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

[bkp_duke]

Related to the lul that we are in regarding share price:
Tesla's (TSLA) silent execution this Q4 bodes well for Elon Musk's 500K target

Nothing new that hasn't been covered already in bits and pieces in this thread, but decent aggregation. The "silent execution" is probably relevant to the decreased volatility seen in the past month or so in the share price.

Most salient point is 2nd to last paragraph:
The silence surrounding Tesla these days suggests that the company is actively executing its plans without rippling the waters that much. It also shows that the company has reached a point where it is no longer making as many mistakes as it learns its lessons. Instead, it is now putting all those learnings to work as it aims to reach even higher and more ambitious targets.


If this is the market mindset, we might not see much share price change until Tesla blows out Q4 deliveries and earnings.

 

[Causalien]

We know the shorts want to drop the price, but for those not out to short the stock, what is the point of this? Is it to keep the price within a certain range so that they can buy up shares in anticipation of S&P inclusion? Keep price around max pain for max profitability for the day traders?

It's great. The information discrepancy we enjoy here is unparalleled. Great time to buy leaps.
I did hold back on my buys a bit because of Elon's Rona. Will finish after 2 weeks of all clear.

 

[SOULPEDL]

I love your belief in your imagination, as well as your ability to imagine. I tried to imagine an argument. I first thought I could use the super chargers build out to show Tesla was catering to the vehicle owner... and even my imagination quickly saw superchargers as needed more by the robotaxi fleet than by the private tesla owner.
So perhaps you will be correct.
(Earmark your post and bring it up in 2030.)

Actually, not my idea. The thought was planted in my head last week from "Now You Know" YouTube guys. I've been trying to shoot it down but no luck. The timeline is the only question IMHO.

Furthermore, FSD likely moves from expensive (if you actually own a Tesla in advance) to unobtainable without already owning a vehicle. The surprise could be that Elon's $100K estimated value won't be required for Tesla FSD - it will be the value on the used market from anyone willing to cash in and go without vehicle ownership. Why would Tesla sell you the car that can make more cash-flow driving around and displacing even more ICE vehicles. This is not imagination, it's inevitable.

To paraphrase the YouTube guys, statements made on BD by Elon included the word "People" when he was talking about NOT having the car connected to the home/grid in your garage making money. Take the word people out, and it all makes sense. A big aha for me anyway.

For day traders, this means you could miss out... again. An announcement like that and it's already too late. Original vehicle owners will be quite fortunate I think. For example, I still have free entertainment services on our Model 3 - they seriously take care of early adopters from my experience. Maybe I should go for a Model Y and Cybertruck. I have wasted very little on our Model 3 as it's holding value extremely well after nearly 3 years now (last I read was 10% avg annual depreciation but I don't know latest figures). I do think the dep curve will get impacted some by the many increased range numbers coming out now. But image if you can't buy one anymore.

If I'm correct, the best time to buy any Tesla is right now. Maybe with Tabless batteries if we're lucky to own some... ever. Not far fetched!

 

[The Accountant]

The September European CO2 Emissions scores were published today.
You can find them here:
Market monitor: European passenger car registrations, January–September 2020 | International Council on Clean Transportation

Despite Tesla's large Q3 European registrations, the FCA-Tesla-Honda pool hardly improved vs June's numbers. I am not sure if this is due to large ICE registrations by FCA or due to Honda joining the pool (or both). I believe this is bullish for Tesla as FCA/Honda are in need of Tesla's zero-emission registrations in Q4.

 

[juanmedina]

I'd say Smart money moves in before Jan, if expectations for solid Q4 are in the works. However post Covid Stocks are too easy to pass up. TSLA might trade sideways till like 2nd week of Dec though.

If things go lower, I will trade another 2-3 hundred shares for Jan 23 LEAPS.

What strikes are you guys getting? I got a Jan 23 $450 and September 22 $450 last week.

 

[elasalle]

What strikes are you guys getting? I got a Jan 23 $450 and September 22 $450 last week.

I am getting 440, 450's.

 

[capster]

Well, I'm out of the biz, having retired ten years ago now. But my experience is that big-M Methodologies come and go. And it was always a surprise to me just how little really changed. Perhaps Agile development is different, but every Methodology I ever saw was pretty much a way to try to avoid needing great programmers to produce great software. In the end though, no Methodology ever produced great software from a team of mediocrities.

Tesla, to veer back on topic, does not hesitate to hire great people. But most companies find them too hard to manage and would rather have people who do as they're told. People who do as they're told do better with a Methodology. And they never produce anything great.

And yeah, I'm sure there are exceptions. There always are.

Agile has value in the right context in my experience.

For example, if you are assembling an iOS app from Apple frameworks using Swift (which is by the way a wonderful language to work with). However, this is often mainly assembling prepackaged functionality in well worn ways.

Conversely, if you were writing the secret sauce of a system using neural networks or to do image processing or such, Agile most likely is not the way to go (nor would Swift be at least the last time I used it).

This view of things is why I found the appointment of Chris Lattner - Wikipedia VP of Autopilot at Tesla a bit perplexing and was not surprised he didn’t last. Even if he had been made, say VP of software for the UI or some such, I was skeptical that he was a match for Tesla. Was he going to switch them to Swift?

 

[SOULPEDL]

If this is the market mindset, we might not see much share price change until Tesla blows out Q4 deliveries and earnings.

Holidays are coming, again. A solid 2-bagger last season for us. This time, FSD on wide release could trigger it again (coupled with a healthy volumes beat + more about the future).

Guess what? It's that time of year when Thanksgiving discussions and demos will be happening everywhere. And now we have about double the # of Model 3s in the wild compared to last season, globally as well. It will become the alternate conversation to politics, (and likely right back into it again sadly).

$600 SP by Jan 1st. is a solid doubling again this time. Been here too long, pressure is building!

 

[corduroy]

What strikes are you guys getting? I got a Jan 23 $450 and September 22 $450 last week.

I got a 400, planning to add another this week.

 

[Oil4AsphaultOnly]

"Will Cathie Wood lose control of Ark Invest?" | Chicken Genius Singapore (1 hr ago)

I saw Tom Nash's take on this, and I agree with him. This was nothing more than a threat to try to solve the redistribution exclusivity agreement that Resolute has with ARK investment funds. Resolute doesn't want control, and Cathie doesn't want to be locked into Resolute's existing contract. They'll resolve this somehow, with Cathie still in control and Resolute still being the exclusive redistributor ... for the short-term.

 

[Oil4AsphaultOnly]

Probably already talked about Friday - Uber selling its self-drive unit (to focus on their flying taxis?) Lol.

I'm getting a funny feeling that we won't be able to buy Tesla's fairly soon if FSD keeps it up. The logic is pretty simple: If the goal is to replace as many ICE as FAST as possible, then selling me a Model Y just in case I need to get dirt at home depot is a waste of batteries. Soon, WE will be limiting this migration process - a parked Tesla is a waste of energy and time. Even if using the TN, users will have lots of off-grid time that impacts total EV miles possible as a percent. Therefore, I believe there is a date when sales will discontinue and Tesla engages their own fleet. We'll cash in if we want, or just be more spoiled with our own vehicles in 2030 still.

So I'm still on the fence for a Model Y until my CyberTruck is done. Jan 20th could be our decision day. But will we actually get to own CyberTruck in 2022? I think the cutoff date is within that time frame on all Tesla vehicles.

Disagree, since it's not capital efficient (Tesla has to use their own capital to contribute their cars into the robotaxi network). Selling you the model Y, and then having you allow it to be used as a robotaxi during "off-hours" (even if you didn't buy FSD), would be more capital efficient, with the added benefit of being resource efficient (vehicle in use, while you're not using it). Different people have different comfort levels, so obviously not everyone would permit their tesla's onto the robotaxi network, but a 25% participation rate would still mean 800k robotaxis globally by 2022.

 

[Prunesquallor]

The September European CO2 Emissions scores were published today.
You can find them here:
Market monitor: European passenger car registrations, January–September 2020 | International Council on Clean Transportation

Despite Tesla's large Q3 European registrations, the FCA-Tesla-Honda pool hardly improved vs June's numbers. I am not sure if this is due to large ICE registrations by FCA or due to Honda joining the pool (or both). I believe this is bullish for Tesla as FCA/Honda are in need of Tesla's zero-emission registrations in Q4.
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I wonder how many more hyphens will be added to that pool name...

 

[AudubonB]

I wonder how many more hyphens will be added to that pool name...

Wait. Are these still being made in Europe?

 

[Nocturnal]

Bought more @ $407 to relieve the boredom

If you do that too much you will go blind.


I did the same though.

 

[ggr]

I wonder how many more hyphens will be added to that pool name...

If I was doing FCA's negotiations, I'd have made sure that I got all the credits I could eat before anyone else. At current numbers I don't think there will be many left over for Honda (after FCA/PSA merger to form Stellantis) so I'm not sure they'll add anyone else.

 

[AudubonB]

@The Accountant gets the Quickest on the Draw award for the day.

 

[CyberDutchie]

I agree with the IV, now's the time to buy calls. I did OK out of my Oct/Nov, so can't complain, but now I cannot risk converting shares to LEAPS as I need some liquidity for the house purchase, hence I want IV to go up to sell calls, not buy.

I still have plenty of DITM June 2022's, don't worry.

If we deliver >500k for 2020 and forecast 100% growth then I think we'll see things move up a bit, but January's some way off.

I don’t believe Tesla will forecast 100% growth. They learned their lesson the hard way, remember the amazing accomplishment of 2015 when Tesla had a massive quarter, yet, stock disappointed because the number came in just a few thousand under what Elon had forecasted? This is when he stated on the earnings call: we are guiding to over-achievable delivery numbers because ‘a win should feel like a win’.

My bet is that they will give guidance of $800-$900M for 2021.

 

[jerry33]

Disagree, since it's not capital efficient (Tesla has to use their own capital to contribute their cars into the robotaxi network). Selling you the model Y, and then having you allow it to be used as a robotaxi during "off-hours" (even if you didn't buy FSD), would be more capital efficient, with the added benefit of being resource efficient (vehicle in use, while you're not using it). Different people have different comfort levels, so obviously not everyone would permit their tesla's onto the robotaxi network, but a 25% participation rate would still mean 800k robotaxis globally by 2022.

My opinion is that the main advantage individual owners using their Teslas as RoboTaxis is where the cars are located. (e.g. all over the place) This has the potential of being able to pick someone up within a very short time period (as opposed to Uber which sometimes never comes at all). Any centrally located facility means the pickup time is typically the distance between the facility and you, although sometimes you can get lucky and the car will be close by. Anyway, what I recall from Investor Day was that Tesla would only supplement individual ownership of RTs to fill gaps.

 

[Nocturnal]

My opinion is that the main advantage individual owners using their Teslas as RoboTaxis is where the cars are located. (e.g. all over the place) This has the potential of being able to pick someone up within a very short time period (as opposed to Uber which sometimes never comes at all). Any centrally located facility means the pickup time is typically the distance between the facility and you, although sometimes you can get lucky and the car will be close by. Anyway, what I recall from Investor Day was that Tesla would only supplement individual ownership of RTs to fill gaps.

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that the map of RTs owned by individuals will overlap quite well with the map of people wanting rides. People tend to live where other people live after all.

 

[EVortex]

I think a rebranding should also be done, whatever they end up doing.

WoodTradingFunds has a nice ring to it. It’s will definitely send the right message to the old guard.

I can imagine the 2030s news titles:” Cathy Woods and her WTFs have been the most profitable funds of the last decades”

Hopefully Cathie does not have a non-compete. That would make me feel much better.