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

[Tslynk67]

So as predicted, here we are. I think if SEC/twitter thing was resolved yesterday we'd be heading north today but now extended another week. In any case, scaling here with long term(5-10 yr) timeline probably ridiculous great opportunity. Hate short term speculation but monster bounce coming(maybe now...maybe summer?) but I think back in 300s minimum within 120 days.

Not a week - next Tuesday.

Unless they f*cking extend it again!

 

[Silent Ludicrosy]

Sorry if this has been answered, but did FCA money show up in Q1 revenue? I am way behind on this weeks announcements.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Ihor Dusaniwsky on Twitter

"$TSLA short interest is $8.43 billion; 34.03 million shares shorted; 36.89% of its float. There are around 13 million shares of #Tesla available to borrow at the usual lenders with probably around 2-3 million more shares that could be borrowed if you dug around the street."

Mike Smith‏ @MikeSmithTMC

Replying to @ihors3

"Can you tell us approximately how many TSLA shares there are available to be shorted? And how many currently shorted? Thanks for all your help!"​

Thanks for the question to Ihor, Mike.

Cheers!

 

[saniflash]

Sorry if this has been answered, but did FCA money show up in Q1 revenue? I am way behind on this weeks announcements.

no

 

[humbaba]

Sorry if this has been answered, but did FCA money show up in Q1 revenue? I am way behind on this weeks announcements.

Question asked in EC. Answer: Its confidential

 

[Big Blue 1011]

Why not? If their TSLA holdings go above I think 10% of their portfolio they have to sell, if it's below that they are free to buy more.

TSLA is currently 9.47% of ARK's portfolio. They sold more than 300,000 shares in 4th quarter 2018 when it was 5.6% of the portfolio.

I'm not saying there is anything wrong with what ARK is doing. To the contrary, my point was that their approach will likely maximize the return for their clients. But I think it is a stretch to say that ARK sells TSLA only when it is forced to by the restriction you cite.

 

[Tslynk67]

They want a short squeeze? They’re secretly buying calls? Nothing makes sense.

Big oil, auto manufacturers, utilities, Kock brothers, Trump cronies - this bunch can easily throw a $billion down the drain without too much pain if they can halt the EV movement in its tracks.

And believe me, if Tesla were to fail then you can kiss goodbye to other EV's coming to market ant time soon.

But hey, firstly, Tesla ain't going anywhere. Secondly, so what if the SP goes to $1, will it really matter other than morale?

And you see what's important in America? The orange President, on the phone to OPEC to reduce prices...

It's a really horrible environment for Tesla to have to operate in right now, roll-on the next elections and let's pray for a change of administration.

 

[PhaseWhite]

• SEC settles with zero action against Elon. (60% likely)
• EV tax credit cap removed. (40% likely in an election cycle where deficits aren't being counted)
• More fleet merging deals signed.
• 2Q Model 3 production/delivery rebound.

Awfully gloomy around here considering you can buy a $35k Model 3 RIGHT NOW. My prediction is bullet 2 above causing the long-awaited short squeeze if it lands right after good M3 production/demand figures are released.

I'm not buying the robo-nonsense for next year either. I think it'll be possible, but who's going to allow it at scale? Maybe they'll do airport runs in Denver or something.

I'm not so sure about EV tax credit. I'd like to believe, but the current administration, along with a good portion of congress don't care to invest in EVs. At the State level we see them actively working to discourage their purchase. The Koch brothers and ALEC have been busy working with republicans in the state legislatures to create punitive EV registration taxes.

Koch-Funded Groups—Yet Again—Speak Out Against Electric Vehicle Tax Credits
The Latest Threat to Electric Cars - Center for American Progress

It is an odd position for the administration that is so pro US manufacturing that they don't realize the current EV tax credit is now mostly subsidizing foreign car makers with the 2 domestic EV manufacturers: Tesla and GM having hit the tax credit cap.

When you combine these lobbying efforts with the absolutely ridiculous rules that limit Tesla's ability to open service centers in a large number of states it is depressing how badly the deck is stacked against them.

 

[Drax7]

Sequential revenue along with gross margin. All Tesla has to do is keep revenue growing, plus have a good outlook for 20+% gross margins.

Even in this horrible qtr their margins were above 20%, the immediate issue
Is revenue growth and with operating leverage their margins improve.

Credible revenue growth should not be questionable.
Liquidity should not be questionable.

FSD may be questionable, but not revenue growth and liquidity.

 

[CorneliusXX]

I think the Y looks good for a CUV.

The CUV architecture does not really lend itself to good looks though...

Out of the 5 SEXYR models the Y is probably the worst looking, but what do you expect from the cheapest version of the more difficult form factor. It holds it's own against competitor CUVs.

 

[Prunesquallor]

Interesting. Looks like NoA would, indeed, meet level 3 requirements under that doc.

EDIT: Also, if you have FSD or EAP package, you’d get 15% discount. AP only would get you 10%.

I can’t read through that whole mess right now. What was the rate impact if Level 3 is achieved? Thanks.

 

[HG Wells]

When the FCA deal is finally released it will cause a rise.

 

[Boomer19]

I can’t read through that whole mess right now. What was the rate impact if Level 3 is achieved? Thanks.

lol. 15% discount - right in MMs sentence

 

[MarcusMaximus]

I can’t read through that whole mess right now. What was the rate impact if Level 3 is achieved? Thanks.

I mentioned there: 15%. NoA, in its current form, is already level 3.

 

[Thumper]

I'm still 30 pages behind so I hope this isn't a redundant thought.

One reason Elon may be reluctant to do a stock offer raise is that he would end up with fewer shares that he owns personally, unless he can buy some of the offering himself. I think retaining control of Tesla is very important to him.

 

[elasalle]

Shorts might be betting on Cap Raise and Dilution too. ...
As soon as that happens take profit and close position

 

[anthonyj]

I'm still 30 pages behind so I hope this isn't a redundant thought.

One reason Elon may be reluctant to do a stock offer raise is that he would end up with fewer shares that he owns personally, unless he can buy some of the offering himself. I think retaining control of Tesla is very important to him.

Doesn’t he usually buy some of the shares when Tesla does a raise? He hasn’t purchased on the public market for a while now, so maybe he is hoarding some cash for the raise

 

[Prunesquallor]

lol. 15% discount - right in MMs sentence

Edited for BOOMER 19 response:

OK, so that has already been decided for insurance purposes. Good. But, if your interpretation is right, FSD is only worth 5% over AP. Since AP is now standard, the additional cost of FSD (whatever that turns out to be next month) has to be weighed against insurance rate reductions (along with the inherent benefits, of course). 5% is not a very strong incentive.

 

[AudubonB]

Just to chip in... GM is also moving to quarterly disclosures and many car companies who do monthly e.g. do it on a high level, all or several model lines combined which blurs the picture when they have 57+ models. Every time i was trying to pull some official statistics on German premium sales from their ERs I found things were blended within product families, or only global vs regional etc. So every automaker tries to selectively provide the information.

Having said that, the reason why I am sort of disagreeing with Tesla`s decision to avoid monthly disclosures is because this is effectively a communications problem and an asymmetric war. Whoever has an agenda to skew info against you and put things in a bad light will find the way anyway. A key concept in communications is controlling the narrative. By not disclosing the monthly numbers they are not preventing anyone from writing stupid headlines about how their sales have tanked. News sites will find other, less reliable, or even biased sources like the Bloomberg tracker, the InsideEVs estimate or even our own EU data collection and will spin it any way they want to. By not putting out official numbers and using that release to explain them, Tesla is completely surrendering control over the narrative to its adversaries and clickbait headline factories who`d sell their mother for a thousand extra clicks.

I am going to use this excellent post to leapfrog back to one of my earliest-ever posts on TMC. Around report time for 2013 1Q or 2Q, I posited that the very most defensive and offensive (OFF-ensive, not of-FEN-sive)* plays Tesla could do would be to report sales and/or deliveries at midnight PST every single day.
In this manner, not only would Tesla control the narrative, with no one on Wall St being able to complain against a lack of transparency, but it would come close to completely defusing this malevolent Quarterly Trauma, AND it would generate ceaseless gastric eructations amongst executives in every other auto company on earth.

This proposal was met with near-unanimous disagreement amongst the then-active Forum members, many of whom claiming it was unwieldy and presenting unnecessary and confusing information.

After three dozen subsequent quarters, I bring it up again, unshaken not only in my belief of its merits but as a further effort in my desire to upend that deplorable Cult Of The Quarterly.


*Well, it would be of-FEN-sive, as well. But only to those who most dearly need to be offended.

 

[Artful Dodger]

...and there's 240.00 now will it bounce or sink?

EDIT: Thar she goes.