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

[Green Pete]

Awesome video. You're kindly understating it but Wall Street had no clue what was happening with Tesla until it was obvious, and some still don't get it. People like Cathie Wood, she gets it. Cramer gets it. Too many do not.

Congrats on your awesome success!

Please don't lump Cathy in with cramer. Cramer got on the wagon very late in the game imo. I got in a twitter fight with some of his team not much more than a year ago where they were absurdly bearish on Tesla.

 

[ammulder]

What will soon complicate the issue is Tesla reporting significant jumps in production and deliveries in early January. If the price rises above the benchmarked $695 the active manager that does not hold TSLA or is underweight begins to lose alpha with the ominous thought of, "what if this continues higher".

I note all this as, to me, this is the biggest question mark remaining from the S&P inclusion event. My guess, and I noted it yesterday, is that we see some further price shenanigans early next week as active funds debate internally and some try to shape the price movement to their favor. High probability we have a lot of CNBC air time for Gordon and crew.

I think this is the double-edged sword. On the one hand, if TSLA naturally rises, any benchmark funds that don't own it are in trouble. On the other hand, if they can attack TSLA with "fires" or "demand" or "competition" or whatever at the very end of the quarter when the benchmark comparison is drawn, they might cause a minor dip in the S&P itself, making their fund look better in comparison.

Of course, Tesla is making those arguments harder and harder to sustain, but somehow, that hasn't yet denied air time to Gordon.

Actually, though, I really look forward to hearing how he contorts the facts into an argument for a demand problem and a company that's past their peak after Q4 results come out. It will take some real ingenuity, I expect. Bring it, Gordo!

 

[jerry33]

What if Tesla also licenses the skateboards to go under the other manufacturer's body styles?

It's been tried (Toyota and MB) but hasn't fared that well. The issue, as I understand it, is that other companies want a customized package and engineering insight into production.

 

[BabyBull]

Hello ladies [Insert smooth talker voice here]. That would be me, I usually lurk in the shadows but this time my big mouth got my story shared by Kimbal and liked by Musk. What a simulation.

Peace and Love y’all. Thanks for the nice comments. Over 1.4 million people saw that. I never shared anything with even my closest friends or family, much less the entire world. Needless to say it’s been a fun, and yeah a bit nerve racking week. I want to regret ever saying anything but I can’t deny it’s been a fun 15 minutes of fame.

Man, So many buthurt and dumbo comments in that twitter. Everybody is complaining about not having the initial 10k and living paycheck to paycheck yet have time to come to twitter and post junk. Also complaining that 10k cannot become 1 mil. So I pulled the trusty excel and did a 2k monthly DCA calculation and it comes out about 1 mil. If I add another 5k each on the two down days the total grows another 100k!!!

Its amazing how some people want to stay blind and complain about light!!! Or they have never understood exponential compounding? Any idiot can check the chart of amazon/aaple/microsoft/google/microsoft etc and catch that compounding growth!

 

[Nolimits]

Cramer has jumped on the bandwagon but did admit publicly that he was absolutely wrong about Tesla initially. Feel like he has made his peace w Tesla (some of his bearish ways appeared personal bc he keeps mentioning that EM called him a hologram) and now is a believer. Guess better late than never.

 

[jerry33]

Nope.

Elon explicitly said he expects to keep profits quite low, because that money better accelerates the mission going back into the company or making the products cheaper (and thus more available to more people).

Of course, Elon is referring to net profits, not gross profits (margin).

 

[Green Pete]

I'm curious if there is a point that people feel like would be good for Elon to step away from Tesla. I'd love to see him commiting more energy to neuralink and boring co. It seems like he built a pretty amazing company of people at Tesla. It would be nice to seem him step back just so that him getting hurt or something could no longer hurt the stock. And I say that not because of personal wealth but I think at this point Tesla stock incentives are a big reason Tesla isn't going to lose any top talent any time soon. IMO the only real apparent risk left to tesla is Elon getting hurt/sick and if negatively impacting sentiment towards the company. A peaceful planned transition where he stays on as advisory/board seems like it could do Tesla quite a bit of good at some point.

I say that because in my head Tesla is now a self sustaining innovator that is less reliant on him in a practical sense. But I obviously have no clue how true that is.

 

[Cape Coddess]

16 pages behind. I don't remember you guys posting this much on a weekend in a long time!

Does anyone know what the pre S&P announcement share price was? Was it around 408? How do you look that up?

 

[jbcarioca]

Careful of making absolute statements... Yet it did indeed enjoy many decades of growth thereafter, thus far exceeding a 100 times multiple...


View attachment 619368

Very serious edit: PLEASE take the above into consideration when you read any number of the regular posters to HOLD YOUR SHARES.

Not too many of us have been investors through multiple recessions and multiple usustainable booms. Those of us who have know the rules:

1. Choose your investments very carefully; it's often easy to mistake size and hype from fundamental value. Spectacularly, think Enron;
2. Once you choose ignore market fluctuations, but...
3. Because (2) is not possible, don't gloat when it's high, don't panic when it's low;
4. Obsess over fundamental changes. if those change for the worse, sell!
5. Remember those immortal words emblazoned on Douglas Adams' famous Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy cover: Don't Panic!
There are numerous lists of comparisons.
I have said a few times here that, having learned about derivatives from serious experts, there are only a handful of simple rules that nearly all ignore, including Nobel prize winners:
1. Stochastic models work within their boundary conditions and fail utterly outside them;
2. ALL models used to evaluate future events are inherently stochastic;
3. There are consistent winners in the world of securities trading. Those are market makers. Everyone else loses eventually because,
4. The derivatives markets and products are designed as Casino products-only the house wins long term.
5. having designed a few such profits in a past life I know I am not an expert, but, I also know that principle is correct and immutable.
6. Just as with casino products there are a few people who make their living with this products, usually by beating people whose judgement is even poorer than theirs.
As with items 1-6 there are many highly analytic people who disagree who build and defend various charts, models and 'metrics of value'.
FWIW- a colleague of mine makes a very nice living building model to predict horse races and evaluate individual horse values (he takes ZERO positions himself);

I know neither Audie nor I can convince anybody that prudence has value. OTOH, we are both older than the vast majority of people who invest in TSLA or anything else.

 

[Christine600]

16 pages behind. I don't remember you guys posting this much on a weekend in a long time!

Does anyone know what the pre S&P announcement share price was? Was it around 408? How do you look that up?

Closed $408 on November 16th then shot up to $461 after hours when the news from S&P came out.

 

[Highway2Heel]

16 pages behind. I don't remember you guys posting this much on a weekend in a long time!

Does anyone know what the pre S&P announcement share price was? Was it around 408? How do you look that up?

Tesla, Inc. (TSLA) Stock Historical Prices & Data - Yahoo Finance

 

[ammulder]

The current valuation of the company comes from actual profitable and growing execution on the automotive business, and the beginnings of profitable execution and growth on the energy business. It emphatically does not come from hopes of execution on a business that nobody has ever seen make money and nobody knows whether it can happen [FSD].

I can't entirely agree. Without software expertise (over-the-air updates, Autopilot, and FSD), Tesla would be much closer to a typical OEM. I mean, they could still excel at battery technology and powertrain efficiency and whatever, but what would margins look like without a bunch of people buying FSD and OTA acceleration boosts? If I remember right they're still carrying around like $700B of non-recognized software revenue, which means they've recognized at least that much, right? Most likely either the company would not have been consistently profitable over the last year and would not be in the S&P and would have missed $5B or $10B in secondary raises leaving them with a much weaker balance sheet and still vulnerable to financial bear attacks, or perhaps either Texas or Berlin would still be a pipe dream. Margin aside, what would it look like if a Cadillac could self-drive on most highways but a Tesla could not? What happens to word of mouth if you take away all the Tesla owners talking about how relaxing their drive has become with AP/FSD?

Bottom line, I would agreed that FSD is not "priced in," and absolutely robotaxis are not, but I don't agree that the current valuation would be anywhere near the same without the software expertise -- of which FSD is one of the most prominent examples -- and most importantly the company's position and valuation wouldn't be the same without that software-related margin boost (the majority of which I think is from FSD purchases).

 

[Prunesquallor]

Closed $408 on November 16th then shot up to $461 after hours when the news from S&P came out.

Brings up an interesting (perhaps philosophical) question. That represents a 70% SP increase from announcement to inclusion. Would that still have happened if the normal S&P announcement-to-inclusion time (a few days) had occurred? That would surely have been interpreted as an infinity squeeze. Or were the mechanics different?

 

[phantasms]

Well, good for you - let us know in another year how you fare - ths apparent success in calling tops and bottoms is very much the classical statistical fallacy: out of tons of Tweeters calling tops and bottoms, a few will appear to be right 90% of the time.
AND, unless you have access to proprietary data or even better have a way to move the markets with faked buy /sell orders posted and removed right before execution, you will NOT beat the algos.

In a rising market a lot of folks think of themselves as geniuses ... good thing Tesla is a long way before its flow ebbs, but this reminds me of MABMAB who had some success, and got help from Paydirt76 and his options thread .. then went on to *disparage* Paydirt76, who knows why .. Paydirt's (TSLA) Option Investing Guide.. I wonder what's going on in MABMAB's head .. well it reminds me to ignore him. O and I see he was already banned once .. it's thanks to people like him that we probably lost great members like nafnlaus etc

Re " Tesla investors" I have had a hard time stopping (couldn't, so just let it go) the couple friends whow I took pains to convince and invest part of their portfolio in TSLA. Can't blame them I went through that phase many years ago. But durn .. if you really want to "time TSLA" you have to have an in depth understanding and knowledge of technical analysis AND other forces ... all of which is graceully provided free of charge by PapaFox and Artful Dodger

I read from the people you mention above religiously and I love and miss nafnlaus. I also have high 6 figures in TSLA shares that I plan on holding for a decade or so. [sorry I only started in 2018] I sold zero shares Friday. Actually I always secretly hope for a crash so I can buy more. I am primarily a HODL however I have another account that I day trade in because it’s very easy money. I take the profits and buy more TSLA in my long term account. HODL is the way however it’s nice to make a grand, or two free shares, on a red day. If I had thousands of shares I’d just be trading options but I don’t so I’m left to just trade the stocks. I wish active traders weren’t so on around here. Many of us are doing it. And, frankly, to those who do nothing but HODL why are these people posting here 24/7? Love you all, just give us traders a break.

 

[2daMoon]

Sure, anything like that is possible, but that does not change the fact that castings with structural batteries cannot just be supplied by Tesla to other OEMs like they could with a skateboard, they will have to do a joint design which is harder and more time consuming.

And, what?

Do you feel Tesla is a company that shies away from hard and time consuming projects that ups the pace of the transition to sustainable energy?

 

[Prunesquallor]

And, what?

Do you feel Tesla is a company that shies away from hard and time consuming projects that ups the pace of the transition to sustainable energy?

I think Tesla/Musk would look at the business models of OEMs (obscene advertising budgets, dealership overhead, pension obligations, corrupt unions, lack of S/W talent) and conclude the mission could be accomplished more efficiently by building as many cars as possible themselves.

 

[Unpilot]

I would not think TSLA has any inherent floor or ceiling, simply because it's always been a momentum stock which trades on sentiment.

Everyone who isn't a TSLA shareholder likes to scream at the top of their lungs that the company currently sports a trailing P/E of 1,300 or thereabouts and there is no fundamentals analysis where the company is mathematically anything resembling a value stock or whatever it is that the Bogleheads and the acolytes of Benjamin Graham like to harp on. So TSLA's "fair value" is whatever the balance of buyers and sellers think it is today, and we all know from the last 10 years that this balance can shift very abruptly with dramatic results.

So I'll just pull a Morgan Stanley here and say the floor is probably $0 and the ceiling is probably infinity and I can reasonably expect that the SP will definitely be between zero and infinity for the next 50 years.

Hate to be a party pooper but .......Adam J ...you are not welcome here.

 

[Mike Ambler]

I often replay old trades, not to depress myself, or regret, but to try and make better choices the next time.

Me too (and the ones others made... like the $1 jan21 650s), but I just seem to end up regretful and depressed . Watched you make the 1400 buy, too!

There must be a lesson in here somewhere.

 

[Lycanthrope]

Hello ladies [Insert smooth talker voice here]. That would be me, I usually lurk in the shadows but this time my big mouth got my story shared by Kimbal and liked by Musk. What a simulation.

Peace and Love y’all. Thanks for the nice comments. Over 1.4 million people saw that. I never shared anything with even my closest friends or family, much less the entire world. Needless to say it’s been a fun, and yeah a bit nerve racking week. I want to regret ever saying anything but I can’t deny it’s been a fun 15 minutes of fame.

You a Rush fan as well as a Teslanaire?

I was in the Financial Times a short while back: Subscribe to read | Financial Times

 

[2daMoon]

I think Tesla/Musk would look at the business models of OEMs (obscene advertising budgets, dealership overhead, pension obligations, corrupt unions, lack of S/W talent) and conclude the mission could be accomplished more efficiently by building as many cars as possible themselves.

I wholeheartedly agree. But, he has said recently that he would consider collaboration with other auto makers.

If he saw that doing so could/would help increase the pace to sustainability a closer look would be undertaken before dismissing the idea out of hand.