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

[Thekiwi]

I presume there are also Model S & X units on these ships?

 

[sundaymorning]

Can someone have access set the fact straight about this T Rowe holdings thing?
A top TSLA tweet claim they dumped ~46% of there TSLA holding in Q4:
People's Grain on Twitter

If true, then they still have 54% holding, the other 46% switched hands, which is why we’re at a healthy $345. If the stock hasn’t moved much, then for every seller there is a buyer.

 

[EVNow]

Ford confirms all-electric F-Series pickup truck coming

This could potentially be big news.

If they plan for 100k plus unit capacity.

If they plan to sell a handful of units to Ranchers in Santa Barbara Country then not so much.

Ford will make about 2K trucks - PER YEAR, if history is anything to go by. I remember when they unveiled Ford Focus EV with a lot of fanfare (at CES), only to sell about a hundred every month for next 5+ years. Pure compliance car.

 

[anthonyj]

I think shorts are playing it smart and waiting for $380 to really dig in. And I don’t blame them, easy money it seems. Model Y reservations or FSD will probably break that barrier though

 

[⚡️ELECTROMAN⚡️]

No one claims any sales channel is without horror stories.

Consumer Reports says Model 3 reliability is average.

Experian says Tesla has highest customer loyalty, customers who plan on buying again, at 80.2%.

But the complaints about customer service, non returned calls/emails, wait times to get hold of Tesla employee on phone, non ability of CR representative to solve complaints is rising fast on social media. And it is not just in proportion to increase in Tesla customers.

If Tesla establishes a reputation for having atrocious customer service it will be very hard to undue in the future.

Lexus established an excellent reputation for customer service out of the gate that endures to today even though actual surveys put it above average but no where near where it was in the 90's.

I called roadside assistance on Saturday afternoon expecting to be on-hold for at least 45 minutes based on what I've read on this forum. After going through a short menu, a very friendly and helpful person answered after about three rings. There's hope.

 

[EVNow]

I think shorts are playing it smart and waiting for $380 to really dig in. And I don’t blame them, easy money it seems. Model Y reservations or FSD will probably break that barrier though

Today there was a lot of resistance (after first 30 minutes) at 350. I count half a dozen attempts to go above 350 after 10:30.

 

[Zaxxon]

I called roadside assistance on Saturday afternoon expecting to be on-hold for at least 45 minutes based on what I've read on this forum. After going through a short menu, a very friendly and helpful person answered after about three rings. There's hope.

Since I made a pithy post earlier tonight about messages going unanswered for weeks (and I have had that experience multiple times recently, for the online store), I should probably mention that the factory tour email folks have been fantastic. I've had a back-and-forth thread over the past 2+ months regarding scheduling options and inquiring as to Gigafactory tours (alas, still no). They've responded within about 12 hours each time, often within one hour.

Still two months until my 2600-mile road trip to Fremont (and directly past Sparks), so there's miniscule hope that Gigafactory will let me in by then...

 

[Sudre]

Glovis Cosmos just docked at Pier 80, right where the Glovis Captain had docked:

The crewmen probably looked out over the pier and said, "We're going to need a bigger boat."

 

[MP3Mike]

Tesla is reported to be planning 3k/wk to Europe. And it's not just Europe - they're also supposed to be exporting to China, also thousands per week.

Reported by who? How credible is the source?

 

[Steve m]

Goldman Sachs recomends selling Tesla. But the Goldman Sachs group has been buying Tesla to the tune of 116195 shares acording to nadaq institutional holdings of Tesla. And sitting on 1.09 million shares. Why?

Tesla, Inc. (TSLA) Institutional Ownership & Holdings

 

[lascavarian]

The call back is after the customer leaves a voicemail. Given that Tesla frequently lets VMs and emails languish for days/weeks/months, 20 minute confirmation of receipt would be a marked improvement.

(not talking Tesla here) The person that answers the call is often not an expert - could be but not necessarily. They can't confirm a schedule for a service visit in many cases so the callback serves several things and one could be a confirmation from VM. The 20 minute thing is about human perception. 20 minutes tends to be within the human perception of "right away" even though it isn't. So if someone has an issue and makes a call and it is picked up by the 3rd ring and they have a plan of action within 20 minutes, they tend to feel their issue was taken care of right away. It is a great start.

Almost all service calls other than routine maintenance are really a complaint that needs to be entered into the quality system. Your complaint system drives a lot of things and good info to start with and a good classification keeps complaints in control. And there is usually an escalation process that humans are involved with.

I fought strenuously to never use VM for a first contact. It is hard to avoid VM but many customers hate VM and they don't leave necessary or correct information for various reasons which starts out on the wrong foot IMO. Some do love it of course.

At SpaceX the story goes that Elon put the engineers in the middle of the shop with lots of glass so they could see what was going on and really understand how the work was being done. Service benefits from similar thinking. If problems come into the company in a way that is visible to engineering, sales, finance etc then people hear what is going on and problems become visible and get addressed faster. It doesn't always work that way but when it does it can be very helpful. So I say to keep service and engineering close together and there will be benefits. Service gets technically smarter and engineering understands their customers a little better IMO.

Tesla has some huge advantages in that they have a relatively simple product that they have designed in consideration of manufacturing and final assembly. They seem to use tested sub-assemblies effectively and this simplifies things. I can't imagine that it is not going to be a little chaotic scaling up so fast in different markets however. It has to be an increase in volume for service. The one field service person I encountered was very well qualified so a very good indication.

 

[UnknownSoldier]

Goldman Sachs recomends selling Tesla. But the Goldman Sachs group has been buying Tesla to the tune of 116195 shares acording to nadaq institutional holdings of Tesla. And sitting on 1.09 million shares. Why?

Tesla, Inc. (TSLA) Institutional Ownership & Holdings

Saying one thing and doing another is how Goldman makes it to record profits. The only reason Goldman is able to do what it does is because every Secretary of the Treasury is a former Goldman CEO. The reality is we live in the United States of Goldman, the influence of Goldman over our government and power it has to control our economy is as insidious as it is pervasive.

The Great American Bubble Machine – Rolling Stone

 

[Cherry Wine]

No, the confusion was because you wrote just below 320 at expiration and implied that would be bad luck, when in fact it's absolutely the best you can hope for. You would get almost the maximum possible from the trade with no better strike price possible. It's like selling stock within a couple of cents of the high.

I'll illustrate with an open trade of mine that I've mentioned before, meant to generate enough profit to buy a new Roadster in 2020. These 35 Jan '20 470 puts that I sold are currently valued at $144.95 (midpoint of the bid/ask). Since TSLA closed today at $346.05, that means that these way in the money puts have $123.95 in intrinsic value and $21 in time value. Since I sold them almost a year ago (2/15/18) for $171 when TSLA was at 323, they have gone down by $23.05 in intrinsic value and $3 in time value, so I could buy them back for $26.05 less than I sold them for, putting me ahead by about $91K at the moment.

For those wondering about the danger of being forced to buy the stock for $470 today, note that anybody exercising the put would be giving up $21 in time value, a total gift to me. I could sell the 3500 shares tomorrow for about $346. Along with the $171 I got for the puts originally, that would total $517 compared to the $470 I'm forced to buy them for, a $47 profit (compared to my $26.05 profit currently if I close the position by buying back the puts), a windfall!

Meanwhile, looking ahead to the expiration day a year in the future, the time value will go to 0, so I will be getting another $21 in profit. So if TSLA is anywhere above $324 ($21 less than today), I'll profit compared to closing the position today. My breakeven point is at TSLA $299, which was defined the moment I opened the position. My maximum profit point is TSLA anywhere over $470, so the puts expire worthless. But if it expires with TSLA just below $470 that's only slightly less than maximum profit, since I close the position for a few cents just before expiry. That's really good luck!

But not all maximum profit situations are identical. If TSLA is at 500 when this position expires, then if I want to take my profits and buy shares I'll have to pay $500 for them. And it just gets worse the higher TSLA goes. On the other hand, if I have no intention of reinvesting the money and will actually just go buy a Roadster with the ~$600K in profits, then anything over 470 is functionally identical. Here in California I'll end up paying >50% in taxes since such gains are treated as short term at the federal level and as regular income in CA, so if I actually do make all that money I expect it will barely cover a Roadster (and certainly not the SpaceX option!).

And of course if TSLA closes at $299 at expiration, I'll have ended up making nothing at all. And if it's below that then I'll lose money. And meanwhile, the trade is tying up a fair amount of cash collateral so I can't be making other trades. Like all other strategies, there's no free lunch. But I do love watching time value erode in my favor, unlike with buying calls. While I have no real knowledge of what TSLA will do in the next year, I'm quite certain time will pass.

Are you tying up ~$1.5M to execute this trade?

 

[XHabjab]

That's the thing: China is basically a 52th U.S. state, ...

Okay, I figured it out. @Fact Checking is a dentist.

 

[SteveG3]

Yes I believe it's 100% objective, despite the S&P committee having discretion: they would have to significantly break their own inclusion rules to not include Tesla.

Note that Twitter only narrowly met the inclusion criteria last year (only had around $10m of cumulative profits), yet was included.

Big passive index funds try to gather re-indexing shares in advance - the committee won't interfere with that.

While it's possible that the level of integrity in Michael Lewis' writing was not carried into the movie based on his book, re S&P and objectivity,

 

[Bet TSLA]

Are you tying up ~$1.5M to execute this trade?

Closer to $800K (it fluctuates and I don't keep close track), but that doesn't have to be cash. It can be a percentage of the value of equities. And margin requirements for selling naked puts varies somewhat with what broker you use (subject to FINRA rules).

 

[neroden]

Fantastic, thank you very much!

Here's a tabulated version, sorted by revenue value (from bearish to bullish), and left off the irrelevant .1 million digits:

Evercore

UBS

JMP

Goldman Sachs

Undisclosed

Wolfe Research

BofAML

Deutsche

Roth

JPMorgan

Undisclosed

Undisclosed

Thomson First Call Consensus

Elazar Advisors

Macquiarie

RBC

Wedbush

Undisclosed

Piper

Oppenheimer

Needham

Canaccord

[TD2] $6,805m [/TD2] [TD2] $6,820m [/TD2] [TD2] $6,848m [/TD2] [TD2] $6,851m [/TD2] [TD2] $6,895m [/TD2] [TD2] $6,899m [/TD2] [TD2] $6,926m [/TD2] [TD2] $6,976m [/TD2] [TD2] $6,985m [/TD2] [TD2] $7,020m [/TD2] [TD2] $7,032m [/TD2] [TD2] $7,067m [/TD2] [TD2] $7,082m [/TD2] [TD2] $7,084m [/TD2] [TD2] $7,089m [/TD2] [TD2] $7,139m [/TD2] [TD2] $7,188m [/TD2] [TD2] $7,192m [/TD2] [TD2] $7,226m [/TD2] [TD2] $7,440m [/TD2] [TD2] $7,523m [/TD2] [TD2] $7,715m [/TD2]

Yes, and it appears to be pretty clear to me that the shorts are trying to manipulate Thomson First Call consensus as well for Q4'18 TSLA results:

• There's evidence of significant gaming of the First Call consensus by bearish analysts, the top 2 revenue estimates are actually ALL from bearish analysts:
  • "Canaccord" initiated TSLA coverage half a year ago with a bearish outlook. They gave a number of mostly bearish interviews and stopped talking about Tesla after the positive Q3 results altogether ...
  • "Needham" of "Tesla's True Value is 'Closer to $200'" infame has the second highest revenue estimate ... Total silence from Needham after the positive Q3 earnings report.
  • "Oppenheimer" is the first genuine bullish analyst.
• Without the fake revenue entries the true median consensus would be below $7b - at around $6.8b-$6.9b...

Everyone who owns $TSLA stock, options or bonds and agrees that this is market manipulation which is harming investors, please file a SEC Investor Complaint:

SEC Investor Complaint Form​

A sample complaint could be something like:

Suspected illegal market manipulation: two of the most bearish $TSLA analysts (Canaccord and Needham) are apparently gaming the 'Thomson First Call consensus' analyst estimates to manufacture an artificial 'miss' on $TSLA by entering artificially high Q4'2018 revenue estimates 6-8% higher than the consensus, which estimates are not consistent with their publicly bearish views of the company. Their apparent intent is to profit from any adverse price reaction, should Tesla "miss" the artificially heightened revenue consensus.

Similar suspected illegal price and market manipulation distortion of the "FactSet" consensus was performed with the January 2 Tesla (TSLA) "Delivery Report", which created a price drop from a $332 closing price on December 31 to below $300 on January 2 - a more than 10% intraday drop. Bearish analysts entered unrealistically high production estimates for Tesla, which created an artificial "consensus miss" that adversely affected investor sentiment and caused a big drop in the $TSLA price - from which short sellers profited.

As a $TSLA investor I was significantly harmed by their action.

It's a classic 'short and distort' tactic that appears to be illegal according to the Securities Act of 1933, also known as the "Truth In Securities Act".
​

I believe the SEC is obligated to at minimum read every complaint made by an investor. Even if they don't act on it, it creates a track record that later SEC administrations can use to form new policy, restrictions on short sellers, more effective regulation of Wall Street analysts, etc.

So it's helpful to file complaints even if nothing happens straight away - the squeaky wheel gets the grease, eventually.

Non-U.S. investors can file complaints as well.

(Paging @ZachShahan and @Papafox.)

Good idea. I don't feel that I can say I was harmed, since I proceeded to buy at the low, but I hope you sent the complaint in. I'm not sure how to rewrite the complaint if I wasn't harmed, but I'll figure it out eventually...

 

[neroden]

If more people would show some restraint and focus on posting news and opinions about Tesla and less on trying to be the funniest poster, there is no need for separate threads.

Yes, and if my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a bus. But people are what they are...

 

[neroden]

Maybe there could be a way to vote for posts that are of significant direct impact to the stock, quantitative posts or significant company or market related information that is specific to the company that if they get 10 or more votes it populates a different thread with those posts?

Is such a mechanism possible?

Ooooh. I sort of like the "This is Important" vote concept. Maybe not populate a different thread but somehow automatically collect a list of links to the "voted important" posts?

Of course some of us would still have to read the whole thread, and maybe we would carefully not mark as "important" the most important posts, so as to gain an informational advantage over people who don't read the whole thread -- a tradeable advantage.

 

[TradingInvest]

Goldman Sachs recomends selling Tesla. But the Goldman Sachs group has been buying Tesla to the tune of 116195 shares acording to nadaq institutional holdings of Tesla. And sitting on 1.09 million shares. Why?

Tesla, Inc. (TSLA) Institutional Ownership & Holdings

I ignore Goldman Sachs, etc.. They could have a large Put position on the side to be net short, or have a lot of short shares. I never know if they are really long or short a company, on top of that, they maybe helping their large clients to position.

Leave TSLA's case aside, an investment bank could say XYZ worth a lot, actually they are trying to dump shares; or they genuinely think a stock will go up, in that case they probably already positioned long or told their clients to position first, then they will push hard to the upside. I can never tell which case it is. All I know is don't deal with con man. They can play with themselves.

Same for Morgen Stanley, one day they say Tesla is a leader addressing 14 trillion dollar markets plus in-car time value during FSD. Another day they think TSLA's FSD doesn't worth much.