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

[dakh]

Ok, not to pick on Lycanthrope, but it’s time to fess up. Who owns Jan21 80c ($400 pre-split)? There are nearly 52000 of these still open. These, and a bunch of other strikes around that level, are really messing with max pain. Clearly many traders are holding onto some serious gains, probably just waiting for them to be exercised. That’s 5M shares from that strike alone, which a bunch of somebody’s must sell. Man would I love to have been lucky enough to buy those calls a year or two ago.

[Raises hand]

I have been selling and exercising them 50 and 70 strike calls, first to get more shares, then to diversify. Obviously would be much better if I kept them all but no regrets at all still, given what was known then it was the right thing to do.

 

[ByeByeJohnny]

Haha I looked at this article even though I'm usually a Fred-Free Zone and I found his calculations to be hilariously nonsensical too. I'm not surprised that Fred can't do math but damn are his numbers off.

I'm usually the one hating on Fred but what's the problem here? This was July 6 presplit. Stockprice was around 1350. A little rounding and that's close enough.

I'm surprised if those guys don't have more shares coming though. If Drews been there 14 years and only has 20x the shares I have from buying in with not that much money two years ago he must have sold over the years.

 

[Brian121]

The future world!

 

[Oveeus]

I think it's not a secret anymore that the 60M+ shares@695 was from funds.

What I'm curious about was how they derived the $695 figure?

At the volume they were buying, they could very well set say $50 less and still set the price and filled most of the order given the SP just before that happened.

I am sure the decision was not taken lightly because we are talking 40B+ at play, even a 1% saving is a huge amount of money.

Could it mean that the funds did their math and gave that as a reasonable valuation for entry?

 

[Knightshade]

You might want to take your own advice. If you were listening to Elon's words you would know that he's considered autonomous driving to be a solved problem for a long time.

See this old post for a selection of assertions from Elon from 2018 and earlier

he also thought he'd be able to do a cross country drive very shortly then too.

And the year after.

And so on...

Elons been provably wrong pretty often on this one.

In fact, the post you link to is example after example after example of proving exactly that

Or to sum up- self driving is, factually, not a solved problem as of today

OK, this is semantics now, but by solved I mean Tesla cracked the technique, cracked the methodology, cracked all the key ingredients, there are no potential showstoppers.

But again- this is factually untrue.

They THINK that will be the case.

They also thought there were no showstoppers with HW2.0 and the first gen HW2 camera filters. And said so in public.

They also thought there were no showstoppers with HW2.5 and the 2nd gen HW2 camera filters. And said so in public.

They also thought there were no showstoppers with HW3 and the previous-gen code branch they ended up having to to a large scale rewrite on when they found local maximums.


They won't know there's no showstoppers until it's working.

It's not yet.

(and Green has mentioned several other potential ones, largely HW limitations with things like frame rates, blind spots, etc, that might still come into play).

Again it's not a solved problem yet.

And Elon has told us we shouldn't believe him when he gives a date on something being done until he's actually done it.

People should not ascribe to malice that which can easily be explained by stupidity." (LAUGHTER) So-- so it's, like, just because I'm, like, dumb at-- at predicting dates does not mean I am untruthful. I don't know-- I-- we've-- I never made a mass-produced car. How am I supposed to know with precision when it's gonna get done?

Sub "FSD" for "mass-produced car" and same deal.

Or "reusable rocket that lands upright"



As we've seen, once he does it the first time, he's excellent at getting even faster and better at it iteratively.

But telling us exactly when it'll be ready the first time? Not so much.


So if they get it solved in the US (which it'll almost certainly be, every new advanced driving feature was released there first so far, likewise the current FSD beta) it'll roll elsewhere surprisingly fast.

But it's certainly not solved yet

 

[TheTalkingMule]

I think it's not a secret anymore that the 60M+ shares@695 was from funds.

What I'm curious about was how they derived the $695 figure?

At the volume they were buying, they could very well set say $50 less and still set the price and filled most of the order given the SP just before that happened.

I am sure the decision was not taken lightly because we are talking 40B+ at play, even a 1% saving is a huge amount of money.

Could it mean that the funds did their math and gave that as a reasonable valuation for entry?

My working theory is they try to squeeze another 40-60M shares through at the opening cross tomorrow at $695. Hopefully buying up all those after-hours shares sold $677-680 plus any holdouts.

Not all those 69M shares in the Friday cross were from funds, take a look at the order history on NASDAQ. Plenty of 1's and 600's and 18's to be found. If there were more 1M share bundles, they weren't selling at $695. I think that's about the best they could do all at one shot Friday, and when they try it again at the opening cross we'll pop to $762 and it'll be a complete mess. How could it not?

All that being said, I know absolutely nothing and am going 100% on feel. Didn't know what a closing cross was on Tuesday.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

Why is 40 pages of FSD speculation and substance-free argument allowed in this thread every weekend?

Does no one have an investment related thought or question in their head while we straddle the inclusion fence?

 

[Artful Dodger]

said John Hempton, the founder of Bronte Capital, a hedge fund in Australia that oversees about $1 billion $250 million in assets

FTFY

Cheers!

 

[smorgasbord]

I think it's not a secret anymore that the 60M+ shares@695 was from funds.

What I'm curious about was how they derived the $695 figure?

At the volume they were buying, they could very well set say $50 less and still set the price and filled most of the order given the SP just before that happened.

I am sure the decision was not taken lightly because we are talking 40B+ at play, even a 1% saving is a huge amount of money.

Could it mean that the funds did their math and gave that as a reasonable valuation for entry?

You can read the mechanics of the Closing Cross here: https://www.nasdaqtrader.com/content/productsservices/Trading/ClosingCrossfaq.pdf

I think the bottom line is that NASDAQ's software simply matches up the LOCs (Limit on Close) from buyer and sellers and adjusts the price at which all the trades will happen to that which maximizes the number of shares to be traded. Then the MOCs (Market on Close) orders are executed at that price. Note that any LOCs above/below the actual closing price (depending on whether it's a buy or sell) are NOT executed. For instance, if you had an LOC sell at $700 last friday, it would not have executed, but if you had an LOC at $680 it would have executed at $695.

 

[Dan Detweiler]

Why is 40 pages of FSD speculation and substance-free argument allowed in this thread every weekend?

Does no one have an investment related thought or question in their head while we straddle the inclusion fence?

Sure...here's an investment thought.

I think it is extremely important to invest in one's health, especially mental health. For me, the best thing for mental health is laughter. The people on this forum are just that...people. Monitoring their monetary investments, by its very nature, is stressful. A little bit of levity goes a long way to relieving that stress. All this ticker watching and options strategies just add to the poison that can result from our investments.

Let people have a laugh from time to time (on the weekends for instance). They will be better investors in the long run because of it. If you find it frustrating then maybe you need to get away a bit from your stress, or at least scroll past and let others relax a bit. Of course, as with everything on this thread, I will add "not an advice", although I do think it would do us all a little good here.

Dan

 

[Brian121]

I think FSD discussion does rightfully belong to this thread. Because we all want it to maximize the benefit to the company. If it works right, it could generate huge amount of revenue along the way, even before Robotaxi is materialized.

I still remember somebody put down a $250,000 deposit for a founders version of the Roadster 2 on its rollout day. And some other member was amazed that one could just put down an amount like that, then somebody pointed out that for certain people, putting down a $250,000 is like us putting down a $100 deposit.

Of course now it seems that everybody from this forum can do that, but several years ago what this member did speaks volume.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

Sure...here's an investment thought.

I think it is extremely important to invest in one's health, especially mental health. For me, the best thing for mental health is laughter. The people on this forum are just that...people. Monitoring their monetary investments, by its very nature, is stressful. A little bit of levity goes a long way to relieving that stress. All this ticker watching and options strategies just add to the poison that can result from our investments.

Let people have a laugh from time to time (on the weekends for instance). They will be better investors in the long run because of it. If you find it frustrating then maybe you need to get away a bit from your stress, or at least scroll past and let others relax a bit. Of course, as with everything on this thread, I will add "not an advice", although I do think it would do us all a little good here.

Dan

I'm not stressed at all, I'm rich!

This thread drifts and that's fine, it's just getting real old seeing the same people argue about the same entirely OT nonsense when they could just as easily be doing it in an appropriate thread and not clogging up this one.

 

[EinSV]

Tesla should be announcing soon that FSD is transferable to new vehicles. It would:

1) Make everyone who already bought FSD happy.
2) Entice more new Tesla buyers.
3) Hugely increase the uptake rate of FSD.
4) Increase the frequency Tesla owners upgrade to a new vehicle - increasing sales and,
5) Newer vehicles will have better hardware for delivering high margin entertainment/productivity software. Tesla will want owners having the latest hardware just like the phone companies.
6) After you trade in your old car to Tesla and transfer out your FSD, Tesla can sell FSD again on your old car to the new buyer(!!) or keep it for the Tesla taxi network.

With the value of FSD increasing, it makes far more sense to investors to do what Elon has said Tesla will do -- offer FSD as a subscription service.

As someone who paid $3,000 for FSD on our two Model 3s, I would personally love it if the company gave me and my wife a lifetime FSD subscription for next to nothing, but it's not hard to see why Tesla would be foolish to do it.

As far as boosting sales, Tesla is already selling all the cars it can make. Even if it weren't, giving away a lifetime subscription to valuable software would be far down the list of demand levers.

If I want a new Tesla, I can sell one of the old ones, with FSD included. If I don't like Tesla's trade-in offer, I can sell it elsewhere (lots of third party services out there) and capture the value the used car market puts on FSD, exactly the same as any other option (except this one has become more valuable over time).

Elon has said he thinks FSD will eventually be worth six figures. Giving away a lifetime subscription to current owners who paid a small fraction of the full value will not maximize shareholder value.

 

[wtlloyd]

Tesla should be announcing soon that FSD is transferable to new vehicles. It would:

1) Make everyone who already bought FSD happy.
2) Entice more new Tesla buyers.
3) Hugely increase the uptake rate of FSD.
4) Increase the frequency Tesla owners upgrade to a new vehicle - increasing sales and,
5) Newer vehicles will have better hardware for delivering high margin entertainment/productivity software. Tesla will want owners having the latest hardware just like the phone companies.
6) After you trade in your old car to Tesla and transfer out your FSD, Tesla can sell FSD again on your old car to the new buyer(!!) or keep it for the Tesla taxi network.

Buy once Own forever software model has proven unsustainable. It locks out future development of the product, not to mention support of current software. A subscription model is fair and sustaining. Assuming FSD is available at a yearly rate, say $1200, payable at $100/month, that is an affordable subscription rate. Purchasing a full years access and billing it monthly makes it appealing and yet stops people who say they only want to buy it for a short period to cover an extended road trip, for example.
Tesla should offer a 50% one time credit to current owners. When you sell your current FSD equipped vehicle you have the option of stripping FSD for half of what you paid for it and crediting your subscription account. Or, sell the vehicle with FSD enabled, which will be a big benefit in hedging value in used vehicles. Full ownership of FSD is going away, it will be subscription only.

 

[FireMedic]

I'm not stressed at all, I'm rich!

Rich enough to consider becoming a contributing member?

That’s a play on Dan’s comments about investments in mental health through laughter.

See what I did there?

 

[Prunesquallor]

FTFY

Cheers!

LOL. At least he closed out before the split. If he was still short is would be $0.25.

 

[dakh]

My working theory is they try to squeeze another 40-60M shares through at the opening cross tomorrow at $695. Hopefully buying up all those after-hours shares sold $677-680 plus any holdouts.

Not all those 69M shares in the Friday cross were from funds, take a look at the order history on NASDAQ. Plenty of 1's and 600's and 18's to be found. If there were more 1M share bundles, they weren't selling at $695. I think that's about the best they could do all at one shot Friday, and when they try it again at the opening cross we'll pop to $762 and it'll be a complete mess. How could it not?

All that being said, I know absolutely nothing and am going 100% on feel. Didn't know what a closing cross was on Tuesday.

There's no need to defend $700 so that strike option holders won't exercised like there was on Friday, so 695 might not be it for Monday. Also from what I understood there wasn't any real liquidity at $680 and below AH, only small orders got filled. Big orders all got filled at 695.

 

[ByeByeJohnny]

I can agree that technical issues about FSD might not belong here but discussion about a subscription model? I fail to see much that will have a bigger impact on where the SP will go than this.

Was gonna write a long text about the faults with Mike Smiths reasoning but wtlloyd did so perfectly a few posts above.

 

[Mike Smith]

With the value of FSD increasing, it makes far more sense to investors for Tesla to do what Elon has said they will do -- offer FSD as a subscription service.

As someone who paid $3,000 for FSD on two Model 3s, I would personally love it if the company gave me and my wife a lifetime FSD subscription for next to nothing, but it's not hard to see why Tesla would be foolish to do it.

As far as boosting sales, Tesla is already selling all the cars it can make. Even if it weren't, giving away a lifetime subscription to valuable software would be far down the list of demand levers.

If I want a new Tesla, I can sell one of the old ones, with FSD included. If I don't like Tesla's offer, I can sell it elsewhere (lots of third party services out there) and capture the value the used car market puts on FSD, exactly the same as any other option (except this one has become more valuable over time).

Elon has said he thinks FSD will eventually be worth six figures. Giving away a lifetime subscription to current owners who paid a small fraction of the full value will not maximize shareholder value.

You could set a time limit - say 7-10 years for transferability. You could also charge extra for the option. Anyway, I deleted the post since someone correctly pointed out that this is not the FSD thread. (although I think this was probably acceptable since it had to do with company strategy, not functionality).

 

[EinSV]

You could set a time limit - say 7-10 years for transferability. You could also charge extra for the option. Anyway, I deleted the post since someone correctly pointed out that this is not the FSD thread. (although I think this was probably acceptable since it had to do with company strategy, not functionality).

OK, I'll drop it as well. FWIW, I do think there is an FSD investor thread somewhere ....