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

[Thekiwi]

First a big thank you for appreciation to the mods, they do a thankless job.

However, I think it’s important to note that the current topic du jour that shall not be discussed in this investment thread - is all anyone is talking about in the real world, not just in financial media, but also in mainstream media, social network activity, around dinnear tables and the proverbial office water cooler.

There is undoubtedly a very big chance that it is a large negative pressure on TSLA stock price currently, so I think its worth considering allowing discussion about whether that is actually happening or not, and when/if it might end (Without getting into the swampy political side of things).

 

[Papafox]

FTFY. It's practically free to short TSLA from an economic viewpoint, since Options Market Makers are allowed to increase the supply of shares without limit.

Have you noticed that nobody even mentioned the 15M+ increase in reported short shares:

TSLA Short Interest | NASDAQ.com

And this latest report still only covers October, before Elon's Nov 4,7-8 share sales. I estimate shortzes were selling about 10:1 shares they don't own for every one Elon sold that he does own. And shortzing continued for 4 days after his last sale.

NASDAQ Short Interest Publication Schedule | Paging @Papafox

$MADOFF $EC

Wow, thanks for the raw data on TSLA shorting, as of Oct 31. The NASDAQ link you provided says 76.8M shares as of October 31. Interestingly, Ihor Dusaniwsky provided a TSLA short interest update that very day at 69.4M shares shorted, a difference of more than 7M shares!

Clearly short-term shorting is growing in TSLA and the dips we saw that I attributed to Elon selling could well have been heavily influenced by new shorts selling into the stock in big orders, perhaps designed to resemble Elon selling or perhaps designed to front-run selling that never happened. Some of that short-selling could have been a devious attempt to cause Elon to sell more TSLA shares than he planned (because of the lower price per share). Who knows what the current short interest is in TSLA but I'm inclined to believe it's a whole lot greater than the 76.8M shares on Oct 31.

The implication for us long investors is that we likely have a ton of short-term shorts in TSLA at the moment. When the stock price starts turning around, they'll do whatever they can to prevent the turnaround, but once the turnaround is underway without question, they're going to be trying to beat each other to the door by covering (buying). This should be fun. The big question is when it happens. Q4 ER would be the latest, IMO, and it could happen as soon as it's apparent that Tesla is not going to be stuck with too much excess inventory at quarter's end. Most shorts are unaware of the current high production rate at Tesla and are operating from a position of insufficient research (as usual).

 

[ZeApelido]

When the competition has an OTA, it takes 6-8 hrs.

Customer: Good thing OTA update doesn't take the usual 4hrs I have to spend at the dealer when it's not OTA
VW: Hold my beer.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1594437364948111363

Well, they have to plug in the 14.4kb modem to download the data.

"Pshhhkkkkkkrrrrkakingkakingkakingtshchchchchchchchcch"

 

[Electroman]

Sorry, but this sounds passive-aggressive. Think about taking these simple actions instead:

• downvote OT comments
• click "Report" and send a msg to MODS
• "Ignore" repeat OT offenders

By withholding your comments, you make the signal-to-noise ratio here worse (less 'signal' IMO) which is what the trolls are trying to achieve.

Don't help them, squash them by invoking the MOD-hammer (and post the occassional long-form blog, too)

Cheers!

Agreed. I don't see any increase in noise to signal ratio. Why? I completely ignore and zoom past the noise and look for signals which is your (Gigapress) post (among a few others) and the replies to it. Scrolling another page of noise is a bit of nuisance, but not a big deal.

Now if Gigapress stops posting, then the noise to signal ratio gets noticeably higher. That is a problem. As long as there are good signals, noise doesn't bother me. It is like having 10 good restaurants in your neighborhood and 100 bad ones. If the 100 becomes 200, it doesn't matter as long as the 10 good ones are still in business.

 

[GOVA]

Wow, thanks for the raw data on TSLA shorting, as of Oct 31. The NASDAQ link you provided says 76.8M shares as of October 31. Interestingly, Ihor Dusaniwsky provided a TSLA short interest update that very day at 69.4M shares shorted, a difference of more than 7M shares!

Clearly short-term shorting is growing in TSLA and the dips we saw that I attributed to Elon selling could well have been heavily influenced by new shorts selling into the stock in big orders, perhaps designed to resemble Elon selling or perhaps designed to front-run selling that never happened. Some of that short-selling could have been a devious attempt to cause Elon to sell more TSLA shares than he planned (because of the lower price per share). Who knows what the current short interest is in TSLA but I'm inclined to believe it's a whole lot greater than the 76.8M shares on Oct 31.

The implication for us long investors is that we likely have a ton of short-term shorts in TSLA at the moment. When the stock price starts turning around, they'll do whatever they can to prevent the turnaround, but once the turnaround is underway without question, they're going to be trying to beat each other to the door by covering (buying). This should be fun. The big question is when it happens. Q4 ER would be the latest, IMO, and it could happen as soon as it's apparent that Tesla is not going to be stuck with too much excess inventory at quarter's end. Most shorts are unaware of the current high production rate at Tesla and are operating from a position of insufficient research (as usual).

View attachment 876579

Thank you @Papafox. That’s the name I have not seen in a long, long time.

 

[Skryll]

I disagree. The market is wide open to expansion in all markets for Tesla. Big semi, smaller delivery truck, delivery truck, van, big (cheaper) SUV, affordable compact, CT jr, Cyber mini, "normal" pickup truck (that'd kill F and GM), Roadster, Roadster SUV, Jeepy/Bronco thingy etc. That's why I'm a little concerned that demand is softening (extremely strong to very strong) but not worried about reaching huge volumes over time.

Also, we need vehicle deliveries to sell our high margin software.

Just saw my first rivian ups delivery truck in the wild ! Thank you tesla for moving the industry towards clean energy!

 

[JustMe]

Just saw my first rivian ups delivery truck in the wild ! Thank you tesla for moving the industry towards clean energy!

I want to see that sucker run the Moose Test

 

[Gigapress]

Giga is not giving in. He has work to do and no time to waste with nonsense.

Yes. I want to focus more on deep content. I have about 20 partially finished essays. Commenting here is taking up too much time, as is scrolling past so many comments I don’t care about.

Sorry, but this sounds passive-aggressive. Think about taking these simple actions instead:

• downvote OT comments
• click "Report" and send a msg to MODS
• "Ignore" repeat OT offenders

By withholding your comments, you make the signal-to-noise ratio here worse (less 'signal' IMO) which is what the trolls are trying to achieve.

Don't help them, squash them by invoking the MOD-hammer (and post the occassional long-form blog, too)

Cheers!

Yeah it was kind of passive aggressive but it’s just reality. I have been downvoting, reporting and ignoring but people still want to violate the rules and waste the time of everyone else who is not interested in endless circular discussions and flame wars about this.

When this ceases I will return.

Unfortunately, it is not the (new) trolls only.


Many long time members and posters here have shown their political faces, brains made of stone like there is only red and blue in the world as well as they have added their personal insecurities to this thread. This forum is psychologically damaging lately very similarly to using 'old school' twitter.

Right. I don’t want to put everyone on ignore who is doing this. Too much good content from many.

First a big thank you for appreciation to the mods, they do a thankless job.

However, I think it’s important to note that the current topic du jour that shall not be discussed in this investment thread - is all anyone is talking about in the real world, not just in financial media, but also in mainstream media, social network activity, around dinnear tables and the proverbial office water cooler.

There is undoubtedly a very big chance that it is a large negative pressure on TSLA stock price currently, so I think its worth considering allowing discussion about whether that is actually happening or not, and when/if it might end (Without getting into the swampy political side of things).

This is a miscellaneous thread.

When there is a single special topic that a subset of forum participants want to spend hundreds and hundreds of pages deep diving, then it goes in a special thread. We have threads for engineering, options/technical analysis, COVID, shorting oil, FSD and yes, Twitter and US politics. Please use them. It is very easy.

 

[FireMedic]

Thank you @Papafox. That’s the name I have not seen in a long, long time.

Oh wow, well may I introduce you to the Daily TSLA chart analysis thread; there is a daily @Papafox sighting; and it’s terrific.

It goes perfectly with my morning cup of coffee. And like my daily cup of coffee, I rarely skip it.

That and the TMC investor thread are the two pages on my browser that never have been closed

 

[Mengy]

My heart can't take another 10x, but ok yolo

Man a 10X from here would equal $2,000/share. That's $6000/share adjusted for the last split, and $30,000/share adjusted for all splits!

I think my heart could take that just fine.

 

[FSDtester#1]

Yes. I want to focus more on deep content. I have about 20 partially finished essays. Commenting here is taking up too much time, as is scrolling past so many comments I don’t care about.


Yeah it was kind of passive aggressive but it’s just reality. I have been downvoting, reporting and ignoring but people still want to violate the rules and waste the time of everyone else who is not interested in endless circular discussions and flame wars about this.

When this ceases I will return.


Right. I don’t want to put everyone on ignore who is doing this. Too much good content from many.


This is a miscellaneous thread.

When there is a single special topic that a subset of forum participants want to spend hundreds and hundreds of pages deep diving, then it goes in a special thread. We have threads for engineering, options/technical analysis, COVID, shorting oil, FSD and yes, Twitter and US politics. Please use them. It is very easy.

Another member when I started following this thread, who shall remain anonymous, sent me an email that stated:

"the folks I trust implicitly are Gigapress, The Accountant, Curt Renz, and Mongo. Giga is extremely accurate in his assessments"

Man was this member spot on and wise and kind to let me know this.
Our loss for now, and I will do my best to keep this thread as good as it can be moving forward.

I will consider this a warning as I don't want any other of the excellent contributors to stop posting their infinite wisdom.

So thank you for everything you have shared with us @Gigapress

 

[FireMedic]

Yes. I want to focus more on deep content. I have about 20 partially finished essays. Commenting here is taking up too much time, as is scrolling past so many comments I don’t care about.


Yeah it was kind of passive aggressive but it’s just reality. I have been downvoting, reporting and ignoring but people still want to violate the rules and waste the time of everyone else who is not interested in endless circular discussions and flame wars about this.

When this ceases I will return.


Right. I don’t want to put everyone on ignore who is doing this. Too much good content from many.


This is a miscellaneous thread.

When there is a single special topic that a subset of forum participants want to spend hundreds and hundreds of pages deep diving, then it goes in a special thread. We have threads for engineering, options/technical analysis, COVID, shorting oil, FSD and yes, Twitter and US politics. Please use them. It is very easy.

Enjoy a few ‘much deserved’ weeks off. I’m sure once we get back to 300, Everyone will have their pantaloons un-twisted and it should be less painful to hang out here.

I have very much enjoyed your essays on substack; particularly the global optimization essay, and I hope you will find a chance to post links to those here. I am a subscriber there, so I get notified but many others here may not.

Also, if you could link to your Twitter, I think that would be helpful for the group to not miss out on your spontaneous thoughts; which have been delightful in the past several months.

See you (soon ) my friend.

 

[Mengy]

Enjoy a few ‘much deserved’ weeks off. I’m sure once we get back to 300, Everyone will have their pantaloons un-twisted and it should be less painful to hang out here.

Back to $300? What about back to $400?

 

[Skryll]

I want to see that sucker run the Moose Test

It's not as skinny as the video taken off of model 3 video replay suggests

 

[Skryll]

Wow, thanks for the raw data on TSLA shorting, as of Oct 31. The NASDAQ link you provided says 76.8M shares as of October 31. Interestingly, Ihor Dusaniwsky provided a TSLA short interest update that very day at 69.4M shares shorted, a difference of more than 7M shares!

Clearly short-term shorting is growing in TSLA and the dips we saw that I attributed to Elon selling could well have been heavily influenced by new shorts selling into the stock in big orders, perhaps designed to resemble Elon selling or perhaps designed to front-run selling that never happened. Some of that short-selling could have been a devious attempt to cause Elon to sell more TSLA shares than he planned (because of the lower price per share). Who knows what the current short interest is in TSLA but I'm inclined to believe it's a whole lot greater than the 76.8M shares on Oct 31.

The implication for us long investors is that we likely have a ton of short-term shorts in TSLA at the moment. When the stock price starts turning around, they'll do whatever they can to prevent the turnaround, but once the turnaround is underway without question, they're going to be trying to beat each other to the door by covering (buying). This should be fun. The big question is when it happens. Q4 ER would be the latest, IMO, and it could happen as soon as it's apparent that Tesla is not going to be stuck with too much excess inventory at quarter's end. Most shorts are unaware of the current high production rate at Tesla and are operating from a position of insufficient research (as usual).

View attachment 876579

Just as a cautioning: I was following ihor and interpretations of what he published for a few years buying expiring TSLA leaps until the final breakout. Overall I did well, but being in margin and having leaps expire was not fun. In other words. just because it looks like it should be soon, doesnt mean it will be. YMMV.

 

[Beltsbear]

I want to see that sucker run the Moose Test

The video aspect ratio is wrong. It’s thin but not that thin. And with the battery weight in the bottom it would do fine compared to other vans of that height.

 

[Artful Dodger]

The NASDAQ link you provided says 76.8M shares as of October 31. Interestingly, Ihor Dusaniwsky provided a TSLA short interest update that very day at 69.4M shares shorted, a difference of more than 7M shares!

Igor's short interest estimates for TSLA are notoriously unreliable, and it's because of his methodology. He has a group of customers which form a small sample of short sellers, but systematically DOES NOT include short selling by large hedge funds (which DO NOT subscribe to Ihor's S3 service).

This is a sampling issue which could be solved to remove the inherent bias. Such a project would be worthy of the statistics skills of our own @Gigapress

Clearly short-term shorting is growing in TSLA and the dips we saw that I attributed to Elon selling could well have been heavily influenced by new shorts selling into the stock in big orders, perhaps designed to resemble Elon selling or perhaps designed to front-run selling that never happened.

True enough, but an even larger issue affecting TSLA selling right now is unrestricted PUT options buying. There is a large weekly trade being made against TSLA each week, and TSLA itself accounts for half the volume of all Options being traded on NASDAQ.

These are unrestricted because Options Market Makers are allowed to sell reflexively even when they have not located the shares first (that's the Madoff Exemption). So, shortzes just buy short PUTS and let the MMs do the selling: Shares they don't own, and don't have to locate if they can cover before the next ~13 day reporting period for NDRs.

The #SEC should make a simple rule that you can't buy PUT options on shares you don't own. That'd mess with the shortzes.

 

[Artful Dodger]

I have been downvoting, reporting and ignoring but people still want to violate the rules and waste the time of everyone else

Glad to hear it, thanks. MODS, this means a firmer hand is indicated with OT/Banned topics:

• Don't be afraid to just delete an OT post (is it Banned? End of Discussion.)
• keep track of who's posts are being deleted (there are serial abusers)
• use the BAN hammer to encourage the incorrigible

Trolling only works when it's encouraged (folks replying to trolls), or when its ignored (patterns emerge quickly enough when you follow this Forum daily).

Let's try to work together to keep our good members and encourage high quality posts. Makes for better reading, too.

Thanks.

 

[Discoducky]

Prioritized list of things I do to keep myself sane as I stay on this thread...going on 11 years

0. Just thank the mods! And avoid the "I appreciate you...but!" statements
1. Skip posts that should be on other threads
2. Report posts
3. Disagree without feeling the need to explain why
4. Sometimes try to moderate in a post and say "things I would say if I were a mod"
5. Take a break by just reading other investor threads
6. Ignore repeated bad behaving posters and haven't felt the need to reverse.

 

[Maarten]

These days a lot here is emotional.
Understandable, but not really what we need.
Well, what do we need then (and definitely should read)?
A good analysis like this one.
Believe me, you do not want to miss this:

TSLA Jan'25 Options & The Current State of TSLA

An in-depth blog about investing in TSLA. Here you will find investment theses, financial models, earnings forecasts, options strategies, and more.

teslainvestor.blogspot.com