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Stanphyl Capital and Mark Spiegel

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I very much enjoyed this look back at Mark Spiegel’s Tesla predictions over the last 5 years.

5 Years Of Incorrect Claims & Forecasts About Tesla From TSLA Bear Mark Spiegel | CleanTechnica

Great work by @ZachShahan.
Interestingly, Spiegel doesn't disclose the range of assets in his so-called "hedge fund".

Given that he seems to have lost money nearly every year, I'm thinking it's substantially below the amount initially invested.

The weird part is that he's been managing to attract fresh money.
From SEC reports, his "total amount sold":
$2.8 million by July 2012 (from Arizona and NY, 10 investors)
$3.042 million by August 2013 (from NY, 11 investors)
$4.492 million by August 2014 (18 investors)
$4.532559 million by July 2015 (same investors... someone topped him up)
$6.282559 million in July 2017 (20 investors)
$6.682559 million in July 2018 (21 investors)

Sooo. Digging out his official publications and statements to the press, he was
-- did not disclose returns in 2012 AFAICT
-- supposedly up 56% in 2013
-- did not disclose returns in 2014 AFAICT
-- down 11.1% in 2015
-- up 31% in 2016 (due to other stocks, not to his TSLA short), which was apparently the "high water mark"
-- down 12.4% in 2017
-- down 15.5% YTD in 2018 October.

It's not clear how much money he lost in 2012 and 2014, though we know he shorted into the gigantic 2013 TSLA rally, starting at $90, and was massively short TSLA starting in early 2014. He says he shorted in the mid-$200s (so near the 2014 peak), and although he could have been ahead at the end of 2014, he says he wasn't (maybe due to borrowing fees?)

If we assume that he somehow managed to run flat in 2012 and 2014 (I'm assuming the Aug 2013 money came in after the 2013 gains), we can calculate that he would have had about 4.6 million in early 2016, about 7.2 million in early 2017 (mostly due to some return-chasing fool injecting 1.75 million in), and about $5.7 million now. This could be off because I don't have any records for his earlier performance; I'd actually guess he has less than that.

Anyway, there are quite a lot of individuals on this forum managing more money than that and doing far better. It's truly interesting that Spiegel's managed to self-promote enough to actually get on news shows and get interviewed by the WSJ, because he's got zero credibility.

I feel sorry for anyone who put money into Spiegel's so-called "hedge fund" under the mistaken belief that they were investing -- though I do suspect that some were just using him to manipulate the media and wrote off the injections of funds as a marketing expenses.

Anyway, that was a completely pointless thing to look up, but when I realized Spiegel was "declining to disclose" his assets under management, I started getting curious and decided to try to figure it out.

His funniest statement is from early on when he says he'll limit the size of the fund to $50 million. Talk about irrational optimism.

It is very hard to believe anyone is investing in this guy for his financial acumen. It's even harder to believe anyone in their right mind would pay him the substantial fees usually associated with hedge funds. The average hedge fund charges a 1.5% management fee and 17% incentive fee these days. The Hedge Fund Fee Conundrum With such a small amount under management and lousy returns it seems like he would need to charge even more to keep the lights on.

On the other hand, he trashes Tesla non-stop on social media, in the press and in the occasional conference. Maybe some of the people "investing" in his micro "fund" aren't doing it for the returns but want to support him in his anti-Tesla attacks. Paying a small management fee and the odd incentive fee when he actually manages to make money could be a way of indirectly paying him to keep up his five year anti-Tesla campaign, while providing deniability with the SEC.
 
On the other hand, he trashes Tesla non-stop on social media, in the press and in the occasional conference. Maybe some of the people "investing" in his micro "fund" aren't doing it for the returns but want to support him in his anti-Tesla attacks. Paying a small management fee and the odd incentive fee when he actually manages to make money could be a way of indirectly paying him to keep up his five year anti-Tesla campaign, while providing deniability with the SEC.

See, this is what I was thinking. The revenue stream from his poorly managed fund doesn't seem like enough to support his lifestyle: Porsche, Manhatten condo, etc. And who is going to continue to pay someone to perform half as well as the S&P?

So many questions...
 
Great work by @ZachShahan.


It is very hard to believe anyone is investing in this guy for his financial acumen. It's even harder to believe anyone in their right mind would pay him the substantial fees usually associated with hedge funds. The average hedge fund charges a 1.5% management fee and 17% incentive fee these days. The Hedge Fund Fee Conundrum With such a small amount under management and lousy returns it seems like he would need to charge even more to keep the lights on.
They definitely don't seem to need to worry about being charged that 17% haircut.
 
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I can't believe I actually started to read this... my god, this guy urgently needs some help!

I particularly like the long list of links of BEV competition. It's actually useful to see all of them next to each other.

In another thread, somebody here made some estimates of kWh of batteries shipped in BEV's. The takeaway being that Tesla is shipping >>50% of all industry kWh in BEVs. I find that the best metric for understanding market share in battery electric vehicles, as well as understanding where real competition is coming from. GM and Nissan are so far back its silly.

kWh is way better than units when tracking the Tesla Moat, and for understanding the size of the battery supply available to build and ship cars.

The mistake made with all the links, is to somehow approximate everybody with a BEV as being roughly equal. From that point of view, Tesla as 1 of many dozens is clearly a small minority that is off to a fast start but is doomed to be overwhelmed when all of those options are available.

When you size them based on actual delivered units (good) or kWh (better), you suddenly realize that quarterly shipments are Tesla > everybody-else-combined (and its not close). The only company sized to complete, today, with Tesla, is Tesla. The size of the projects to build battery scale that will compete with Tesla will also be visible and we'll see it coming. Until we see it coming in the form of companies making big commitments, all of the riffraff are going to stay just that - ankle biters swarming around Tesla's feet.
 
there is podcast on youtube from few days ago i didn't listen to it, because it is two hours long. but in description it says that 20% of his portfolio is short Tesla (by means of shorting stock and selling calls). So in total position size is about 1,2 million. If his fund size is 6 million like it was posted here before.