Talking with 50-100x TSLA investors...

[DaveT]

Just wanted to put out a feeler out there.

I'm interested in talking with people who've made 50-100x off of their TSLA investments of at least $100k beginning principal. I think it would be super helpful for many people to hear what these folks were thinking, what they're investment approach/philosophies were, the challenges, dealing with emotions, and goals. It would be a great case study that we could hand down to another generation of investors.

So I've got a few options for this.

If you (or someone you know) has done a 50-100x with TSLA but that person does not want to be public with their name/face, then I could do a private interview with that person and put together a compilation (pdf or book) of various people's stories and insights.

If the person is fine with being public (ie., I did this interview with @TSLAopt: video interview), then I think it would probably be even more helpful to people since the story could be shared publicly via video and with numbers. I could interview and the goal isn't to show off gains, but rather try to dig deeper into insights, lessons and challenges.

Again, this is about trying to create a timeless resource of investing that can help more than just a few of us.

Let me know your feedback!

Thanks.

 

[mickificki]

Just wanted to put out a feeler out there.

I'm interested in talking with people who've made 50-100x off of their TSLA investments of at least $100k beginning principal. I think it would be super helpful for many people to hear what these folks were thinking, what they're investment approach/philosophies were, the challenges, dealing with emotions, and goals. It would be a great case study that we could hand down to another generation of investors.

So I've got a few options for this.

If you (or someone you know) has done a 50-100x with TSLA but that person does not want to be public with their name/face, then I could do a private interview with that person and put together a compilation (pdf or book) of various people's stories and insights.

If the person is fine with being public (ie., I did this interview with @TSLAopt: video interview), then I think it would probably be even more helpful to people since the story could be shared publicly via video and with numbers. I could interview and the goal isn't to show off gains, but rather try to dig deeper into insights, lessons and challenges.

Again, this is about trying to create a timeless resource of investing that can help more than just a few of us.

Let me know your feedback!

Thanks.

Fantastic idea Dave. Can't wait to read it.

 

[Xepa777]

Why the arbitrary $100k minimum? I invested $12k in Tesla after my first year out of college when it was $55, which was over half my investment portfolio. Shouldn't the criteria be about having such strong conviction to put a high % of your savings in and riding it through much of Tesla's journey? And how that might affect the opportunity cost of what you could spend that money on otherwise (rent, social life, etc.). Because lots of TMC members here would fit that criteria.

Or does 50x-100x with $100k minimum just for the Youtube views?

 

[Johann Koeber]

Personally I do not quite qualify.

A client of mine went from 280,000 Euro to 9,000 Euro about a year ago. He called this week that he had just exceeded 1 Mio Euro.

I will be happy to translate if both he and you are interested in doing an interview.

 

[Mikeb]

This is a great idea Dave .I invested 20k @ $28 a share pretty proud of that. Many people thought I was crazy. Still holding today thanks to this forum. I remember some of the Originals —main reason for holding through some of the tough times. Can’t remember them all but will try and list. A few
Dave t
Sleepyhead...I think he got way into solar
Citizen t
Disco ducky
Flux cap
I know I’m missing one guy that made a million I think in 2012-13 with options....I think he was kicked off for comments made..

 

[pz1975]

This is a great idea Dave .I invested 20k @ $28 a share pretty proud of that. Many people thought I was crazy. Still holding today thanks to this forum. I remember some of the Originals —main reason for holding through some of the tough times. Can’t remember them all but will try and list. A few
Dave t
Sleepyhead...I think he got way into solar
Citizen t
Disco ducky
Flux cap
I know I’m missing one guy that made a million I think in 2012-13 with options....I think he was kicked off for comments made..

kevin99

 

[pz1975]

In a way, a 50-100x investor may be actually worse off than someone with lower returns. What I mean is if someone invested x back in 2011 or whatever and never added to their investment over the years, then then those shares will be at 50x or 100x. However, if someone kept adding more and more to their TSLA holdings over the years then they may be “only” at 10-15x but the actual magnitude of their profit would be much higher.

I know this from experience - my first shares bought at $33 are at 90x but they are a very small % of my total holdings today, which overall are more like 15x or so.

 

[Mikeb]

kevin99

Yes kevin99. Thank you! Glad u didn’t say to 007. Not a fan of him but he’s probably made a lot more money then I have.

 

[DaveT]

Why the arbitrary $100k minimum? I invested $12k in Tesla after my first year out of college when it was $55, which was over half my investment portfolio. Shouldn't the criteria be about having such strong conviction to put a high % of your savings in and riding it through much of Tesla's journey? And how that might affect the opportunity cost of what you could spend that money on otherwise (rent, social life, etc.). Because lots of TMC members here would fit that criteria.

The $100k minimum is rather arbitrary. It's more a criteria to filter out and try to find those who people significant assets into TSLA early on and held on until now. But I'm flexible. It could be less.

Curious, are you holding on to all your shares purchased when it was $55?

 

[Xepa777]

The $100k minimum is rather arbitrary. It's more a criteria to filter out and try to find those who people significant assets into TSLA early on and held on until now. But I'm flexible. It could be less.

Curious, are you holding on to all your shares purchased when it was $55?

I had to sell half in 2015 when I got into Wharton for my MBA (first gen college student, so no family money). But been adding since, even down to the $190 dip. It's what pz1975 said, I've kept adding shares so my account balance doesn't show a 50x. I've instead kept telling my friends that I've been buying through the run-up to $500, $1000, etc. and when my friends said "it's brave you're still buying at these levels" I was like "naw, it's a great deal when you look at the 2030 perspective."

Learned some great lessons along the way. Wharton screwed me up with diversification, so while I never sold Tesla shares, I added to other stonks and Tesla became like 40% of my holdings. When the price got down to the $200, I wanted to sell everything (like Steven Mark Ryan) and go all-in on Tesla, but I was like "what was the point of my $200k ivy league education if I did that?" lol and didn't. Just bought some symbolic shares at $210 and $190 to represent the absurdity of that price. Eventually snapped out of it during the Q2 2019 earnings and just went 80%+ into Tesla.

I'm not a Tesla maximalist anymore. It's considered the "safe" part of my portfolio (it's still like 60% though). Invested $200k in SpaceX this year via Sharespost. I've gotten into angel investing, and put a pretty big chunk into battery recycling. Also going pretty hard into crypto right now. Those are my riskier plays (which would have a higher return than Tesla if they hit), but Tesla is effectively my S&P500.

 

[adiggs]

It's considered the "safe" part of my portfolio

I've been having conversations with financial planners the last 6 months. Of course they're all recommending locking in gains and diversifying.

I have the same view as you though - I consider TSLA and Tesla to be the safe part of my portfolio. It was even easy to hold through the beginning of the pandemic, as I was more worried about US government short term debt going into negative interest rate territory than TSLA.

It's still the safe part of the portfolio to me today and effectively the only thing in the portfolio besides cash (some real estate via REIT - it's sufficiently illiquid that I forget about that most of the time ). Anytime I start thinking about something else besides TSLA, I'm left thinking I'm selling a good investment, to buy a lesser investment.

If I did reduce the TSLA holding, it would most likely be into an ARK fund (and not ARKK - I have enough TSLA exposure). Something in bio tech / genomics; too much research for me to find a mission driven company out to change the world for the better, but maybe Ark will handle that for me. The fundamental observation that innovation is undervalue - THAT I buy.

Or maybe I'll have more time for that research when I have all that time back after earning a paycheck all these years...

 

[fdutra1]

Just wanted to put out a feeler out there.

I'm interested in talking with people who've made 50-100x off of their TSLA investments of at least $100k beginning principal. I think it would be super helpful for many people to hear what these folks were thinking, what they're investment approach/philosophies were, the challenges, dealing with emotions, and goals. It would be a great case study that we could hand down to another generation of investors.

So I've got a few options for this.

If you (or someone you know) has done a 50-100x with TSLA but that person does not want to be public with their name/face, then I could do a private interview with that person and put together a compilation (pdf or book) of various people's stories and insights.

If the person is fine with being public (ie., I did this interview with @TSLAopt: video interview), then I think it would probably be even more helpful to people since the story could be shared publicly via video and with numbers. I could interview and the goal isn't to show off gains, but rather try to dig deeper into insights, lessons and challenges.

Again, this is about trying to create a timeless resource of investing that can help more than just a few of us.

Let me know your feedback!

Thanks.

I did over 1000x in 3 months but I only started with $255.00 so I don't meet your criteria I guess.

 

[daniel]

My shares are up 85x, but when I bought them Tesla's continued existence was far from certain and I did not put a significant amount of money into them. My bigger expression of trust was buying my Roadster, knowing that if the company failed there'd be no service for it. Hindsight: I wish I'd put an equal amount into TSLA stock as I spent on the car. But the car gave me six years of extreme driving pleasure. The shares don't do me any good unless and until I sell them.

 

[adiggs]

My shares are up 85x, but when I bought them Tesla's continued existence was far from certain and I did not put a significant amount of money into them. My bigger expression of trust was buying my Roadster, knowing that if the company failed there'd be no service for it. Hindsight: I wish I'd put an equal amount into TSLA stock as I spent on the car. But the car gave me six years of extreme driving pleasure. The shares don't do me any good unless and until I sell them.

Buying a used Roadster a few months after buying my initial shares become an important component of my investment thesis. When I test drove Model S, one of the ideas I walked away with was that the product mattered, and Model S moved the goal posts into another stadium. Driving the Roadster daily for 4 or 5 years just reinforced that, every day I got into it, and every time I drove through a school zone and the kids were like "ooh!" (and random conversations with strangers in parking lots, and ...).

The daily reminder made it easy to ignore random bumps up and down in the share price. Including the more recent $350 to $170 move - just another bump where the only trouble holding was I still had the same number of shares are the bounce back (oops).

 

[dakh]

Hmm yea I think I'm maybe 40x and hard to tell because I kept not even buying more but just maintaining exposure via LEAPS which takes money to keep up unless you're successful in short-term timing the market.

 

[Zextraterrestrial]

I did over 1000x in 3 months but I only started with $255.00 so I don't meet your criteria I guess.

I broke 1M on paper gains but starting w/ essentially 0...put in about $5k but took out more than that in 2013 and 'diversified ' seems about 0.5% now. Ave TSLA share price of something like -$50 per my calcs... never invested before.
selling high and buying on dips does not always work on TSLA though to anyone that thinks it will...2013 stuff should never have been sold
'12 S made me a believer...and race car driver...2020 3P made me a real racer!

 

[hershey101]

@DaveT happy to talk about this more with you. Been here since '13 along with you at ~$33... But like @Xepa777 said, didn't have nearly enough money, so I think I bought ~$25k or so.

I've traded in-and-out of my position throughout the years though so you won't find a single purchase dates back to $33 in my account (also transferred over many accounts).

 

[LN1_Casey]

I've returned over 80x my initial investment, but that was only $24k, because I'm poor and didn't have any investment savings before.

Though I consider myself more lucky than a wise investor, since I got in last year and just timed it very well.

 

[Ocelot]

This is a great idea Dave .I invested 20k @ $28 a share pretty proud of that. Many people thought I was crazy. Still holding today thanks to this forum. I remember some of the Originals —main reason for holding through some of the tough times. Can’t remember them all but will try and list. A few
Dave t
Sleepyhead...I think he got way into solar
Citizen t
Disco ducky
Flux cap
I know I’m missing one guy that made a million I think in 2012-13 with options....I think he was kicked off for comments made..

It would be great to get an update on any of these folks. As well as kevin99 and neroden. Did they hold? Sell?

 

[LN1_Casey]

I've returned over 80x my initial investment, but that was only $24k, because I'm poor and didn't have any investment savings before.

Though I consider myself more lucky than a wise investor, since I got in last year and just timed it very well.

wait, maybe i didn’t. maybe my math is off and it’s 8x? Dunno, my self built excel calculator for my profits says 800%. Is that 8 or 80?

Just ignore me then.