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

[mekberg]

This paints a grim picture of what the shutdown could be like. Markets could be total sugar.

Apologies in advance for Yahoo link.

In a Month You’ll Wish the Shutdown Were Only as Bad as Today

 

[Fact Checking]

OT
If Apple builds iPhones in China, sells in US, and in the end American company gets the $$, how does the trade deficit thingy work?
I am sure they are many more US companies that do the same ..

That's the thing: China is basically a 52th U.S. state, using a currency that is tightly coupled to the dollar (the Yuan), doing much of the U.S.'s high-tech manufacturing.

The "trade deficit" is basically an artifact of that arrangement, and the "tariffs" are basically a tax on U.S. high-tech companies like Tesla or Apple, and on U.S. consumers. Tariffs are also hurting consumer spending in China ... the largest market of many U.S. high-tech firms.

This is why Trump's China tariffs have triggered a 30% drop in the NASDAQ and are causing recession fears - the Trump administration is misunderstanding how the U.S. economy works.

The "trade wars are easy to win" statement by Trump turned into "our own foot is easy to shoot" reality.

 

[Fact Checking]

Question! Did Tesla just pay off those Mar 2019 bonds?

Source?

 

[Fact Checking]

Briefly scanning over the literature on lidar it sounds like "human eye damage" is their limiting factor, and so they try to make their systems as powerful as they can while being just under the eye damage threshold.

Holy sugar:

• I can certainly see manufacturers using the legal threshold of eye damage... That is how extremely dangerous laser products can be made, sold and profited from today.
• I can totally see taxi companies "tuning" their LIDAR to make their semi-autonomous fleets more profitable in rain and snow. Just like trucking companies are "tuning" their ICE diesel trucks today, to have higher engine power and less urea fluid maintenance costs... with 10x emissions of carcinogens. It's even completely legal in some U.S. states.
  
• And since LIDAR is infrared, humans won't even notice any LIDAR hazard or eventual malfunctioning LIDARs ...

If LIDAR goes mainstream, I strongly recommend IR foils on your cars even in Nordic countries.

 

[Carl Raymond]

That's the thing: China is basically a 52th U.S. state, using a currency that is tightly coupled to the dollar (the Yuan), doing much of the U.S.'s high-tech manufacturing.

The "trade deficit" is basically an artifact of that arrangement, and the "tariffs" are basically a tax on U.S. high-tech companies like Tesla or Apple, and on U.S. consumers. Tariffs are also hurting consumer spending in China ... the largest market of many U.S. high-tech firms.

This is why Trump's China tariffs have triggered a 30% drop in the NASDAQ and are causing recession fears - the Trump administration is misunderstanding how the U.S. economy works.

The "trade wars are easy to win" statement by Trump turned into "our own foot is easy to shoot" reality.

So can we just extend it further? All trading nation states are part of one global economy. Stick pins anywhere at all, it hurts everybody.

 

[Cherry Wine]

Getting OT:

Probably a good quarter of the landscape pictures I've ever taken have the sun in them.

Focal length and shutter speed.

 

[Fact Checking]

So can we just extend it further? All trading nation states are part of one global economy. Stick pins anywhere at all, it hurts everybody.

Yeah, and the key point is that a very large chunk of China's trade "surplus" with the U.S. is not predatory mercantilism of expensive finished goods by Chinese firms like much of Germany's trade surplus is, but is instead mostly contract manufacturing done for U.S. firms where the "deficit" is basically the value-add of the U.S. firms - i.e. their profit margin.

I.e. Trump is "negotiating" by threatening the margins of U.S. companies...

I.e. had Trump added a tariff on German luxury car imports to get rid of the EU's 10% tariff on car imports his trade argument would be self-consistent and might even yield positive results: excessive mercantilism can be harmful and trade barriers can be useful.

Instead he decided to cut one of the arteries of the U.S. economy and is surprised at the excessive levels of bleeding.

 

[BornToFly]

For the few that were discussing the calls and puts.... I appear to have caused some confusion when I joked that with my luck, the SP will be below my 320 SP at expiration for the Puts I sold. I feel much safer selling a 320 Put and rolling it if the SP goes below it just before expiration, because I think there is a limit to how much below 320 the SP can go and how long it can stay there (not very far for very long). Rolling a Call right now, as a Bull, is much more dangerous, because I believe that several catalysts will propel the stock to new ATH in the next 6-9 months, and possibly as soon as the next ER in a couple weeks. So, I made a big mistake selling 335 calls when the SP quickly dropped to 300 (I should have expected the bounce, but I thought the government shutdown and the uptick rule expiring the next day was going to protect me - I'm not making that mistake again). Rather than risk rolling to the same SP a week or two later, I just took my lumps and learned a lesson (rolling could have quickly turned into a 6 figure mistake if the SP went to 370 this week and ATH soon after). Looking at what happened to Twitter when they were added to the S&P500, and how the stock price spiked, I think we will see the same effect with TSLA, but it will be even more dramatic, because that WILL (in my opinion) cause a short squeeze. I don't know how long it will last and how high it will go. If we get over 450 quickly I might sell my 2020 LEAPS and switch that money to stock, so when it goes back down to the new trading range, I don't lose as much (but I still gain if it keeps climbing, which I wouldn't do if I just kept the cash un-invested in the account after I sell the LEAPS). I am about 2/3 stock and 1/3 2020 DITM LEAPS right now. The problem is I don't know when the announcement will come about TSLA being added to the S&P500, so I'm going to stop selling covered calls and only sell Puts until the S&P addition plays out and the SP settles back into a channel.

 

[TradingInvest]

Holy sugar:

• I can certainly see manufacturers using the legal threshold of eye damage... That is how extremely dangerous laser products can be made, sold and profited from today.
• I can totally see taxi companies "tuning" their LIDAR to make their semi-autonomous fleets more profitable in rain and snow. Just like trucking companies are "tuning" their ICE diesel trucks today, to have higher engine power and less urea fluid maintenance costs... with 10x emissions of carcinogens. It's even completely legal in some U.S. states.
  
• And since LIDAR is infrared, humans won't even notice any LIDAR hazard or eventual malfunctioning LIDARs ...

If LIDAR goes mainstream, I strongly recommend IR foils on your cars even in Nordic countries.

Think about those toddlers and infants, their eyes are much more sensitive than adults'. They might need laser goggles.

 

[Fact Checking]

Briefly scanning over the literature on lidar it sounds like "human eye damage" is their limiting factor, and so they try to make their systems as powerful as they can while being just under the eye damage threshold.

BTW., there's a traffic safety argument as well: if LIDAR can damage the camera CCD, it can certainly also cause bled-out frames in self-driving cameras on other cars, worse than sunglare:

If a few frames of camera input are degraded, then the autonomous driving system or safety system has worse camera input and might react too slowly to a hazard - causing an accident.

This is made worse by the fact that FSD cameras often don't have IR filters, to improve IR sensitivity in low light conditions (night vision).

I.e. LIDAR, even if the interference with other cameras is temporary, could be a serious safety hazard.

 

[Fact Checking]

The problem is I don't know when the announcement will come about TSLA being added to the S&P500,

Here's my reading of the S&P 500 inclusion rules and schedules (subject to a chance of me being wrong):

Tesla will be added to the S&P 500 in four months, at end of May, on the next scheduled quarterly meeting of the S&P committee after the early May Q1 ER results of Tesla are announced.

The index inclusion would be announced at around around June 3 (Monday), after trading closes. But the event will be priced in after the Q1 ER.

TSLA will be added to the S&P 500 with the scheduled June rebalancing of the S&P 500 index: beginning on 2019/6/14 and fully in effect by 2019/6/24.

Current probability of this happening: higher than 90%.

The early April production and deliveries report is going to increase this probability to 99%.

 

[TradingInvest]

BTW., there's a traffic safety argument as well: if LIDAR can damage the camera CCD, it can certainly also cause bled-out frames in self-driving cameras on other cars, worse than sunglare:

If a few frames of camera input are degraded, then the autonomous driving system or safety system has worse camera input and might react too slowly to a hazard - causing an accident.

This is made worse by the fact that FSD cameras often don't have IR filters, to improve IR sensitivity in low light conditions (night vision).

I.e. LIDAR, even if the interference with other cameras is temporary, could be a serious safety hazard.

By looking at that person's pictures (with spots in pictures), the laser permanently damaged the CCD. Also the company agreed to give him a new camera, that also shows the damage is permanent.

 

[Silent Ludicrosy]

Tesla will be added to the S&P 500 in four months, at end of May, on the next scheduled meeting of the S&P committee after the early May Q1 ER results of Tesla are announced.

TSLA will be added to the S&P 500 with the scheduled June rebalancing of the S&P 500 index: beginning on 2019/6/14 and fully in effect by 2019/6/24.

Current probability of this happening: higher than 90%.

The early April production and deliveries report is going to increase this probability to 99%.

Any idea what percentage of TSLA shares will be bought by index funds after S&P500 inclusion? I assume that will make the stock less volatile, but by a lot or a little?

 

[Fact Checking]

By looking at that person's pictures (with spots in pictures), the laser permanently damaged the CCD. Also the company agreed to give him a new camera, that also shows the damage is permanent.

My point: even if LIDAR is enhanced to not damage cameras permanently, there is temporary damage to the data stream which poses a safety hazard...

Imagine a busy street with a thousand monkeys running around with extremely bright flashlights, periodically blinding drivers. It would be considered blatantly unsafe, dangerous and illegal, and rightly so. This is similar to the effect LIDAR shining laser light into other car's cameras has.

LIDAR is more of a dead-end than I thought.

 

[Fact Checking]

Any idea what percentage of TSLA shares will be bought by index funds after S&P500 inclusion? I assume that will make the stock less volatile, but by a lot or a little?

A couple of months ago I estimated it to around 7 million TSLA shares, worth 2.4 billion dollars at today's prices. (But my confidence in this estimate is low.)

I.e. about 5% of Tesla.

Roughly equivalent to the Tencent event, or last June's run-up when the Saudi PIF was buying ~8 million shares.

But there's a halo effect as well, S&P 500 inclusion will unlock a whole new tier of investors.

Twitter ($TWTR) was included in the S&P 500 last June: price went from $28 to $46, a +65% increase, which was sustained until August.

During the recent $300 drop June and August 4xx+ call options were still ridiculously cheap.

Not advice, things could go wrong: recession, Trump, Elon tweeting or Tesla narrowly missing profitability in Q1.

 

[Silent Ludicrosy]

Think about those toddlers and infants, their eyes are much more sensitive than adults'. They might need laser goggles.

Brilliant! Cause widespread blindness so people have no choice but to adopt full self driving.

Tesla feature request/ small business opportunity: laser proof window tint.

 

[TradingInvest]

Tesla will be added to the S&P 500 in four months, at end of May, on the next scheduled meeting of the S&P committee after the early May Q1 ER results of Tesla are announced.

TSLA will be added to the S&P 500 with the scheduled June rebalancing of the S&P 500 index: beginning on 2019/6/14 and fully in effect by 2019/6/24.

Current probability of this happening: higher than 90%.

The early April production and deliveries report is going to increase this probability to 99%.

Joining S&P 500 could lead to sustained buying pressure. Right after that we are likely to get updates on FSD and Model Y production. At this time Tesla longs probably are the most determined long holders. If most longs are not selling, it would be interesting to see where will those index funds get the shares.

 

[Causalien]

That's the thing: China is basically a 52th U.S. state, using a currency that is tightly coupled to the dollar (the Yuan), doing much of the U.S.'s high-tech manufacturing.

The "trade deficit" is basically an artifact of that arrangement, and the "tariffs" are basically a tax on U.S. high-tech companies like Tesla or Apple, and on U.S. consumers. Tariffs are also hurting consumer spending in China ... the largest market of many U.S. high-tech firms.

This is why Trump's China tariffs have triggered a 30% drop in the NASDAQ and are causing recession fears - the Trump administration is misunderstanding how the U.S. economy works.

The "trade wars are easy to win" statement by Trump turned into "our own foot is easy to shoot" reality.

I had assumed that Trump knows this since he is a businessman. It just occurred to me that it is possible that he doesn't as a real estate businessman.

It makes me more pessimistic on tge outcome of the gov shutdown.

 

[EVNow]

Lol. I got a 14 day ban for posting too many good news stories, though not a single one from Electrek (bears claim otherwise).

Cliffy, the officious mod there is basically a Tesla short, but claims to be neutral and even handed

I wouldn't post there for the same reason I won't post in r/The_Donald.

 

[Fact Checking]

It would be interesting to see where will those index funds get the shares.

From index fund arbitrageurs who buy shares/options and front run the index funds.

Index arbitrage - Wikipedia​