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

[StealthP3D]

nice Friday afterhours bounce View attachment 437138

I recommend stepping away from the microscope. Tesla has been trading around $230-$240 recently. Mentally, I find it useful to call this 23-24 bucks (per 1/10 share). Don't try to read too much into little day to day fluctuations, especially in low volume after-hours trading.

What I've seen is good buying demand in general, both leading into Q2 earnings release and after the announcement. Without any particularly good or bad news (macro or specific), I expect this to continue. I chalk this up to a general coming to terms that Tesla is not in danger of going bankrupt in the foreseeable future, their cars do not burn up at a worrisome rate, AutoPilot is currently a driver Assist feature, not FSD, the wheels are not mysteriously falling off, they make money on every car sold and Tesla is not shipping production to undisclosed secret lots to hide the fact that there is no demand.

 

[Right_Said_Fred]

I’m pre-emptively gonna kill the OT paint quality discussion before it really starts taking off. There are dedicated threads for this.

 

[schonelucht]

Standard Range gone in the Model S/X and now FUSC brought back. Perturbing echo’s from Q1.

 

[Fred42]

Standard Range gone in the Model S/X and now FUSC brought back. Perturbing echo’s from Q1.

I thought there was enough demand for Raven S/X to support good sales for a couple of quarters with production finally up to speed. Cutting the Standard Range suggested good demand. With the final end of the US tax credit, January seemed like potential timing for further steps to support demand, maybe one or two improvements. But now, wow.

An alternate explanation is that this is a step to address concerns about S/X features vs. the 3. Maybe they're not ready with 250 kw charging, and they thought this is a step they can take in the meantime, and maybe S/X sales are reasonably OK.

 

[schonelucht]

I don't know what to think about continued S/X demand. On the one hand there is some Raven availability in Europe, but it doesn't seem flat out. That perpetually leaves a possibility of a sudden peak of catch-up deliveries. Hope spring eternal, but it really, really should happen this quarter.

 

[Fact Checking]

Both sides are right - Tesla will likely continue to find opportunities to reinvest above and beyond the value of returning capital to shareholders for the forseeable future. However, thinking of the future (think 100+ years) owner of our shares, whether they be our heirs on Mars or the people we sold our TSLA stock to, they will want those dividends after Tesla has less attractive internal investment opportunities.

There's another aspect I haven't seen mentioned: shareholders own the company legally, including future cash flows, and if enough shares get concentrated in the hands of a single entity then they can control the company and its cash flow decisions. (In the most extreme case a controlling owner can take the company private and force all shares to be converted to cash - without ever any dividends being paid.)

So it doesn't really matter whether future cash flows transfer wealth to shareholders in the form of dividends, stock buybacks or smart internal reinvestment that increases enterprise value - statistically we can assume that the company will try to make decisions that are going to maximize shareholder value over the long run.

This also means that the fractional, transferrable, standardized ownership contracts of a company traded on a public exchange (shares) are worth real money even if no dividend is ever paid.

 

[schonelucht]

Are we done now with theoretical dividend musings that have nothing specific to do with Tesla? Y'all are lucky I am not a mod because half of the posts in this thread would meet the delete key.

 

[Cobbler]

Are we done now with theoretical dividend musings that have nothing specific to do with Tesla? Y'all are lucky I am not a mod because half of the posts in this thread would meet the delete key.

Let's talk about S&P inclusion ...

/Runs away

 

[Carl Raymond]

Wow, it is amazing that all these companies are 100% valueless according to cliffski

S&P 500 Companies without Dividends

Feeling like another zealot needs to go on the ignore list.

Again, this confuses the payment of dividend with the concept of dividend. Without the existence of the concept of dividend (a reward collected without disposing of the share), those shares have no value. (Unless you buy a controlling interest, which severely limits the number of buyers).

 

[elasalle]

weekend timepass:

 

[kbM3]

weekend timepass:

Most interesting was the comment about a Mitsubishi employee telling him frankly that it was impossible to catch up with Tesla because they have a five-year lead in battery technology, and even if they were open to be able to overcome that, they would still have the problem that they are five years behind in the software...

Wow!

 

[KarenRei]

Free supercharging has now been added to new Model S/X:

View attachment 437128

I saw that. I wonder if they're attaching it permanently to the car, or to the combination of car + owner. They've done both at various points in the past. The latter is cheaper for Tesla in the long run.

 

[Hock1]

Most interesting was the comment about a Mitsubishi employee telling him frankly that it was impossible to catch up with Tesla because they have a five-year lead in battery technology, and even if they were open to be able to overcome that, they would still have the problem that they are five years behind in the software...

Wow!

Everyone is so far behind, that it may be necessary start to thinking about helping them out (licensing aspects of Tesla technology), if the mission is to be accomplished. JMO.

 

[EVNow]

Most interesting was the comment about a Mitsubishi employee telling him frankly that it was impossible to catch up with Tesla because they have a five-year lead in battery technology, and even if they were open to be able to overcome that, they would still have the problem that they are five years behind in the software...

Wow!

Mitsu had an actually high selling plugin that they kept promising but delaying bringing to US. They brought it to US after 5 years delay ! In these 5 years, Mitsu went from 12 kWh to 13.8 kWh. Obviously it has flopped.

Anyone who says Tesla / Musk is late and bad at execution, should checkout Outlander PHEV.

 

[scaesare]

I'm starting to think that Model 3 packs simply cannot be burned.

テスカス on Twitter

I mean, any car can have an upholstery fire or whatnot. But if the pack doesn't ignite from damage like this, what does it take?

Intumescent Goo FTW!

 

[ggr]

I saw that. I wonder if they're attaching it permanently to the car, or to the combination of car + owner. They've done both at various points in the past. The latter is cheaper for Tesla in the long run.

Attaching it to the car+owner creates an interesting problem for Tesla. Basically, it reduces the resale value of the car, so it makes it more likely for the owner to keep the old one rather than upgrading. It seems that a lot of Tesla owners do trade up fairly frequently.

 

[Christine69420]

Anyone who says Tesla / Musk is late and bad at execution, should checkout Outlander PHEV.

It's actually quite popular in Norway - #6 so far in 2019.

#1 10 868 Tesla Model 3
#2 _6125 Volkswagen Golf

#6 _2977 Mitsubishi Outlander

These stats are EVs and fossils combined. I have only personally seen Outlander in PHEV config since they like EVs pay less taxes.


Source: Registreringsstatistikken – Opplysningsrådet for veitrafikken

 

[Green Pete]

weekend timepass:

Geohotz is the definition of someone with a lot of knowledge in one area and is unaware how little he knows about the rest of the pie.

 

[madodel]

Most people simply can't grasp this.

Other than dividends, the stock market has never actually created a penny of net wealth - it's just money trading hands. You buy a stock with the hopes that someone will later want to buy your pseudo shares - essentially vapor ware. So, indeed it is a ponzi scheme.

When we lose a lot on our investments I tell my wife "It's just on paper. It isn't real until we sell it." Apple has been really good to me and is the majority of my holdings. The quarterly dividends remind me why I hold AAPL since it is a cash generator. But I hold TSLA because someday I expect it to be worth way more than my AAPL shares. There is a time component in every asset. For some assets time is detrimental. Like for anyone planning to hold XOM or GM for the next 20-30 years. And for a stock like TSLA time will bring rewards assuming we or our heirs are around to collect on them and Tesla continues following its mission plan. But for now any stock is worth what someone will pay for it. It always boggles my mind that in a course of any hour the price of a stock can be headed up by multiple dollars and then sometimes even without any news go down by the same or even more. What makes it worth $200 one minute and $190 in a couple minutes. Supply and demand yes, but since people can manipulate the supply and demand it is crazy stuff.

 

[Prunesquallor]

Everyone is so far behind, that it may be necessary start to thinking about helping them out (licensing aspects of Tesla technology), if the mission is to be accomplished. JMO.

Part of me agrees, the other part says screw ‘em, let them go broke and take their customers. Their predicament is 100% self-inflicted.