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

[sdtslafan]

Tesla stock is not going up for a very long time. There has been to much damage from Elon’s overpromising and underdelivering. In the context of Trump, tariffs, and current market conditions, the stock is a no win situation in the short term. I love the company and I think the stock will eventually thrive but the only way the market will appreciate the true value of this company is when they see Audi, Mercedes, and the other car companies start to feel the pain from lost market share. Then it will be obvious but that may take time. Probably a couple years. For your own sanity, don’t have high short term expectations and keep somewhat diversified. I keep only 7% of my net worth in this crazy company and I’m pretty relaxed these days. I like real estate because you aren’t aware of the price on a daily basis. Not giving advice other than to say keep an open mind. No investment is a sure thing. I am still a strong believer in the long term vision and expect eventual success.

 

[powertoold]

Tesla already has a mascot. It's that furry animal right after you order.

 

[RobStark]

Also 2020 will be an exciting year. I can't wait for the roaster 2.0

 

[KSilver2000]

If they make 6k/wk - they will be at 78k Model 3s. If they manage 15k s+x and not increase the inventory a lot from last quarter, they can deliver 90k.

I think something in the 80s is most likely, though.

7k/week would be ~91k *just Model 3* for the quarter. Unless you’re expecting exactly 0 S/X, that rate isn’t necessary.

You guys right. Had a brain fart and didn’t remember correctly that he was referring to just model3’s at 7k/week.

 

[EVNow]

I can't wait for the roaster 2.0

I’m still with my DIY roaster. May be I can directly jump to the roaster 2.0 when it comes out.

 

[anthonyj]

Tesla stock is not going up for a very long time. There has been to much damage from Elon’s overpromising and underdelivering. In the context of Trump, tariffs, and current market conditions, the stock is a no win situation in the short term. I love the company and I think the stock will eventually thrive but the only way the market will appreciate the true value of this company is when they see Audi, Mercedes, and the other car companies start to feel the pain from lost market share. Then it will be obvious but that may take time. Probably a couple years. For your own sanity, don’t have high short term expectations and keep somewhat diversified. I keep only 7% of my net worth in this crazy company and I’m pretty relaxed these days. I like real estate because you aren’t aware of the price on a daily basis. Not giving advice other than to say keep an open mind. No investment is a sure thing. I am still a strong believer in the long term vision and expect eventual success.

I kind of agree with what you’re saying, but this is Tesla. Sentiment for this company can do a 180 faster than I can change my underwear (I tried it once). Stock can go up 50% next week if/when they announce a partnership. The stock is literally a tug of war, it’s just Linette and Anton Wahlman are getting pretty heavy and and it’s hard for us skinny ramen eating bulls to keep pulling

 

[RobStark]

U.S. auto sales expected to slip 5th-straight month

U.S. light-vehicle sales are projected to fall for the fifth straight month in May as the industry limps into the usually robust summer selling season.

Estimates from four forecasters call for declines of 2.1 percent to 3.2 percent from May 2018. Most automakers are scheduled to report May results on Monday.

The seasonally adjusted, annualized selling rate is projected to range from 16.9 million to 17.0 million, in line with full-year estimates for sales to come in below 17 million for the first time since 2014.

TrueCar's ALG said average incentive spending fell 10 percent from a year ago to $3,359 per vehicle. It also estimates that the average transaction price for a new light vehicle rose to $34,137, up 3.4 percent from a year earlier.

 

[seldon]

Anyone who thinks there is a demand problem should read the linked stats. They show that the Germans are selling millions of cars each year in China. Mostly they are not as good as a Tesla but cost more than the GF3 vehicles.

2018 International: German Luxury Car Sales Worldwide and in China - Car Sales Statistics

 

[Buckminster]

Confessions Of A Twitter $TSLAQ Troll | CleanTechnica
Elon just "liked" this article on Twitter. Suggests not engaging with trolls.

 

[Matias]

Elon Musk on Twitter

Smart summon early release next week.
Let’s see. This will be interesting if it indeed blasts our brains off

I hope that’s a figure of speech

 

[Cosmacelf]

I was just thinking about how Apple wanted to buy Tesla years ago at $240. They required Musk be removed as a condition. That's why the deal never went though.

With the cash reserves Apple has, they could short Tesla all the way down to $150, where Musk's own shares get liquidated:

To support funding the company and other personal investments over the last decade, Musk personally borrowed about $517 million on margin from Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and Bank of America by pledging his Tesla share holdings as collateral.

Normally, Elon Musk could just borrow more money on margin to buy Tesla stock and push the price back up. But due to Musk having a series of problems with the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) about the validity of his optimistic tweets, coupled with a video surfacing of him brazenly smoking pot, Tesla’s Board restricted Musk to a 25 percent “loan to pledge” on his stock ownership.

As a result, another 20 percent decline in Tesla stock price to about $151.53, may cause Elon Musk’s lenders to start massive sales of Tesla’s stock to protect the principal of their margin loans. Such big sales could kick off a shareholder panic and cause the price to crash​

Doing this would get them a cheaper buyout price AND get rid of Musk in one fell swoop. And by doing it right now, max FUD can be pushed because it will be at least till Q3 results that Tesla has any chance of showing significant sales metrics to combat the shorters. Even China gigafactory won't have results for maybe 8-12 months from now.

Not saying Apple is heading the shorts right now, but this does go to show that there are real financial gains by multiple parties beyond "big oil" who would salivate at the thought of a sinking Tesla.

No, that’s not how it works. At all. Elon’s margin account at Goldman and the Tesla board requirement of 25% loan to pledge have nothing to do with each other. Tesla board does not set Goldman margin policy. TSLA stock can hit that 25% loan to pledge ratio, but nothing will happen since that is not the number that Goldman cares about. Stock would have to get much lower, like around $5B market cap for Goldman to start margin sales. That’s about $30/share. Now, Elon would be in contravention of a Board policy if the stock hit the 25% loan to pledge, but so what. Do you think the Board would force Elon to start panic selling? No Board in their right mind would ever ask their CEO to start dumping shares. The Board options would be many, like:

A. Do nothing and wait for the stock to recover.
B. Ask Elon to pledge his SpaceX stock and remove the Tesla stock from the margin account, so no TSLA stock sales.
C. Negotiate a private sale of a part of Elon’s stock to another buyer.

C. Would be a last resort, and still not cause panic selling. The point is, a margin sale of Elon’s s stock just isn’t going to happen.

 

[DrKenneth]

How many awesome unicorn scale opportunities does Tesla have? I just started listing the obvious ones. What’s missing?

• Semi
• Roadster
• Y
• 3 expansion
• Economy car
• Simplified production of S and X
• Robotaxi
• China expansion
• Charging
• App store
• WiFi
• Insurance
• Air conditioning
• Emission credits
• Solar
• Storage
• Logistics
• Drones
• Aerospace

I believe you left out tomatoes, sport massages and dwarven chain mail armor...

 

[lascavarian]

I considered some shorts to protect my convertibles against the worst case scenario, but it would wipe out the discount, coupons, and more so it didn't seem worth it.

Ok, makes sense not to diminish the yield. I guess I was thinking there might be some derivative type vehicle backstopped by the convertibles used to hedge a large short position somehow.

I was also wondering if companies like Spacex use convertibles for qualified investors? Maybe they only use shares.

 

[lascavarian]

Basically I am saying that deep learning networks possibly may not be able to do all that we need for FSD...and maybe they can...but its far from certain at this time.

Is it far from certain? Seems to me that it is more and more certain but it does have to be achieved. I have questions about general AI but less so about task specific AI with the caveat that vision has to be improved.

Seems that vast improvements in vision processing have been demonstrated so every days haul of data pushes forward toward the goal.

 

[dhrivnak]

That’s what he calls Winning.

There will be a day when he goes after countries in Africa with tariff threats, lol.

It is a brilliant was to raise taxes on the working class without them ever realizing they are being taxed.

 

[AlMc]

This is NOT directly Tesla/TSLA/EM related BUT it probably will have impact on all tech holdings in the short term, including TSLA:Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

I know many have a way around paywalls... A summary that is not behind paywall". Report: Justice Dept Prepares to Launch Antitrust Investigation into Google

 

[Singuy]

Looks like 100k will only give GAAP break even.

It is a brilliant was to raise taxes on the working class without them ever realizing they are being taxed.

That's because Americans don't understand taxes. Our tax system is complex but it's also not that hard to understand. You know that Americans are bad at money when a majority of them doesn't understand a thing about an organization that takes away up to 50% of their income monthly.

Sometimes I am amazed how so many people are so misinformed/under-educated and yet we are still considered to be a great nation. Thank God for the few who knows what they are doing to make this nation great like Elon.

 

[Pras]

This is NOT directly Tesla/TSLA/EM related BUT it probably will have impact on all tech holdings in the short term, including TSLA:Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

I know many have a way around paywalls...

Disagree. This at most is very temp drag but not a major macro issue. We know that all big tech, AMZN, FB, and Goog are in the crosshairs of both dem and rep. I attended a meeting where many Sr executives were sure that this is going to happen. So I would treat it as one off event than macro type.

 

[madodel]

What's changed is the pain felt by all those disrupted is starting to sting so they're fighting back harder now.

I wonder if the buggy makers fought this hard and this dirty when the first of the horseless carriages started to pop up?

 

[Krugerrand]

I’d prefer;