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

[mongo]

Yahoo says 198k shares were traded at 11:26, 273k at 12:45, and 316k at 1:13, yet nothing significant happened to the stock price.
Is there a down tick rule in effect?

 

[SoGA Fan Club]

So, Chanos says Tesla builds cars of poor quality. I am wondering what he would consider what the other manufacturers are building to be. Correct me if I am wrong, but Tesla has issued 3 recalls in its history - one for a $5 bolt that COULD corrode over 20 years, one for a wire that could cause the 2nd row seats in the X to slide forward in a crash, and the other being the Takata seat belt ordeal everyone manufacturer is dealing with. Not one of these issues was due to a single actual incident, but rather Tesla being proactive (except the seat belt one obviously). On the other hand, according to Recall Masters, 32 million vehicles were recalled in 2018 (new recalls, not existing ones) - with a significant portion of these being potentially dangerous - for example, the F150 catching on fire, or downshifting to 1st gear at full speed, and many others.

Am I correct that Tesla, a NEW car company by industry standards, has had only 3 recalls in its history - one of which it had no control over?

 

[anthonyj]

Be a man and buy the dip. Below $250 is still a dip, you’re paying less than Ellison, Elon and the Saudi’s. Cathie Wood threw $75m at $230

 

[Boomer19]

What kind of SP increase is needed to see one of these mythical short squeezes?

not going to happen. there is waaay too much inventory/available shares/ammo for the shorts to borrow at low rates in order remain covered.

its still very cheap to short.

part of the reason for this is customer lending programs have increased the pool of available shares for borrowing.

these programs have added ‘fully paid’ shares to the pool of regular ‘margin’ shares that brokers use to lend to short clients, and counter-parties with short clients, looking for cheap stock to borrow to cover their short and avoid regulatory buy-ins.

i say part, because it’s pretty tricky to parse exactly how much of the total lending on the street is comprised of ‘fully-paid’ shares versus ‘margin’ shares, let alone in a particular stock. you can see in quarterly earning or 10-k the lending income and interest line items, but even then, not all the players are publicly traded, so at best it’s a guess.

for example, i lend my shares out. but what’s the point of me NOT lending them out if all the big dogs do it. my shares will have 0 overall impact.

but if the whole street decided to NOT lend their fully paid, segregated, long tesla stock, at these current short levels, at this depressed stock price, it would have a greater impact, even if temporary.

but let’s not get crazy...it’s not as effective as, say, stringing together 4 or 5 quarters of great execution and performance. that has a much greater impact on LT price and sentiment.

but... it’s an accelerator on the way down (when it’s loose) and also a bit of an extra spring at the beginning of a reversal (as it tightens).
and that’s a factor in why, as a holder/trader, it’s counter-intuitive to think that “we’ll never get as low as $xxx” because, with the ease and low cost of borrowing gobs of shares, we can get lower than you’d think, (and higher than it probably deserves to be at times), as we’ve witnessed.

 

[urarthur]

Yahoo says 198k shares were traded at 11:26, 273k at 12:45, and 316k at 1:13, yet nothing significant happened to the stock price.
Is there a down tick rule in effect?

Yeah, looks like SP manipulation to me. Buying tiny bits and selling all at once to crash the SP. I've seen these couple of times in the past few days and haven't worked at all.

Any investor willing to sell large volume on a low volume midday would do it slowly and quietly instead of dumping them all at once.

 

[Boomer19]

Without trying to beat a dead horse.

If watching a car pull out of a parking spot and drive up to the curb to pick up it's owner does not impress ... I'm not sure what would.

Most people seeing that for the first time would be shocked and I guarantee a HUGE percentage of people in the US don't have any idea that is even possible.

I guess having your "mind blown" is relative but I find that pretty darn impressive. I also realize that we have a long way to go with autonomous driving but I think advancements will come much quicker than most realize.

Cheers to the longs ...

everyone i’ve shown it to was pretty surprised, and that’s me describing it conservatively...and i don’t have enhanced summon yet.

so, yeah, i agree. for us it’s like, ok, cool.
for most it’s like, wow!

 

[HG Wells]

Yeah, looks like SP manipulation to me. Buying tiny bits and selling all at once to crash the SP. I've seen these couple of times in the past few days and haven't worked at all.

Any investor willing to sell large volume on a low volume midday would do it slowly and quietly instead of dumping them all at once.

I know, I know. ITS MARGIN CALLS, FORCED SALES !

 

[powertoold]

It doesn't really drive to the curb though. It drives up sideways and just stays there awkwardly lol.

During the Autonomy day press demos, the summon seemed more impressive and fast.

 

[Curt Renz]

ARK Invest will conduct its monthly webinar tomorrow at 1:30 pm EDT.

Tesla is the #1 holding in ARK's ETFs. It is usually discussed either in the main presentations, or in the Q&A session during which we can submit questions.

Registration: https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/7119127061193927937?__hssc=84851910.2.1560188671297&__hstc=84851910.d44ff1ab5a80e7af44b587c15ebbc66a.1560044479377.1560046336997.1560188671297.3&__hsfp=1702352274&hsCtaTracking=caa70d16-06c4-40e4-a27a-9db0f8c90826|9f08ee5a-1609-4afa-8b88-1887f170d8f4

 

[Nocturnal]

It doesn't really drive to the curb though. It drives up sideways and just stays there awkwardly lol.

During the Autonomy day press demos, the summon seemed more impressive and fast.

There is a reason why they haven't released it yet.

 

[Huskyf]

What the fu.. strong drop of TSLA$ any bad News ?

 

[ZeApelido]

Conversed more with a Waymo employee about why there is a need for Lidar right now. And his key points match mine. There isn't an issue with cameras being able to "see" enough information.

The problem is the analogy of "humans see enough with two eyes to drive, so should computers w/ cameras" probably fails in the present day. And it fails not because of the cameras, but because the human vision system is vastly more complex and powerful than most (or all supercomputers). I mean, if you study neuroscience, the chapters on human vision are the most complex, impressive display of neurological evolution.

Simply, why would anyone assume with high confidence that all of a sudden Tesla has enough training compute capability (and on-board inference power) to achieve enough complexity to get near enough to human vision to perform FSD satisfactorily? This is not to say it's not possible, but where is the evidence? Why in the world would you assume this is true?

 

[CyberDutchie]

Beyond Meat jumped 80% in 2 days, I guess some of the Tesla shorts have also been shorting Beyond Meat, under margin calls, they might have to cover both. Deserve it.

There is this guy who really hates Tesla, said he put 50% of all his money shorting TSLA. He is so sure Q2 total delivery will be 60k. He doesn't know north America alone will be more than 60k.

I hope he put his other 50% in shorting Beyond Meat. Losing everything may be the best thing happening to him actually, it might get him off his cocain addiction...

 

[ggr]

So, Chanos says Tesla builds cars of poor quality. I am wondering what he would consider what the other manufacturers are building to be. Correct me if I am wrong, but Tesla has issued 3 recalls in its history - one for a $5 bolt that COULD corrode over 20 years, one for a wire that could cause the 2nd row seats in the X to slide forward in a crash, and the other being the Takata seat belt ordeal everyone manufacturer is dealing with. Not one of these issues was due to a single actual incident, but rather Tesla being proactive (except the seat belt one obviously). On the other hand, according to Recall Masters, 32 million vehicles were recalled in 2018 (new recalls, not existing ones) - with a significant portion of these being potentially dangerous - for example, the F150 catching on fire, or downshifting to 1st gear at full speed, and many others.

Am I correct that Tesla, a NEW car company by industry standards, has had only 3 recalls in its history - one of which it had no control over?

Your point is mostly correct, although even the most rudimentary search would have found the correct answer:
2012 TESLA MODEL S
4 recalls on my Model S, one of which (the parking brake jamming on) actually happened to me. The air bags haven't been addressed yet, the other two (seat belt and steering) were done very conveniently when I had my car there for other things (tire change).
3 on the X, two of which are seat related, different from the recalls of the S, the other one for the parking brake issue.
None for the 3.

 

[anthonyj]

What the fu.. strong drop of TSLA$ any bad News ?

It's up 3.5%. Tesla usually fades half of it's gains. This is normal

 

[scaesare]

Most costs aren’t fixed costs.

So it's not worth pursuing scale and reducing those costs?

That's like saying "Most of my expenses aren't tax detectable, so it's not worth finding the deductions for the ones that are."

Remember, achieving economy of scale pays twice: By reducing costs per vehicle you make more per unit. You also sell more units.

 

[HG Wells]

What percentage of sales are plain SR ?
Im hearing less than 5%. But that seems low.

 

[Remus]

Conversed more with a Waymo employee about why there is a need for Lidar right now. And his key points match mine. There isn't an issue with cameras being able to "see" enough information.

The problem is the analogy of "humans see enough with two eyes to drive, so should computers w/ cameras" probably fails in the present day. And it fails not because of the cameras, but because the human vision system is vastly more complex and powerful than most (or all supercomputers). I mean, if you study neuroscience, the chapters on human vision are the most complex, impressive display of neurological evolution.

Simply, why would anyone assume with high confidence that all of a sudden Tesla has enough training compute capability (and on-board inference power) to achieve enough complexity to get near enough to human vision to perform FSD satisfactorily? This is not to say it's not possible, but where is the evidence? Why in the world would you assume this is true?

There is no evidence that lidar would help either. This argument does not hold water. If you want to argue for lidar vs vision you must talk about the difference between the two. I can't find any in your argument.

 

[Nocturnal]

Conversed more with a Waymo employee about why there is a need for Lidar right now. And his key points match mine. There isn't an issue with cameras being able to "see" enough information.

The problem is the analogy of "humans see enough with two eyes to drive, so should computers w/ cameras" probably fails in the present day. And it fails not because of the cameras, but because the human vision system is vastly more complex and powerful than most (or all supercomputers). I mean, if you study neuroscience, the chapters on human vision are the most complex, impressive display of neurological evolution.

Simply, why would anyone assume with high confidence that all of a sudden Tesla has enough training compute capability (and on-board inference power) to achieve enough complexity to get near enough to human vision to perform FSD satisfactorily? This is not to say it's not possible, but where is the evidence? Why in the world would you assume this is true?

Those points are valid, but also miss a huge component. We don't need to replicate human vision in order to drive as well/better than a human. Driving a car is far simpler than surviving in the wild. Human eyes/brains are generalists, we evolved to do all sorts of different things. Building cameras and a computer just to drive is much easier than it would be to build cameras and a computer to be a human (one of the tasks we can do is drive). Just like it's far easier to build a drone that can fly flawlessly than it is to build an artificial bird.

One simple example. Human eyes need to see a tube-like shape and think "snake? stick? food? scary?". An FSD vehicle just needs to see "tube-like shape, try not to run over". It doesn't need to know if it's a poisonous snake to run away from, a stick to ignore, or a cucumber to eat. Not to mention that our own brains are also constantly dealing with planning our day, looking at our phones, looking at other people in cars around us, processing music, taking a drink from our coffee...

FWIW other experts in the area have agreed with Tesla so it's not a case of Elon just being nuts or something.

 

[ZeApelido]

There is no evidence that lidar would help either. This argument does not hold water. If you want to argue for lidar vs vision you must talk about the difference between the two. I can't find any in your argument.

Lidar requires less computational resources.