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

[CorneliusXX]

View attachment 374610

Why didn't anyone mention this ship was coming in? I need to find better sources of information.

 

[KarenRei]

Why didn't anyone mention this ship was coming in? I need to find better sources of information.

It was discussed in this thread several times over the past day as it worked its way to and then through the English Channel. I even jokingly suggested that someone in the UK or France with a boat and a drone sail out to them and fly them a bottle of champaigne as thanks

Glovis Cosmos, the next to arrive, will be there on Saturday.

 

[mrdoubleb]

Pics rolling in: First ~3,000 Tesla Model 3s For European Customers Arrive In European Port — Pictures! | CleanTechnica

Your long wait is over, Europe.

Enjoy! (And send pics, videos, & stories. )

Are you sure that first pic with cars sitting at the port is from unloading in Belgium? I think that's still from Port 80 at SF when the cars were loaded. Gloves Captain arrived a 5:29 am and that tweet was sent Ann hour or two later. Also, all the cars are facing the ship. So unless they backed out...

 

[AlexS]

Why didn't anyone mention this ship was coming in? I need to find better sources of information.

I think position of this ship was posted here almost every day

 

[gora321]

SP didn't move yesterday despite Maxwell news.Company value and SP delta increased.
Just saying.

 

[KarenRei]

SP didn't move yesterday despite Maxwell news.Company value and SP delta increased.
Just saying.

... Not only did the SP barely move, but it did so when NASDAQ was up 1,15%. We performed nearly 1% worse than NASDAQ. :Þ

 

[gora321]

Alex on Twitter

 

[cheshire cat]

It was discussed in this thread several times over the past day as it worked its way to and then through the English Channel. I even jokingly suggested that someone in the UK or France with a boat and a drone sail out to them and fly them a bottle of champaigne as thanks

Glovis Cosmos, the next to arrive, will be there on Saturday.

Karen I think your spring has been wound tight enough for one day, I 'll have to have a word he's just a very naughty boy!

 

[gora321]

Greg Wester on Twitter
Greg Wester on Twitter

 

[SteveG3]

Sorry to push Karen for this, but it just annoys me that people always gets suprised about good articles on Seeking Alpha. They are essentially a blog full of independant posters. Their whole business model is NOT to have any editorial policy. So yes a LOT of shorters like Seeking Alpha since they do not quality check any article and for some wierd reason they have a wide readership. Randy Carlsen always posts good articles and exclusively from a sane perspective. So the question for SA isn't that it's there but the actual author. About 90% of the Tesla articles there are from crazy bonkers short sellers while some like Randy Carlsen are well reasoned and well argumented.
TLDR: So most SA authors are bad some are not.

We do not know whether they have an editorial process or not... their explicit policy, at least when I joined as a contributor several years ago, was to not fact check the blogs. This may actually be a tool to have a stealth editorial process (a commercial one, not a journalistic one).

Some who've written on SA in the past, including Galileo, have said they left SA because their bullish blogs were turned down for various reasons, yet, the flood of incredibly obvious nonsense blogs from bears continued to be approved (near utterly obviously intellectually dishonest gibberish like we've seen so many times from Anton Wahlman among many others).

We've all seen that Jim Cramer stock manipulation video, right (if you haven't, strongly encourage you to put the 10 minutes in to watch it on YouTube)? It's all about hedge funds creating false narratives and using the media as a tool to leverage those false narratives into market moving forces.

People playing shady games within hedge funds, or other WS orgs, by use of "bozo" reporters (Cramer's term in that video) at the WSJ, CNBC, etc (outlets he explicitly named).

You know what these guys have in common?

Jim Cramer
Henry Blodget

They both left the WS/hedge fund side of that 'game' to found "news organizations" that utterly seem as if they custom tailored to create play the other side of that 'game.' Cramer founded TheStreet.com and Blodget, Business insider. In Blodget's case, he was banned from the securities industry prior to his move to the media.

I looked a little into the background of Seeking Alpha's founders, but, did not find anything as obvious of having been part of the other side of that game before starting SA, as what we see with Cramer and Blodget. That said, their format looks even more custom designed to play the "news organization" end of that game. Show up on google, etc., as if you are "news," but, actually be a blog site with an explicit policy of not fact checking. Plausible deniability that Street.com & Business Insider don't even have. Speaking with Tesla's VP of Investor Relations a few years back, he gave me some indication that Tesla's lawyers had looked at SA, and thought they had a plausible deniability strategy (didn't take the phone call to the point of a discussion of stock manipulation).

tl;dr I see a reasonable chance that Seeking Alpha's "they're blogs, we do no fact checking" policy is not the removal of an editorial process, but, rather an editorial mechanism custom designed to provide essentially a safe haven for the pumping out of utterly false nonsense designed to move the markets created by cronies and/or the highest business among those looking to play the sort of games Cramer discussed. If their is a bigger game in the Tesla short position than betting the stock is overvalued, Seeking Alpha seems like a platform designed for running the plays of such a game.

 

[KarenRei]

We do not know whether they have an editorial process or not... their explicit policy, at least when I joined as a contributor several years ago, was to not fact check the blogs.

Some who've written on SA in the past, including Galileo, have said they left SA because their bullish blogs were turned down for various reasons, yet, the flood of incredibly obvious nonsense blogs from bears continued to be approved.

We've all seen that Jim Cramer stock manipulation video, right (if you haven't, strongly encourage you to put the 10 minutes in to watch it on YouTube)? It's all about hedge funds creating false narratives and using the media as a tool to leverage those false narratives into market moving forces.

People playing shady games within hedge funds, or other WS orgs, by use of "bozo" reporters (Cramer's term in that video) at the WSJ, CNBC, etc (outlets he explicitly named).

You know what these guys have in common?

Jim Cramer
Henry Blodget

They both left the WS/hedge fund side of that 'game' to found "news organizations" that utterly seem as if they custom tailored to create play the other side of that 'game.' Cramer founded TheStreet.com and Blodget, Business insider. In Blodget's case, he was banned from the securities industry prior to his move to the media.

I looked a little into the background of Seeking Alpha's founders, but, did not find anything as obvious of having been part of the other side of that game before starting SA, as what we see with Cramer and Blodget. That said, their format looks even more custom designed to play the "news organization" end of that game. Show up on google, etc., as if you are "news," but, actually be a blog site with an explicit policy of not fact checking. Plausible deniability that Street.com & Business Insider don't even have. Speaking with Tesla's VP of Investor Relations a few years back, he gave me some indication that Tesla's lawyers had looked at SA, and thought they had a plausible deniability strategy (didn't take the phone call to the point of a discussion of stock manipulation).

tl;dr I see a reasonable chance that Seeking Alpha's "they're blogs, we do no fact checking" policy is not the removal of an editorial process, but, rather an editorial mechanism custom designed to provide essentially a safe haven for the pumping out of utterly false nonsense designed to move the markets created by cronies and/or the highest business among those looking to play the sort of games Cramer discussed. If their is a bigger game in the Tesla short position than betting the stock is overvalued, Seeking Alpha seems like a platform designed for running the plays of such a game.

Seeking Alpha's moderation policy is fair and even handed. Both sides - bears and bulls - are allowed to declare that Tesla is hiding its no-demand cars in parking lots around the world.

 

[CyberDutchie]

Morgan Stanley drops price target by $8 to $283, cuts forecasts as well. Adam Jonas:

“Cutting our 2019 FY unit volume by 8% to 380k. We assume 296k units of Model 3 (average quarterly deliveries 17% above 4Q rate), and make 19% and 11% cuts to our Model S and X volume for 2019 to allow for pull- forward and impediments to deliveries in foreign markets. We assume no units of new Roadster.

Full year 2019 revenue cut to $28bn from $30bn previously. Driven by the cuts to our volume guidance, our delivery forecast sits in the middle of the company’s 360k to 400k unit range.

GAAP OP margin raised slightly to 3.4% from 2.0%. Offsetting the top line reduction is a higher degree of cost control (SG&A and R&D guide below our forecast) and restructuring actions, including recent significant headcount reductions. Our forecast for Auto gross margin is for a material expansion to 24.4% from 23.4% last year. Our forecast includes $400mm of emission credit revenue (mostly ZEV), which adds around 120bps to the margin.

We forecast 1Q19 to be a slight GAAP net loss followed by small GAAP profit in 2Q and 3Q and a small loss in 4Q.
We improve our forecast for FY19 free cash flow to negative $246mm from negative $809 driven in part by a materially lower forecast for capex this year. We forecast Tesla 1Q19 free cash flow to be negative $600mm driven by a sequential decline in profit and working capital leakage.”

Also (wait for it...):

“We push out our forecast of a $2.5bn equity capital raise to 3Q19.”

 

[SteveG3]

Morgan Stanley drops price target by $8 to $283, cuts forecasts as well. Adam Jonas:

“Cutting our 2019 FY unit volume by 8% to 380k. We assume 296k units of Model 3 (average quarterly deliveries 17% above 4Q rate), and make 19% and 11% cuts to our Model S and X volume for 2019 to allow for pull- forward and impediments to deliveries in foreign markets. We assume no units of new Roadster.

Full year 2019 revenue cut to $28bn from $30bn previously. Driven by the cuts to our volume guidance, our delivery forecast sits in the middle of the company’s 360k to 400k unit range.

GAAP OP margin raised slightly to 3.4% from 2.0%. Offsetting the top line reduction is a higher degree of cost control (SG&A and R&D guide below our forecast) and restructuring actions, including recent significant headcount reductions. Our forecast for Auto gross margin is for a material expansion to 24.4% from 23.4% last year. Our forecast includes $400mm of emission credit revenue (mostly ZEV), which adds around 120bps to the margin.

We forecast 1Q19 to be a slight GAAP net loss followed by small GAAP profit in 2Q and 3Q and a small loss in 4Q.
We improve our forecast for FY19 free cash flow to negative $246mm from negative $809 driven in part by a materially lower forecast for capex this year. We forecast Tesla 1Q19 free cash flow to be negative $600mm driven by a sequential decline in profit and working capital leakage.”

Also (wait for it...):

“We push out our forecast of a $2.5bn equity capital raise to 3Q19.”

FY19 free cash flow of -$246 million.

Can we have a call each quarter where verified Tesla investors can question the analysts and/or comment on their "misses."

 

[SteveG3]

About an hour ago on CNBC new panelist Mark Tepper advised viewers to sell Tesla shares, because Model S & X test drives are down 50% year over year. I have no idea where he got that information, but if true:

A temporary dip could have been expected when tax credits were halved. Three more months of free Supercharging is now given to those who choose not to test drive. A car can now be returned for a refund within three days with no questions asked if no test drive was taken. Since most of those cars are made to order, one cannot easily test drive a particular car and then choose to buy it. There are now so many of those cars out there that a great many prospects can now test drive a friend’s car.

By incentivizing not to test drive, fewer employees and test cars are needed at Tesla stores. The business decision to discourage test drives is a sound one. It’s added reason to buy the stock, not sell it.

Most likely the same place Gordon Johnson found out that Tesla was going to build cars in China and sell them in the US.

Curt, I know you are well aware of what's in the "Cramer Manipulation" video.

 

[SteveG3]

Speaking of Twitter, can we make some noise and get after f’ing Cramer. He posted Anton wahlman of all the credible people.

Swarm!

Jim Cramer on Twitter

Wahlman's ridiculous collection of Tesla killers (from the i3, to Dodge Challenger, to some Audi diesel station wagon) originally ran on Jim Cramer's thestreet.com. Wahlman jumped the shark so many times, his appearances on thestreet.com cratered a couple of years ago. The past week I noticed two Wahlman specials put out again by Cramer's outlet.

 

[SteveG3]

Rogan is the kind of guy who will drive the car for a while and really start to see through the bullsugar and pass that along to his peeps. That could be good for FUD busting.

The maxwell acquisition looks promising.

Wasn’t it on the rogan cast that Elon’s talked about the energy density needed to make electric airplanes work, was it 500w/kg? I saw in the maxwell stuff that they were potentially seeing that kind of level of density.

I need a neuro link in order to keep up with this thread. Whew!

What's more, for those who didn't watch the video, Rogan has a major crush on the new Roadster. For now, at least, says he's definitely getting one.

 

[gora321]

Mercedes, Bosch class-action emissions lawsuit can proceed, U.S. judge rules

 

[Buckminster]

Morgan Stanley drops price target by $8 to $283, cuts forecasts as well. Adam Jonas:

“Cutting our 2019 FY unit volume by 8% to 380k. We assume 296k units of Model 3 (average quarterly deliveries 17% above 4Q rate), and make 19% and 11% cuts to our Model S and X volume for 2019 to allow for pull- forward and impediments to deliveries in foreign markets. We assume no units of new Roadster.

Full year 2019 revenue cut to $28bn from $30bn previously. Driven by the cuts to our volume guidance, our delivery forecast sits in the middle of the company’s 360k to 400k unit range.

GAAP OP margin raised slightly to 3.4% from 2.0%. Offsetting the top line reduction is a higher degree of cost control (SG&A and R&D guide below our forecast) and restructuring actions, including recent significant headcount reductions. Our forecast for Auto gross margin is for a material expansion to 24.4% from 23.4% last year. Our forecast includes $400mm of emission credit revenue (mostly ZEV), which adds around 120bps to the margin.

We forecast 1Q19 to be a slight GAAP net loss followed by small GAAP profit in 2Q and 3Q and a small loss in 4Q.
We improve our forecast for FY19 free cash flow to negative $246mm from negative $809 driven in part by a materially lower forecast for capex this year. We forecast Tesla 1Q19 free cash flow to be negative $600mm driven by a sequential decline in profit and working capital leakage.”

Also (wait for it...):

“We push out our forecast of a $2.5bn equity capital raise to 3Q19.”

This is worded in an almost clever way - the average short can't keep up with Jonas intellectually which is fortunate for us that he is only 1 man. Each paragraph has a TSLA positive message embedded within it (or data from Tesla themselves) that is used to enhance the negative sentiment of the rest of the paragraph.

My favourite though, is the random statement on no Roadsters this year....

 

[gora321]

Tesla gives Panasonic a needed earnings boost

 

[gora321]

Tesla Shanghai Gigafactory February 05th 2019. 特斯拉上海超級工廠 via 42HOW. Credit: 哲伦班长 $TSLA #Tesla #China #TeslaChina #GF3

Video: https://youtu.be/1Kr52-huOIA

Vincent on Twitter