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

[keydiver]

Plus I kind of like the sun....tunnels don't have access to that.

Yes, remember the Morelocks.

 

[Intl Professor]

The idea is to try, to experiment, to move forward, to learn, and to do so without fear. Otherwise we remain immobile, stagnant, ignorant and fearful.

We are probable closet Buddhists. Like the Buddha at root quantum mechanics agrees things are constantly changing. You can accept that or not, but the best you can do is follow Machiavelli's advice on taming Fortuna.

 

[StealthP3D]

Since I expect the share price of Tesla and some other to rise faster than expected, I might be able to retire in six rather than ten years. But I don‘t want to necessarily sell my shares. Is there a strategy to live off shares but not to sell them? Some points for me to google about? Thx!

Invest with intelligent gusto. Because you will need a lot more money than you think to retire in an age of low-interest rates and rising prices for everything from good food to healthcare. The only reason I've been able to maintain my retirement for the last 20 years is that my stocks outperformed my expectations! But you can't count on that.

 

[pz1975]

This is really starting to irritate me. So many people getting told by ‘professionals’ to do this or do that because ‘they’ know better, are supposed to know better, should know better, but don’t. It makes it so hard for people to know which professional to listen to and when.

My tax guy, who’s been incredible over the years, for the first time told me earlier this year to consider selling some TSLA because I’m too heavy in it and taking a huge risk.

Of course this was after it had hit $180s and was hovering in the low $2s. (I was adding a share on every ‘there is a demand problem’ post I read - yes, I really did that).

He was genuinely concerned I was putting myself in a bad spot and he told me straight up the SP was going to continue lower. I smiled and then ignored his advice.

I have recently talked to him and jokingly asked him, ‘Now what?’ His advice was ‘At this point, I can’t advise you. Assess your situation and do what you think is best for you.’ He gets props for trying to look out for me and then quickly realizing he was wrong.

The lesson for people is that professionals are;

a) people just like everyone else and therefore not perfect and make mistakes

b) not all equal; somebody graduated at the top of the class, somebody at the bottom, and everyone else are shades in between - additionally their graduation placing has no baring on their future abilities to be good at their chosen profession, it’s far more complicated than that. Some of the most brilliant (at their chosen profession) people I know never graduated from college/university, some never even finished high school

c) not necessarily impartial and can tend to project their personal beliefs and realities onto others

d) not necessarily honest, good, or on your side - sometimes they are for themselves at your expense

e) people just like everyone else and sometimes they don’t know better than you (and their poo stinks just as much as yours)

This is a very useful post for people relying on a single person to be their financial adviser. That person is doing it as a job and for the most part will follow what they learned in school to advise you. They almost can’t tell you “Keep your portfolio high in TSLA and don’t diversify.” If they do that and are wrong, they would probably lose their position if you complained seeing as it goes against what they are supposed to advise.

I don’t have a financial advisor as I’ve spoken to a few over the years and they really didn’t offer anything I couldn’t research myself on the web.

This forum, with its breadth and depth of intelligent people from different background and with different experiences, provides WAY better financial advice and teachings than probably 99% of financial advisors. I am not joking about this - no single person I could hire could replicate what is here for free everyday!

Thanks to everyone here!

 

[Fact Checking]

Plus I kind of like the sun....tunnels don't have access to that.

With tunnels we'll be able to zip from A to B in minutes in most cases - so we can spend the time gained walking in the sun, without being trapped in a vehicle in heavy traffic.

 

[EVDRVN]

My friend picked up a 3 in Carlsbad delivery last night and there were only a couple other people there so it was a bit slow. I thought for sure it would be busy,

 

[ReflexFunds]

Musk setting the record straight on the emerald mine FUD isn't why he should stop tweeting, even if it has an effect on the SP. Honestly, I'm actually glad he's debunked that one.

Musk making enemies of urbanists by crapping all over mass transit and the science of induced demand is why he should stop tweeting, as this directly goes against the mission of sustainable transport, even if it doesn't have an effect on the SP.

There are areas where induced demand has less effect, true - remote rural areas. But induced demand even happens in closer-in rural areas - especially as road infrastructure is built out towards them, they build up as exurbs of a major city, and then they get the city's traffic problems. The faster transport is, the more an urban area can sprawl, further reducing sustainability through increasing transportation energy requirements (and making it harder to get around the area for those who can't afford the fast transportation technology).

Basically, while he debunked FUD about his background, there's been a lot of FUD going around that Tesla is part of the problem because they're still making cars. While replacing ICE cars with EVs for those that are unable to eliminate car usage does improve sustainability, we do need sustainable non-car transport, and Musk's stance isn't helping. (It's still FUD even if it's true, though, because... let's face it, while Volkswagen and Toyota do make buses for some markets including their home markets, do you see either of them truly promoting mass transit? Basically, Tesla beating the ICE incumbents leaves us better off than not beating them.)

The Boring Company's main R&D project is finding a way to make it far cheaper and quicker to build tunnels. What is actually put in the tunnels is only an afterthought and not what engineers at The Boring Company are focussed on.
Cheaper tunnels is obviously a great thing for mass transit as it will dramatically reduce the cost of building new subways.

The Boring Company is building EV tunnels to begin with because this is the lowest capital option and Elon already has companies with all the technology needed to do this.
Building a train system is far away from his own expertise and will cost far far more capital given how incompetent expensive and delayed train/track manufacturers/installers have proven with recent large projects in Europe and the US.
But obviously The Boring Company will build cheap tunnels for any company or government that does want to build new subways.

Also, Induced demand is not a science. It is a rule of thumb with narrow reach. If road capacity for 10 billion people was built, would it "induce" the spontaneous creation of 2 billion new people to fill all the roads?
Naturally road network expansions are most likely to take place where traffic is currently worst and there is most latent demand of people avoiding road travel because of the long traffic delays. So often these road expansions will quickly be filled by this latent demand until it reaches the same equilibrium of journey times (but with higher daily capacity).
This is just simply telling you you have still not yet done enough to solve the transportation capacity requirements for your city.
It is absurd to extrapolate this narrow and specific effect everywhere indefinitely to say it is impossible to reduce traffic anywhere no matter how many roads you build. It is also absurd to say you have done no good just because traffic levels are as high as before - you are ignoring the increased capacity of the transport network now available before you reach this traffic equilibrium.
Elon's entire point is we need to keep building new tunnels for EVs and trains to the point where there is no more traffic issue and no more latent demand of people avoiding travel or avoiding the area. At this point the number of daily trips in the trains or cars will have hit a different bottleneck such as job opportunities or housing or entertainment options etc. If all of these journeys are powered by renewable electricity and the infrastructure is built in a sustainable way, then the quicker, cheaper access to transport is better for everybody.
Of course we also need to work on additional solutions to the traffic and environmental issues, such as encouraging people to walk more (if and when possible for them), less accidents and pooling of passengers in EV Robotaxis etc.

 

[Fact Checking]

Invest with intelligent gusto. Because you will need a lot more money than you think to retire in an age of low-interest rates and rising prices for everything from good food to healthcare. The only reason I've been able to maintain my retirement for the last 20 years is that my stocks outperformed my expectations! But you can't count on that.

Actually, inflation of food and beverages is at historic lows:

Which is one of the reasons why interest rates are low: in 2008 we got dangerously close to a deflationary spiral, which is far more destructive than most levels of inflation.

 

[Tslynk67]

OK, it's time to nail our colours to the mast and with all the NL craziness, I'm upping my 19Q4 delivery estimate to 84138

 

[Chickenlittle]

Plus I kind of like the sun....tunnels don't have access to that.

Vitamin D deficiency will increase

 

[Tslynk67]

11 MX, 11 MS and a whopping 989 M3 delivered on Saturday in NL! 1011 total...

 

[Chunky Jr.]

Not even a phone gets this much improvement in one year! This is the best purchase motivator for a fence-sitter.

It's also a great motivator for those of us with older Teslas, such as a P85, that don't have the hardware for all the latest bells and whistles.

 

[Tslynk67]

Does a Tesla bear Sh!t in the woods?

As of late, mostly in their shorts. I would imagine...

 

[Silent Ludicrosy]

What was the original source of the 83k deliveries running joke?

 

[VValleyEV]

This is really starting to irritate me. So many people getting told by ‘professionals’ to do this or do that because ‘they’ know better, are supposed to know better, should know better, but don’t. It makes it so hard for people to know which professional to listen to and when.

My tax guy, who’s been incredible over the years, for the first time told me earlier this year to consider selling some TSLA because I’m too heavy in it and taking a huge risk.

Of course this was after it had hit $180s and was hovering in the low $2s. (I was adding a share on every ‘there is a demand problem’ post I read - yes, I really did that).

He was genuinely concerned I was putting myself in a bad spot and he told me straight up the SP was going to continue lower. I smiled and then ignored his advice.

I have recently talked to him and jokingly asked him, ‘Now what?’ His advice was ‘At this point, I can’t advise you. Assess your situation and do what you think is best for you.’ He gets props for trying to look out for me and then quickly realizing he was wrong.

The lesson for people is that professionals are;

a) people just like everyone else and therefore not perfect and make mistakes

b) not all equal; somebody graduated at the top of the class, somebody at the bottom, and everyone else are shades in between - additionally their graduation placing has no baring on their future abilities to be good at their chosen profession, it’s far more complicated than that. Some of the most brilliant (at their chosen profession) people I know never graduated from college/university, some never even finished high school

c) not necessarily impartial and can tend to project their personal beliefs and realities onto others

d) not necessarily honest, good, or on your side - sometimes they are for themselves at your expense

e) people just like everyone else and sometimes they don’t know better than you (and their poo stinks just as much as yours)

I offer a vote for “fee-only” financial advisors.

These folks make money not on transactions but from retaining customers. Their fees are mostly flat, but usually with some component that is relative to your net worth. Result is that they focus on a combination of long-term planning, and short-term transition planning (a big one being transition to retirement), and tightly coupled tax planning throughout.

I had two (NOT fee-only) financial advisors that were catastrophically bad, leading me into large positions in fashionable stocks that fell catastrophically (Enron, anyone?). I lost 80% of my portfolio value. One of them suggested that I make a $100k donation to his kids high school, and that my tax savings would pay for it.

I was lucky enough to find a terrific fee-only financial advisor that I have stayed with for many years. With some careful long-term management and a bit of good luck I was able to recover my equity position and get back on the path to a more-than-comfortable requirement.

When I expressed interest in purchasing Tesla, my advisor helped me set up a separate account brokerage with some seed money, mutually deciding how much I can afford to play with. I was convinced that the stock was hugely undervalued, that almost no one was looking at the huge disruption coming in EVs and Tesla’s lead, so added a fair amount of my cash on hand that was already separate from investments.

Resistance? None except the “remember how much you can afford to lose”. I have actually gotten requests from my advisor to help him advise other clients on TSLA. And lately a big congratulations on the price action. I am up about 70%, but I think this is only the beginning, and I have no intention of selling for years. If there is another dip that looks manufactured by short panic over quarterly financial artifacts I will very likely buy more.

 

[Unpilot]

Non issue and irrelevant. You can choose to drive above ground while others can choose to avoid the traffic and drive in the tunnels.

People have such a hard time adjusting to change for a variety of reasons, but the one above is that you automatically assumed you’d have to give up something you think is better.

Change is not all or nothing. It’s definitely not static. And change can always go back to what it was before if that was indeed better.

The idea is to try, to experiment, to move forward, to learn, and to do so without fear. Otherwise we remain immobile, stagnant, ignorant and fearful.

Says the cat alone on a island.

 

[lascavarian]

And on cue, redFay wets the bed:

Not to be semantic, but on our school yard that would be Edfray if memory serves correctly.

Right on clue is very very correct.

 

[wipster]

Vitamin D deficiency will increase

Time to invest in Vitamin D supplements!

 

[Tslynk67]

What was the original source of the 83k deliveries running joke?

Joke, this is no joke, buster!

Although in my case, 84138 does happen to be 420.69 x 200

Bit disappointed that none of you smart-asses didn't pick up on the...

 

[JustMe]

Joke, this is no joke, buster!

Although in my case, 84138 does happen to be 420.69 x 200

Bit disappointed that none of you smart-asses didn't pick up on the...

good one Btw, 84138 is a zip code in Salt Lake City Utah. I wonder if anyone there knows they live in a special place