Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the Perpetual Investors' Roundtable

[StealthP3D]

Love you too Sancho! But still, playing with fire on daily basis requires a certain level of attention (investing in TSLA), playing with dynamite (investing using TSLA options) is a level of attention at which I personally draw the line. There's a big difference between dealing with the risk of burning up my eyebrows and the risk of blowing my head off!

Maybe someone can explain this to me:

My Jan 2021 $690 calls are up over 2% today (to $17.50) while TSLA stock is down almost 0.5%. Conventional theory says time decay coupled with stock drop should have the options declining in value today. These only cost $0.90 each but have appreciated today more than half of their orignal cost! My theory is the market has priced in a small near-term correction in TSLA stock (which is why my 1/17/2020 $320 calls are down 1.8%) but believes TSLA will strongly outperform over 2020.

 

[LJS22]

TSLA sprinting to the closing bell haha

edit: 430 secured!

 

[Krugerrand]

...by changing your very relationship with money. By no longer being emotionally attached to money. By not putting money on a pedestal. That is how you get more of it. Ironic, eh?

I concur. That is true. Money is paper, metal or a bunch of zeros and ones. No more, no less.

Give it a healthy respect for what it can do for you; roof over your head, food on your table etc..., but don’t get caught up in it. Not healthy and a sure way to lead a stressful, fearful, miserable life. Balance is key.

Blah, blah, blah, Yoda, zen, yadda, yadda, yadda.

 

[Krugerrand]

Loup Ventures 2020 Predictions: Loup Ventures' 2020 Tech Predictions | Loup Ventures

Tesla Will Exceed Street Deliveries Estimate of 463k (by Gene Munster). With the addition of China Gigafactory, which just started producing Model 3, along with the release of Model Y in the fall, we believe the company can grow deliveries by 28% in 2020 compared to the overall auto industry that will likely be flat. We expect Tesla to increase deliveries quarter-over-quarter, giving credibility to the belief that the electric car theme is here today and opening up a vast addressable market — 97% of cars sold today are internal combustion. If our prediction is correct, shares of TSLA will continue to move higher. Tesla is a pure-play investment in the undeniable truth that the future of the automotive industry is both electric and autonomous. We expect Tesla to exit next year with above 60% US EV market share, compared to about 75% today. As a point of reference, in 2018 GM lead the overall US auto market with 17% share.

OMG, Gene. 83,000x4 dude. Read your damn memos.

 

[Lessmog]

Okay we have the following people signed up to buy one or more shares at $420.69.

Rammstein
Jo-
Unpilot
SW2Fiddler
shrspeedblade
keydriver
copyhacker
Don TLR
Calibear1
Lessmore
pnungesser
Dreadnought
Todesbuckler
dww12
EV forever
Queeg500
cohiba
anthonyj
InDaClub
bz51
pekap
Dysong1
winfield100
davecolene0606
Navin
Duffer
2virgule5
studiodb

Who else is going to join us?

Sorry, but I futzed out early -- clumsily placed the wrong kind of order (a simple buy) but also at the wrong price (410,69) so both orders filled immediately. While I still own those two shares, I can't claim fame for that historic point. But I still feel I made a contribution although hamfisted and backhanded.

And now I'm almost 1700 posts behind and the list is about to roll over to next year! Halp.

Olrajt, karry on. You guys did good this week.

 

[wipster]

Overall, not a bad 3 1/2 days!

 

[Krugerrand]

If so, they are practically obligated to include fine print at the bottom of the screen that says "Not-a-commercial"

Doesn’t the fine print have to say, Do not try this at home, professional driver, closed course....

 

[dakh]

I was thinking... If you're a big fund and you are desperate to show some profits by the end of the year.. You start buying up TSLA every day big time, you know you'll move the stock up, you keep doing it.. You got a nice tail wind from the shorts and momentum traders.. Dec 31 comes and you got a lot of up side on TSLA you bought earlier, and shorts helped you a lot with that... You close your year showing good profits and stop buying.. Maybe you got some protective puts along the way to make money on the back side of this when the stock starts going down.. Realistic scenario?

 

[carterm2]

a graph from Robinhood...

What do you expect to happen next...similar to Q1, Q2, or Q3?

 

[DaveT]

Amazing to see 4xx on the stock ticker when less than 7 months ago we were at 1xx.

 

[StealthP3D]

I was thinking... If you're a big fund and you are desperate to show some profits by the end of the year.. You start buying up TSLA every day big time, you know you'll move the stock up, you keep doing it.. You got a nice tail wind from the shorts and momentum traders.. Dec 31 comes and you got a lot of up side on TSLA you bought earlier, and shorts helped you a lot with that... You close your year showing good profits and stop buying.. Maybe you got some protective puts along the way to make money on the back side of this when the stock starts going down.. Realistic scenario?

You are greatly underestimating the amount of capital it would take to confidently pull that off consistently on a stock with volume as high as TSLA. If the stock wanted to move the other way - you're hosed.

 

[Cherry Wine]

Maybe someone can explain this to me:

My Jan 2021 $690 calls are up over 2% today (to $17.50) while TSLA stock is down almost 0.5%. Conventional theory says time decay coupled with stock drop should have the options declining in value today. These only cost $0.90 each but have appreciated today more than half of their orignal cost! My theory is the market has priced in a small near-term correction in TSLA stock (which is why my 1/17/2020 $320 calls are down 1.8%) but believes TSLA will strongly outperform over 2020.

IV is creeping up due to P&D report. Also, I noticed that calls are more expensive than puts right now (for obvious reasons).

 

[Yuri_G]

Amazing to see 4xx on the stock ticker when less than 7 months ago we were at 1xx.

Enjoying the Youtube vids, Dave. Keep cranking them out!

 

[Fact Checking]

You are greatly underestimating the amount of capital it would take to confidently pull that off consistently on a stock with volume as high as TSLA. If the stock wanted to move the other way - you're hosed.

We do suspect that Price T. Rowe's ~9 million TSLA shares exit at the end of 2018 is what probably dropped the price from $380 to below $300:

https://www.bizjournals.com/baltimo...ice-reduces-stake-in-tesla-by-48-percent.html​

and they probably bought a bunch of puts before that stunt, well beyond the size of their remaining stake.

In Q1 they sold the rest: there was a similar drop from $350 to $280 levels after Elon's leaked Q1 email.

 

[EVNow]

I was thinking... If you're a big fund and you are desperate to show some profits by the end of the year.. You start buying up TSLA every day big time, you know you'll move the stock up, you keep doing it.. You got a nice tail wind from the shorts and momentum traders.. Dec 31 comes and you got a lot of up side on TSLA you bought earlier, and shorts helped you a lot with that... You close your year showing good profits and stop buying.. Maybe you got some protective puts along the way to make money on the back side of this when the stock starts going down.. Realistic scenario?

If you have $500M daily to buy a million shares a day, yes. Still would be risky if the macros turn negative or if there is some kind of bad news.

 

[Fact Checking]

If you have $500M daily to buy a million shares a day, yes. Still would be risky if the macros turn negative or if there is some kind of bad news.

As the shorts have demonstrated, and @Papafox documented, you don't need to accumulate or short on a sustained basis, all you need is enough intraday trading power of 1-2 million shares, and an uncertain, volatile stock, to mark down the stock price in a visible fashion - and reducing that short position in less visible ways.

 

[MikeC]

Maybe someone can explain this to me:

My Jan 2021 $690 calls are up over 2% today (to $17.50) while TSLA stock is down almost 0.5%. Conventional theory says time decay coupled with stock drop should have the options declining in value today. These only cost $0.90 each but have appreciated today more than half of their orignal cost! My theory is the market has priced in a small near-term correction in TSLA stock (which is why my 1/17/2020 $320 calls are down 1.8%) but believes TSLA will strongly outperform over 2020.

I’m seeing a bid-ask of $15.05-$17.50 on those 690s.

On flat days, price changes in long-dated options with wide spreads can be misleading depending on how your brokerage reports the price.

If they, for example, listed the midpoint ~$16.25, that 2% gain you’re seeing would be a loss, instead. It’s just an artifact of wide bid-ask spreads.

 

[EVNow]

We do suspect that Price T. Rowe's ~9 million TSLA shares exit at the end of 2018 is what probably dropped the price from $380 to below $300:

There was a macro meltdown last December because of China trade fears.

 

[Fact Checking]

There was a macro meltdown last December because of China trade fears.

Yeah, although TSLA has out-dropped the Nasdaq by about a factor of 3.

 

[StealthP3D]

I’m seeing a bid-ask of $15.05-$17.50 on those 690s.

On flat days, price changes in long-dated options with wide spreads can be misleading depending on how your brokerage reports the price.

If they, for example, listed the midpoint ~$16.25, that 2% gain you’re seeing would be a loss, instead. It’s just an artifact of wide bid-ask spreads.

I believe they report it based on the last transaction (transactions were happening throughout the day). Now that the market is closed they are reporting $16.275 (down 2.98%). And the share price is higher at $430.38.

I met a self-employed guy a few months ago who made his living by trading mispriced options. Skimming small profits. Not for me.