Stanphyl Capital and Mark Spiegel

[bhzmark]

Stanphyl Capital: Tesla's Stock Kept Levitating

Recent Form D/A shows private fund started in 2011 at less than $7m today in total amount raised from outside.
He said earlier that he will cap his 2011 fund at $50 million – maybe different fund, but probably not.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1520190/000152019017000001/xslFormDX01/primary_doc.xml

https://www.marketsmedia.com/emerging-manager-happy-stay-small/

He may have his own SEC problems with his pathetic performance and a letter written by a crazy person with false and misleading information to his investors -- both of them.

 

[Gwgan]

A professional trader making trades based on (irrelevant and/or fake) negative news should send any investor running.

 

[Reality]

Are you implying that losing money on investments could cause him to be investigated by the SEC?

 

[bhzmark]

Are you implying that losing money on investments could cause him to be investigated by the SEC?

When investors are losing their money on their investment, like both of the investors in the whopping $6 million Stanphyl Capital investment they have calculable damages and thus an incentive to seek recovery of their losses or rescission of their investment.

When investors are making money on their investment, like for instance investors in TSLA, plaintiffs attorneys and the SEC have a hard time with that damages and remedy elements of a claim. The SEC generally won't bother looking at issuers when there is no loss to investors for obvious reasons.

Shorts of both Amazon, Tesla and similar, who think they are making a clever point by continually pointing out GAAP loses are revealing the shallowness of their investing intellect.

 

[tander]

Somebody please write that guy a polite/respectful letter and explain why tsla is probably not a good long-term short. He might still dig himself out of the hole if he just reversed his position.

iirc the main thesis is that there will be competition that will therefore cause Tesla sales to go to zero. In basketball terms that's kind of like saying that Steph Curry will suddenly be unable to play professional basketball just because the older players have been working on their 3 pointers.

 

[jlund]

The thesis changes.

Given enough runway, Tesla will likely become a giant and generate massive amounts of revenue to justify their share value. They're trying to stop that momentum right now, not speculate on the future.

Once Tesla start reporting a profit and are in mass production, the thesis will hone in on “I’m not wrong, they cheated!” This is the fraud push that’s already in play.

And after that, then I predict all focus will be on Full Self Driving. It’s already criticized, obviously, but this coverage will ramp up next. Going from “the first FSD update isn’t FSD, was already late, and it will never fully happen” to “it happened too quickly and it’s extremely dangerous. One bad software update and mass amounts of people will die and stock will tank”.

Then we will all look back one day and see that transportation advancement has noticeably accelerated, and one single company can be contributed with providing such disruption.

Yes shorts, that’s me speculating and being a bull on a story stock.

 

[oneday]

The other thesis I’m sure they’ll be clamoring on about again soon: demand. Once Tesla gets through the 400,000 there will be no one to sell the car to. I guarantee that will be harped on daily come the end of this year beginning of next.

 

[Curt Renz]

The other thesis I’m sure they’ll be clamoring on about again soon: demand. Once Tesla gets through the 400,000 there will be no one to sell the car to. I guarantee that will be harped on daily come the end of this year beginning of next.

Once a significant number of people are able to test drive their friends' Model 3's and become envious, demand will likely know no bounds.

 

[bhzmark]

Plenty of threads to share the merits and demerits of short seller thesis in general.

This is about Mark Spiegel and his whopping 6 million fund run out of his apartment.

My point is that this guy is not even a has-been who lost all his money -- He is a never-was. -- a phony who never had any real fund of any significance. He's basically just a Twitter account.

 

[neroden]

The thesis changes.

Given enough runway, Tesla will likely become a giant and generate massive amounts of revenue to justify their share value. They're trying to stop that momentum right now, not speculate on the future.

Once Tesla start reporting a profit and are in mass production, the thesis will hone in on “I’m not wrong, they cheated!” This is the fraud push that’s already in play.

And after that, then I predict all focus will be on Full Self Driving. It’s already criticized, obviously, but this coverage will ramp up next. Going from “the first FSD update isn’t FSD, was already late, and it will never fully happen” to “it happened too quickly and it’s extremely dangerous. One bad software update and mass amounts of people will die and stock will tank”.

Then we will all look back one day and see that transportation advancement has noticeably accelerated, and one single company can be contributed with providing such disruption.

Yes shorts, that’s me speculating and being a bull on a story stock.

I mostly agree, but...

I do think there's been severe overpromising with "full self driving". It's much, much harder than Elon thinks it is. He's just never lived in a sufficiently rural area to understand the problems in a crazy rural environment. I'd think he'd understand the problems in a crazy urban environment, but he doesn't seem to understand those either. It would be better if he backed off and promised full self-driving in a more restricted environment (like "onramp to offramp"), which is much more feasible in the near future.

Could I get a refund on an FSD deposit if it doesn't self-drive on the grass at the drive-in movie theater, or doesn't manage to park itself in a super-cramped San Francisco townhouse garage with a 20% slope on the approach, or isn't smart enough to avoid the leach field when driving across my friend's lawn to park on the grass at his party, or can't figure out how to drive around the double-parked moving vans which are obstructing visibility? FULL self-driving, right? ;-) So I should get a refund if it can't handle all of these completely ridiculous situations with no driver assistance?

That said, I think at worst Tesla will refund the FSD deposits, maybe with interest, and that'll be that. Apparently uptake on those is low, according to last report, so it won't be that much.

 

[bhzmark]

He still has enough money to pay for his WSJ online subscription.

First Test Drive of the Tesla Model 3 Performance: A Thrilling, Modern Marvel

 

[EinSV]

One interesting factoid about Spiegel is that David Rocker, a famous short hedge fund manager, has said that he both shorted Tesla on his own and also has invested in Spiegel's fund. https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/b15130kn8zz0x7/elon-musk-versus-the-haters

While Rocker is "retired" and no longer runs a hedge fund, he is certainly capable of calling his broker and shorting Tesla, which he has in fact done.

So why "invest" in Stanphyl and pay management fees (usually very high for hedge funds) except as a way to funnel cash to Spiegel via management fees to pay for his Twitter ravings, occasional presentation at events like the Robin Hood conference, etc.

I wonder what percentage of Spiegel's micro-fund is from people affiliated with hedge funds who are short Tesla or ICE interests who want Tesla to fail and are "investing" in Stanphyl to support Spiegel's FUD campaign.

 

[scaesare]

He still has enough money to pay for his WSJ online subscription.

View attachment 318374
View attachment 318375

First Test Drive of the Tesla Model 3 Performance: A Thrilling, Modern Marvel

And the "losing money on each S & X made" narrative continues I see... he chooses his wording carefully so that's not actually what he says.. but given it's a follow-on comparison in that paragraph, that's what he's trying to get folks to believe.

 

[slaven0]

Are you implying that losing money on investments could cause him to be investigated by the SEC?

Organizing and taking part in a Bear Raid is a Securities Fraud. Montana got doxxed and deleted the evidence, but many acc's still active: @EnronCapital, @Dope007, @IsTeslaWorth0, @Bar2lucci, @Shrekenomics, @RattMusk, @ElonsPromises, @TeslaCharts, @BlondesE, @ContrarianShort, @skabooshka, @omniamea, @TitoElBandito, @xenomorpher1, @StockPriceBro, @Pivotal_Capital, @TezzlaCFO, @painfulshort, @ValueDissenter, @flufferbot01(future hope)....

 

[slaven0]

can't edit, but.. just an example

 

[bhzmark]

Bear Raid is a Securities Fraud.

some relevant background:

FindLaw's California Court of Appeal case and opinions.

https://www.sec.gov/rules/petitions/2017/petn4-712.pdf

15 U.S. Code § 78i - Manipulation of security prices

And see the author of this: The so-called Trump of Georgia is on a wild crusade against Wall Street short sellers

 

[FirebirdAlpha]

I cannot believe the mods are allowing these witch hunts to continue.

Tesla's success and failure will be decided solely by their own ability to execute.

It's really shows cowardice that a group of anonymous online forum posters feel empowered to go after a guy who's putting his reputation on the line.

Do you think Tesla will win? Yes? Then let Mark Spiegel fade to the oblivion of failure.

Tesla is already at a massive 50B+ market cap, on par with Ford and GM who make way, way more cars. The idea that "short sellers are conspiring to take down Tesla" is pure insanity and should be called out as such.

If they are conspiring, they really suck at it - stock has been hovering between 290-370, for a long, long time now.

 

[Boomer19]

some relevant background:

And see the author of this: The so-called Trump of Georgia is on a wild crusade against Wall Street short sellers

aww our favorite “journalist”

 

[Mario Kadastik]

I cannot believe the mods are allowing these witch hunts to continue.

Tesla's success and failure will be decided solely by their own ability to execute.

It's really shows cowardice that a group of anonymous online forum posters feel empowered to go after a guy who's putting his reputation on the line.

Do you think Tesla will win? Yes? Then let Mark Spiegel fade to the oblivion of failure.

Tesla is already at a massive 50B+ market cap, on par with Ford and GM who make way, way more cars. The idea that "short sellers are conspiring to take down Tesla" is pure insanity and should be called out as such.

If they are conspiring, they really suck at it - stock has been hovering between 290-370, for a long, long time now.

As DaveT posted in his megathread car purchases these days are actually steered by public opinion a lot. This means that this hate campaign will have an impact at one point or another on Teslas customer base and therefore demand. Right now it's relatively little risk as there's a ton of backorders, but its something that needs to be addressed. You cannot just let the smearing campaign go on without any recourse action and it seems that slander is of no concern in the twitter world as I doubt any authority would actually start to investigate if we all reported the tweets by the shorts. At the very least we'd first need to determine the actual people behind the accounts and show motive for slander as well to have even a barest hint of a hope to get someone to act on it...

 

[replicant]

Tesla is already at a massive 50B+ market cap, on par with Ford and GM who make way, way more cars. The idea that "short sellers are conspiring to take down Tesla" is pure insanity and should be called out as such.

How many trillions does the global fossil fuel industry represent in terms of market cap (or by any comparable measure if these organization aren't quoted on the stock market, eg Saudi Amarco)?
How does that compare to TSLA market cap?
What % of this wealth could an industry spend in PR, short selling or any other initiatives to try to kill/interfere with the only company fully invested in EV (in order to delay the transition and, hopefully, save billions of $ in asset depreciation or unplanned investment)?