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

[Krugerrand]

Pretty ballsy to mention their own scandal in the ad.

No it’s not. It’s to brainwash people into thinking VW is remorseful for having lied to and prematurely killing people for years. It’s to brainwash people into thinking they’ve turned over a new leaf. We’re so very sorry, we’ll make it up to you.

It’s bs. Just die already.

 

[Fred42]

Thats fine, the Chinese government does not equal the Chinese people. If you followed the carriers you would notice there has been a noticeable drop in average loading time for Chinese bound carriers.

The problem (if there was one) is hopefully now fixed by Tesla providing pricing for Chinese-built 3's. There had been some unrealistic expectation of low prices that caused people to hold off on buying.

 

[Spacemanspliff]

The problem (if there was one) is hopefully now fixed by Tesla providing pricing for Chinese-built 3's. There had been some unrealistic expectation of low prices that caused people to hold off on buying.

Thats fine but it wont matter for Q2 as all the ships bound for China have left.

 

[izemize]

What I don't understand is - why is even 65k or 77k "total disaster" ?

Q1 level 65k deliveries will net ~ $350M in operating cash flow, 77k will net $490M. I don't think people have understood what happenned in Q1. Entire negative operating cash flow ($639M) was because of inventory buildup ($809M) that they could not deliver.

Well... they would miss their own guidance meaning that something prevented them to execute their own plan. Delivering 77k cars instead of 90-100k would put their 360-400k yearly guidance in danger. They also guided for a small loss for Q2. If they deliver less cars, that means a bigger loss than they originally planned for. Whether you consider this a "total disaster" or not is - I guess - is up to you.

 

[MarcusMaximus]

Elon said on the Ride the Lightning podcast released last weekend that he had received zero inquiries from any other manufacturers about participating in the supercharger network

Well, we know Bollinger made a public request. Don’t know how serious that offer was, but I didn’t see any response from Elon/Tesla.

 

[FreqFlyer]

Lol at all the Fred hate when the man personally holds the stock and runs the most popular ev website.

Some of y’all got a real persecution complex.

Is there any proof of this? Just asking.

 

[MarcusMaximus]

and the Fred hate/"here's the archived link" messages do?

In all fairness, the archived link ones genuinely do. I don’t subscribe to the Fred hate bandwagon, but if people don’t want to support him, that’s a valid position and an archive link gives the info without compromising that.

 

[Steve m]

and the Fred hate/"here's the archived link" messages do?

If you are going to quote me you ought to be able to whistle the tune

 

[EVNow]

Well... they would miss their own guidance meaning that something prevented them to execute their own plan. Delivering 77k cars instead of 90-100k would put their 360-400k yearly guidance in danger. They also guided for a small loss for Q2. If they deliver less cars, that means a bigger loss than they originally planned for. Whether you consider this a "total disaster" or not is - I guess - is up to you.

Missing guidance is not "Total Disaster". Companies miss guidance all the time.

Shorts who think Tesla is going bankrupt any day now might think selling anything over 60k is a "total disaster" - because that would disprove their theory as myth.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Well, we know Bollinger made a public request. Don’t know how serious that offer was, but I didn’t see any response from Elon/Tesla.

Robert Bollinger sent a single tweet to Elon on the same Thursday that the NY Times released their hit-piece on Elon that caused TSLA to drop $30 the following day.

Elon was understandably preoccupied at the time. Robert never tried again. It's on him.

Robert Bollinger to tweet Elon over SC access | DISQUS comment

and here's the tweet:

Bollinger Motors‏ @bollingermotors
@elonmusk Can we use your charging stations?
9:50 AM - 16 Aug 2018​

Recognise the date? Here's the TSLA chart from Aug 17, the day following the NY Times hit piece: (SP closed $29.95 below the previous close, before the NY Times article was published online)

 

[neroden]

OT

May I ask, How?
How do you do it?

How do I do what?

Risk aversion bordering on paranoia, and obsessive study.

I pretty much spend all spare time reading or studying or analyzing one thing or another.

And I always look for everything that could go wrong, and try to figure out a plan to deal with / avoid / mitigate it.

Is that the way things are for you?
You simply recall all the various things?

No, I definitely don't have a photographic memory. What I have is a gift for generalization: I fit everything I learn into a framework. That's how I remember most things: I retrieve the specifics from the generalization.

Then, because I was trained as a scientist, I try to find evidence which breaks the framework, and if it breaks, I try to find a new, better framework.

I have *real* trouble with random unrelated unstructured details; they require extensive repetition before I can remember them. So I suck at learning vocabulary and pick up grammar instantly.

 

[Thekiwi]

seen quite a few people complaining about margin requirements increasing.

In case anyone wasn’t aware - you can purchase “Deep in the money” call options which gives you a similar leverage to Margin, with little in the way of premium cost.

For instance you can purchase a $50 Jan 2020 call for $147 (meaning a $197 stock price to break even) and you have almost 25% margin with none of the downsides of margin

 

[neroden]

Back when Anton Wahlman published hilarious articles on Seeking Alpha about Bolt outselling Model 3 (after month one of the Model 3 production ramp), I guessed that Model 3 was gonna do to Bolt what Model S did to Cadillac ELR. It's all over except the cancellation.

Edit: Whoops I forgot GM is trying to use Bolt for robotaxis. So cancellation may take a bit longer, after RoboBolts fail to generate the ride business of RoboTeslas.

Honestly, I think Bolt would be quite successful if GM wasn't being internally sabotaged by (a) most of the dealerships, and (b) whoever is allocating the cars to the dealerships, and (c) whoever is doing production planning. I am not at all sure that the Bolt sales reflect demand; based on what I know, I suspect they reflect a combination of supply and deliberate dealership misallocation.

 

[Krugerrand]

Thats fine, the Chinese government does not equal the Chinese people. If you followed the carriers you would notice there has been a noticeable drop in average loading time for Chinese bound carriers.

And there’s another share I have to add. I hope my butler comes with a cool name. Would hate for his name to be Donald.

 

[neroden]

1. In the first year or two, while you are still learning to invest, it's much safer to operate on a cash basis.
2. Generally margin buying should be done by younger investors who are still working. Their risk is somewhat less because they have more time to prepare for retirement.
3. The best time to use margin is usually during the first two years of a few bull market. Once you recognize a new bear market, you should get off margin immediately and raise as much cash as possible.
4. If a stock in your margin account collapses in value to a point where your stockbroker asks you to put up money or sell stock, don't put up money, think about selling stocks.

O'Neil also said "All of this depends upon the current market situation and your level of experience. I have always used margin and believe it offers a real advantage to an experienced investor who knows how to confine his or her buying to quality market leaders and who has the discipline and common sense to always cut losses short with no exceptions."

These are general rules. Everyone's situation and every stock is different. I think there is a decent chance for TSLA to rally higher from 180, definitely I'm not suggesting people to close positions with a big loss then watch the stock to fly. I just hope people understand what's right what's wrong regarding using margin, so they don't get hurt down the road.

Thanks! It makes sense. The "start of the bull market" rule is the most interesting to me. Of course, I'm using margin in a bit of a weird way -- I hate paying interest, so I'm only using it to secure short put options. If the BRK I'm using to secure them started to collapse, I *would* close the puts. I'm not willing to get out of them in the current bear market, though; time value is on my side and the odds of a bull market by 2021 are pretty high.

 

[Krugerrand]

Elon said on the Ride the Lightning podcast released last weekend that he had received zero inquiries from any other manufacturers about participating in the supercharger network

Thanks for the info. I haven’t had a chance to listen to that interview yet. How disappointing nobody even made a pretend effort.

 

[neroden]

Climate change could end human civilization by 2050, according to think tank report

Sorry for this grim prediction, but it does represent one possible outcome. If this is how things are going to go then we cannot suffer fools and must act now.

Yeah. I haven't figured out what to do (other than remove fossil fuels from my personal life, divest from fossil fuels, invest in Tesla, and vote, campaign, and contribute appropriately) given the sheer number of deranged idiots intent on making the problem worse.

I'm located in an area which is probably going to survive longer than average as civilizations around the world collapse (we are not coastal, have ample fresh water even after global warming, will be able to produce our own food supply, not subject to desert heat stress either) but once the dominoes start falling, it's hard to keep anything going.

Climate change could pose ‘existential threat’ to humanity by 2050, advocates say

 

[Spacemanspliff]

And there’s another share I have to add. I hope my butler comes with a cool name. Would hate for his name to be Donald.

You can go have a look yourself.

 

[neroden]

Can’t wait to say “told you so” to all my denier friends as we’re dying.

I have been encouraging deniers to move to coastal properties which are only a foot or two above sea level (will flood) in tropical areas (which will be uninhabitable due to heat). Encourage them to go there, preferably spending their money on those coastal properties, and take the people from those places who are smart enough to want to move up here to the inland north.

The Marching Morons - Wikipedia

 

[neroden]

No they would not have. To suggest that means you don’t know Elon Musk.

Oh, absolutely they would "stood on the shoulders of giants" -- they would have let others do the work, if others *had*.

Musk originally said -- you can dig this up -- that he knew the world was going to need to switch to electric cars, but he looked at the EV-1 and Toyota RAV4-EV (first generation) and so forth and figured the carmakers had it well in hand. Then he looked a few years later after they CRUSHED the electric cars and said "What?" and decided he had to fund an EV maker himself.

Musk's stayed out of buses precisely because there are quite a lot of companies making perfectly good electric buses and they are being purchased in large numbers. He went into Semis because that *was not* happening with semis,.