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

[Mike Smith]

WTF? How can any analyst say that with a straight face? He literally has one job to do. Sure Autonomy is tricky to value, but energy should be a fairly simple thing to put a value on: this is current sales & margins, here are projected growth of sales & margins, therefore its worth “X” amount.

Kathy Wood talked about this a few weeks ago. She said at ARK they have four different experts covering the different components of Tesla. She said none of the analysts do this which is why they don't know how to value Tesla and why none of them have $4,000 price targets.

 

[kbM3]

Tesla Analyst Alex Potter of Piper Jaffray interviewed by Rob Mauer

Loved the interview. Very nearly a must watch deep dive with an analyst. Rob was a great interviewer and Alex was thoughtful, logical and very well spoken, although maybe a little long winded on details about Nio.

If you do not have time, here are some of the takeaways I got:
1) China luxury market may be tougher to crack. It’s all about prestige, impressing in-laws, demonstrating value. The leaders are Bentley, BMW and Audi. It may be tough to crack for Tesla, as a newcomer, Chinese not as familiar with Tesla because of the Great fireWall, and because the vehicles might be lumped as just another EV.

2) Places zero value on Energy and Autonomy. He was very humble about it and said he just didn’t understand it well enough to value it. Also spoke about how he only put stuff in the Model he could defend.
—-My take: If Solar Roof successfully ramps into the thousands per week as planned, with decent gross margins, I think it could be a bigger stock catalyst than Model Y, since that’s already accounted for. And of course if Tesla cracks FSD, we’ll all be rich beyond the greatest dreams of avarice

3) Although he has the concerns about China, he has zero concerns about U.S. and Europe and basically stated Tesla just nukes the heart of whichever market they enter (with the exception of Cybertruck which he only credits for 200k/year). Because it is just U.S. and he doesn’t see it up there taking huge portions of Silverado, Ford...
— My take: Cybertruck will tear open not only the Pickup, but also the full-size SUV market

4) China ZEV system could be a license for Tesla to print money IF the government takes a hard stand.

5) Reiterated some of Sandy Munro’s points about Tesla’s massive advantage being vertically integrated. Gave an example of Mobileye, just trying to work out a simple mapping deal with VW, that just took quarter after quarter after quarter of meetings.

Probably left out a lot, but if you can’t watch, that was off the top of my head.

Hope that helps.

I just feel better and better about Tesla’s chance to skyrocket every day! Every day I feel better, not that TSLA will skyrocket every day, though you never know

 

[kbM3]

Wow, in the last 20 minutes Alex says that they currently value Tesla commercial energy and autonomy as worthless just because he doesn't have the technical knowledge to be able to defend any value he could put on them. Incredible. I'm guessing this is the case with almost all the Tesla analysts.

That was amazing. Really confirms our thesis that auto analysts are just in over their heads.

 

[StealthP3D]

I expect there are a lot of Connecticut Tesla owners who would be livid if their AP was forced to be turned off. They need to start a massive e-mail and social media campaign to turn this around.

Especially effective would be personal anecdotes of AP preventing accidents.

I agree (but I'm not too sure how massive the social media and e-mail campaign could be with just Connecticut Tesla owners).

Said partially tongue-in-cheek to get Connecticut Tesla owners to organize/take part.

 

[Singuy]

Loved the interview. Very nearly a must watch deep dive with an analyst. Rob was a great interviewer and Alex was thoughtful, logical and very well spoken, although maybe a little long winded on details about Nio.

If you do not have time, here are some of the takeaways I got:
1) China luxury market may be tougher to crack. It’s all about prestige, impressing in-laws, demonstrating value. The leaders are Bentley, BMW and Audi. It may be tough to crack for Tesla, as a newcomer, Chinese not as familiar with Tesla because of the Great fireWall, and because the vehicles might be lumped as just another EV.

2) Places zero value on Energy and Autonomy. He was very humble about it and said he just didn’t understand it well enough to value it. Also spoke about how he only put stuff in the Model he could defend.
—-My take: If Solar Roof successfully ramps into the thousands per week as planned, with decent gross margins, I think it could be a bigger stock catalyst than Model Y, since that’s already accounted for. And of course if Tesla cracks FSD, we’ll all be rich beyond the greatest dreams of avarice

3) Although he has the concerns about China, he has zero concerns about U.S. and Europe and basically stated Tesla just nukes the heart of whichever market they enter (with the exception of Cybertruck which he only credits for 200k/year). Because it is just U.S. and he doesn’t see it up there taking huge portions of Silverado, Ford...
— My take: Cybertruck will tear open not only the Pickup, but also the full-size SUV market

4) China ZEV system could be a license for Tesla to print money IF the government takes a hard stand.

5) Reiterated some of Sandy Munro’s points about Tesla’s massive advantage being vertically integrated. Gave an example of Mobileye, just trying to work out a simple mapping deal with VW, that just took quarter after quarter after quarter of meetings.

Probably left out a lot, but if you can’t watch, that was off the top of my head.

Hope that helps.

I just feel better and better about Tesla’s chance to skyrocket every day! Every day I feel better, not that TSLA will skyrocket every day, though you never know

Just a small correction. The first B in BBA is Benz

 

[StealthP3D]

So we have to gently reason with idiots who cannot begin to grasp the basics of statistics on any level.

Actually, at this point, we don't know if he's seen fair and balanced statistics (let alone any statistics).

 

[Causalien]

35,000 car accident deaths in America yearly, and this idiot is worried about 12 accidents using AP in 5 years, that resulted in 3 deaths - in over 5 billion miles? Maybe he should be more worried about the manufacturers that don't include safety features as standard on their cars.

Please, I beg you people of Connecticut, vote this idiot out.

"This crash could’ve been avoided. While autonomous vehicles are an exciting development, the tech is simply not ready to be deployed safely. Congress must act to protect the public from these vehicles until their safety can be assured," said Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, a member of the Senate's Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation."

Latest AP Crash will be 12th investigated by NHTSA

Elon, if you ever feel discouraged by US politicians, you can come back to Canada anytime.

 

[ggr]

Wow, in the last 20 minutes Alex says that they currently value Tesla commercial energy and autonomy as worthless just because he doesn't have the technical knowledge to be able to defend any value he could put on them. Incredible. I'm guessing this is the case with almost all the Tesla analysts.

Yes, that's ridiculous. The obvious way, and common rule of thumb, would be to take the annual revenue from those segments of the business, multiply by 10, and call that the value. So I looked at the last 10Q. Unfortunately the unrealised FSD revenue isn't broken out. But the revenue for Energy Generation and Storage for that quarter was $402M. Multiply by 4 to get annual of $1.608B. Alternatively take the 9 months YTD, which was $956M, and you get $1.274B, so that's more conservative. Still, 10 times that is nearly $13B, which is pretty close to 20% of TSLA's current market cap, or about $72 per share. And that's just Energy.

 

[Prunesquallor]

I agree (but I'm not too sure how massive the social media and e-mail campaign could be with just Connecticut Tesla owners).

Said partially tongue-in-cheek to get Connecticut Tesla owners to organize/take part.

Earlier this year Texas Tesla owners carpet-bombed state representatives on e-mail and Twitter. Trust me, it was noticed. A potentially bad state law was changed as a result.

 

[Singuy]

Alex Potter seems very conservative and I like it. They can defend every bear thesis without having to go into wild speculations. Energy is becoming more and more material, but a lot of stink tied into the solar city acquisition and I think conservative analysts like him wouldn't start modeling them until Tesla can pump out what they promised with solar roof. He has to be on TV a lot defending from CNBC attackers and he has the best chance not having to look like a nut like they make Cathie Wood out to be.

 

[UncaNed]

Earlier this year Texas Tesla owners carpet-bombed state representatives on e-mail and Twitter. Trust me, it was noticed. A potentially bad state law was changed as a result.

This is very good news, everyone! I had no idea the number of Tesla owners has increased past the tipping point that we're getting such power already! Once Model Y's are selling as fast as Model 3, we should be able to defeat the dealer's power to limit Tesla stores everywhere, and extend tax credits, though I am not a huge fan of subsidies past a certain point. I rather we work to STOP the carbon fuel subsidies instead. But out clout will grow quickly.

 

[Artful Dodger]

177,964 shares traded during today's After-hrs session, including two high vol minutes:

• 68175 @ 16:56 hrs
  
• 80002 @ 17:43 hrs

accounting for 83% of the After-hrs volume.

Presuming Market-makers were involved in those 2 large trades, those 148,177 shares represent around 1,480 Option contracts. Look at today's Options volume at the $310 Strike price:

I suspect a fair chunk of those 3,250 contracts were executed, and the shares changed hands After-hrs. Much better than the cash with an appreciating asset like TSLA equity.

Cheers!

 

[sparcs]

This is very good news, everyone! I had no idea the number of Tesla owners has increased past the tipping point that we're getting such power already! Once Model Y's are selling as fast as Model 3, we should be able to defeat the dealer's power to limit Tesla stores everywhere, and extend tax credits, though I am not a huge fan of subsidies past a certain point. I rather we work to STOP the carbon fuel subsidies instead. But out clout will grow quickly.

the lost tax revenue is going to skyrocket too with Model Y. Maybe greed will eventually sort this out...

 

[wipster]

Oh well, it was a good week, a little profit taking at the end is understandable...

Just want to start climbing stairs again all next week... 400 here we come!

 

[Beltsbear]

Yes, that's ridiculous. The obvious way, and common rule of thumb, would be to take the annual revenue from those segments of the business, multiply by 10, and call that the value. So I looked at the last 10Q. Unfortunately the unrealised FSD revenue isn't broken out. But the revenue for Energy Generation and Storage for that quarter was $402M. Multiply by 4 to get annual of $1.608B. Alternatively take the 9 months YTD, which was $956M, and you get $1.274B, so that's more conservative. Still, 10 times that is nearly $13B, which is pretty close to 20% of TSLA's current market cap, or about $72 per share. And that's just Energy.

While I might value it like that, I would in no way say a multiple of 10 is normal. Tesla's growth makes it be reasonable, but it could be seen as low as no multiple, just straight yearly revenue or $7 a share. Another way is 5x yearly profits, and that would be lower then $72 as well.

What the analysts should do is pick something. My personal pick would be 10x projected profits two years from now. Unless a competitor shows up that is serious, Tesla has more then 50% of this market.

 

[Ratanpara]

Here comes cryptographic message from Elon. $420.00 blow out quarter ?
Elon Musk (@elonmusk) | Twitter

 

[JustMe]

Here comes cryptographic message from Elon. $420.00 blow out quarter ?
Elon Musk (@elonmusk) | Twitter

Ha ha. Maybe!

But the fact that he’s goofing off with his twitter followers these days instead of fighting with shorts and sleeping on the factory floor tells you all you need to know about how Q4 will turn out.

 

[dc_h]

Here comes cryptographic message from Elon. $420.00 blow out quarter ?
Elon Musk (@elonmusk) | Twitter

I think there’s more then one way to read that first triangle.

 

[Bet TSLA]

Journalists need to come clean and admit their mistakes, not continue to spew anti-Tesla rhetoric on top of their previously wrong rhetoric if they want to be respected as people and as journalists.

When you're owned by Chanos, what can you do?

 

[StealthP3D]

When you're owned by Chanos, what can you do?

Brown-nosing is no way to make a living. In other words, she can do anything except continuing to do the same. Because that demonstrates a lack of creativity, a lack of a moral compass and a lack of competence in your chosen field.