in the US?? I really think this acquisition is more about fixing the Tesla Energy debacle more than anything else. Solaredge, an Isreali company, has 75% of their sales in the US. Meanwhile, the only Powerwall sales I hear about are in Australia, a tiny market.

I think Elon's talk about product integration really has to do with the frustration of not being to sell enough Powerwalls. I think they've come to the conclusion that they need to have a better Powerwall/inverter/panel integrated product to be able to sell ANY Powerwalls in any volume.

And why do they care so much about selling Powerwalls? Because they've signed supply agreements which obligate them to buy a certain number of Powerwall compatible cells, and they are soon going to be awash in unsold cells (these cells see cells are different from the ones they can use in cars).

I think this is a bombshell hiding in Tesla financials which we will see soon. Elon did say that if anything this purchase offer was too late, rather than too early.

Consider the other scenario, perhaps they are concentrating first on the power pack that likely produces a greater margin, thus they are not really focusing on powerwall installs UNTIL GF IS ONLINE. Power pack pricing was recently increased. What does the law of supply and demand say when price is increased? It means there is a huge market demand for it but the supply side can barely keep up (for now).

 

[Jayjs20]

Welcome to sub-190. Really shouldn't have bought back in at 192. Looked like it was flat there for awhile.

 

[esk8mw]

Welcome to sub-190. Really shouldn't have bought back in at 192. Looked like it was flat there for awhile.

Could you please go short so we can see a rebound here? tyia

 

[doggusfluffy]

SolarCity, Tesla Ties Spurring Questions on Board’s Independence

“The conflict is very ripe,” said Steven Davidoff Solomon, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley’s School of Law. “Elon Musk is entering into a transaction where he’s going to make hundreds of millions of dollars. The market isn’t happy about it. And they’re not playing by the usual conflict playbook. That’s a triple strike against them.”

 

[Incredulocious]

Right. If you sign up for that program ("securities lending fully paid"), *then* they can lend your cash shares out -- but they pay you interest.

I've seen you or someone else mention receiving interest for borrowed shares in the past but I've never experienced this myself over the last 20-ish years. I have accounts with TDAmeritrade, Fidelity, E*Trade and Schwab, all with cash shares including large amounts of TSLA and all with margin enabled but I've never seen interest payments from securities lending. When I search on their web sites for info, I don't see anything promising such interest payments nor do I find anything about enabling such a feature. Except for TDAmeritrade, I can't find any mention of "securities lending" or "loaning shares" at all.

With TDAmeritrade, I find only this statement that interest will not be offered:

You are authorized to lend to yourself or others any securities you hold in my Account and to carry all securities lent as general loans. In connection with such loans, you may receive compensation and retain certain benefits that I will not be entitled to, such as interest on Collateral posted for such loans. In certain circumstances, such loans may limit my ability to exercise voting rights with respect to the securities lent. I may request that fully paid securities not be used in connection with short sales. I understand that in certain situations in which you have borrowed my securities, I may receive a “payment in lieu” of the dividend issued (see Margin Handbook for more details).

 

[Jayjs20]

Rise, my pretties.

 

[gameon]

interesting time...make or break with SCTY buy out...

tsla don't have to pay higher price for scty after month with UK situation..

 

[Papafox]

Welcome to sub-190. Really shouldn't have bought back in at 192. Looked like it was flat there for awhile.

Jayjs20, you are going to make a bundle of money with TSLA purchased at 192 if you have some patience. It's a great buy-in price for a stock that may well be the growth stock of the decade. You're just going to have to accept this is a roller-coaster ride and not a Model S Sunday drive in Kansas.

 

[Jayjs20]

Yes, thanks, but I'm not too concerned. If I sound like I am, I'm just being eccentric.

It's more obvious if you're in a chatroom with me, but harder to pick up if I'm only making a post a couple times a day.

 

[dha]

TSLA held up EXCEPTIONALLY well today compared to the broader market. I was expecting far worse. 190 seems like strong support and I am hoping for strength and consolidation around here before Q2 delivery announcement. This is all with the caveat that the worst of the Brexit Shock is over.