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

[Singuy]

Premarket is up over $8 as I write this. Is this just people expecting a make on Q4 deliveries? Anyone expect this to continue into the normal market hours? Or will the shorts try to drive down the price to start the new year with the usual MMD?
Tune in later today starting at 9:30 EST as we watch As the TSLA Ticker Turns.

Currently it's because of macro plus recent raised in PT from Canaccord from $375 to $515

 

[engle]

Here's a quote from Why stock market traders should be terrified of robots in the next decade

"In the place of those seemingly primitive exercises are programs that scan real-time news feeds and trade stocks based on headlines. There’s very little human interaction required here, and in turn it causes scores of crowded trades amplified by the herd mentality of the algos.

As we have learned over the past ten years, those crowded trades could instantly unwind as the machines assess a single new headline."

So, should we individual investors be "terrified of robots in the next decade", is it just an attention-grabbing headline. For me personally, since I don't short-term trade, day trade, buy / sell options, etc. I don't give a damn what these stupid "algos" are doing on a daily basis to cause artificial perturbations in stock prices as long as they do not affect long term moves.

Can someone with more knowledge/experience please help me understand something. Are enough human traders AWAKE 6:23 AM EST or 3:23 AM PST to "trade" enough volume on this incredible "analysis" to move the stock +1.2% pre-market? No. I don't think so. My theory is DNN (Deep Neural Network) AI has been trained with labeled ML (Machine Learning), and historical price moves after analyst reports and press releases, to instantaneous "read" them and decide programmatically to "buy" or "sell". The game is rigged against the little trader which is why I just buy what I think is good after due diligence and go long.

Perhaps someday there will be AI/ML for computerized trading released to individual investors...

 

[Tslynk67]

Where do you all check for the deliveries report?

Investor Communication | Tesla, Inc.

 

[lklundin]

While a "fleet hack" is very much a concern (thankfully one Tesla takes very seriously), this specific sort of stuff is not that concern (as far as I can tell). They send bad wifi data to a vehicle within wifi range (e.g. single vehicles), compromising the MCU. This is very different from compromising the Autopilot computer. Unless you can do the latter, you can't tell the car to do something explicitly dangerous. You could give it bogus routes to take, but... not particularly devastating.

I have more concerns about Tesla's end. I hope that their server that signs updates is properly airgapped; has good physical security; code is audited regularly for malicious insertions; and that their system for distributing updates is an independent network with its own security. But again, they seem to recognize the seriousness of the threat.

Good comments. Given the high frequency of OTA firmware updates I have to hope that Tesla has a fully automatized procedure for ensuring no compromise or other errors during each of these updates.

I also have to hope that Tesla with the increase in market cap & fleet size increase the bounties promised to white-hat hackers - otherwise the dark side will be tempted e.g. outright paid to exploit the vulnerabilities that the software (Tesla's or firmware of COTS components) inevitably will have.

But as Elon said (I believe it was during FSD Investor Day), a fleet wide comprise of the AP would bankrupt Tesla, so the seriousness of the matter is publicly acknowleged.

 

[elasalle]

Where do you all check for the deliveries report?

https://ir.tesla.com/press-releases

 

[HG Wells]

NINE ! Up in premarket !

EDIT:
It was 9.
Nows its a measly 8.73

 

[KarenRei]

Good comments. Given the high frequency of OTA firmware updates I have to hope that Tesla has a fully automatized procedure for ensuring no compromise or other errors during each of these updates.

Note that audits aren't perfect. I'd know; I'm a former winner of the Underhanded C Contest.

I really wish they hadn't discontinued the contest... I'd already written the framework for the sneakest, most deliciously evil entry ever to grace that contest, but never got a chance to use it Without any obvious sign in the code**, it seemingly inexplicably downloads and runs what looks like a banner ad, except it's a steganographically encoded attack vector with a decryption routine disguised as a comment in the PNG supposedly describing how the PNG was generated. Now I have an effectively unlimited amount of code on my hands rather than having to sneak every devious thing I want to do subtly in the original program. The code hidden in the PNG is decrypted to memory (never touches the disk), the PNG is wipe deleted, and the original program is subtly altered to eliminate the bug that allowed the attack to take place. A debugger then connects to the running process, which can allow it to do whatever underhanded behavior the contest specifically requests. I was then going to have the program dig through your computer idly in the background, looking for amazon / ebay accounts from which to buy bomb-making supplies and social media accounts on which to write posts that make it sound like the user has become radicalized and joined ISIS

** - Will describe in a PM to anyone who's curious as to how it works I've never seen anything like this approach before. You have to promise that you won't use it if the contest restarts and you take part in the contest, okay?

 

[Artful Dodger]

Meanwhile...

Ford – The automaker's stock was downgraded to "underperform" from "in-line" at Evercore, which notes a significant valuation premium compared to General Motors and what it considers limited upside potential.​

Cheers!

 

[jerry33]

Can someone with more knowledge/experience please help me understand something. Are enough human traders AWAKE 6:23 AM EST or 3:23 AM PST to "trade" enough volume on this incredible "analysis" to move the stock +1.2% pre-market? No. I don't think so. My theory is DNN (Deep Neural Network) AI has been trained with labeled ML (Machine Learning), and historical price moves after analyst reports and press releases, to instantaneous "read" them and decide programmatically to "buy" or "sell". The game is rigged against the little trader which is why I just buy what I think is good after due diligence and go long.

Perhaps someday there will be AI/ML for computerized trading released to individual investors...

Traders do not live only in North America. That said, 06:30 is later than I get up on weekends.

 

[Mike Smith]

It seems a lot more likely to me that Elon was at the delivery event to celebrate than to help. How exactly would he be of help? I think it's a very good sign that he was there.

 

[Joe F]

Piplsay is a joke based out of Gurgaon, Haryana, India

[snip]

Let's ignore them and move on... (Fake news haha)

Which basically is what I said, if not meant.

 

[EVMeister]

it seemingly inexplicably downloads what looks like a banner ad, except it's a steganographically encoded attack vector with a decryption routine disguised as a comment in the PNG supposedly describing how the PNG was generated)

 

[Krugerrand]

News on GF3 deliveries—>

Breaking: Mass Tesla MIC Model 3 Deliveries to Begin on 1Yr Anniversary of Gigafactory 3’s Groundbreaking Ceremony

Customer delivery event at GF3 on Jan 7, the 1 year anniversary of groundbreaking. Now we know why that huge parking lot was left full of shiny new MIC Model 3s

Tesla/Elon never misses an opportunity for a spectacle. You have to appreciate the brilliance and uncanny ability to get maximum exposure/value for literally everything.

I’m sure they would have liked to have started Chinese deliveries sooner, rather than build inventory. But when that didn’t quite work out, waiting for the final permits and such, an even better spectacle began to form and here we are; a small ceremony before the end of year to officially open the factory, have a wedding proposal just to put a cherry on it, and then time wide scale deliveries for the anniversary date of groundbreaking. How does that even happen? They could not have possibly timed it better if they’d actually been trying.

Even spectacles people were losing their minds over as disastrous events, like the puff that shook the world, numerological security, and the double downed smashed window have become an unintentional and unimaginable trifecta of genius. How three completely separate ‘OMG, Elon has lost his mind and is going to drive Tesla into the ground’ events became one badass viral meme of superlative positivity is mind blowing from where I sit. You can not make this sugar up.

Regardless of how you define it; The Universe, divine intervention, simulation, intuition, making your own luck — something or someone has got our backs here.

 

[jerry33]

Market dominance in an original product is distinctly separate than is one that transforms an existing segment. Thus MS comes closest of your analogies, but even there numerous issues cause questions, although their anti-competitive actions with PC seller inclusion did allow for legal recourse.

None of your others even approach the question of monopoly. FWIW, Apple has lions share of segment profits. So what? That is not remotely like monopoly.
PsyPal is nowhere anywhere close to monopolistic; only in consumer PtoP, PtoC in the US do they have high market share. Facebook and Google have had dominance in online advertising revenue and Google comes close for search. Both US-centric dominance. As for SpaceX, nothing remotely like monopoly, but obvious and stunning competitive advantage as well as largest market share.

My issue in in using the word monopoly too loosely. Monopoly exists when there are no competitors. Monopolistic behavior can easily exist without actual monopoly. Thus MS, Google, Facebook are all accused vociferously, sometimes successfully.

The example I expected was Amazon, specifically AWS. Of course that isn’t monopoly either.

Obviously high market share confers advantages in numerous ways, most often evidenced by anti-competitive actions (I.e. ‘monopolistic’ in accusations). Apple doesn’t usually qualify on pricing but they repeatedly are hit with APP store accusations. SpaceX might get such accusations soon.

Tesla almost certainly will never be so accused because various forms of competition are always available. Incompetent competitors does not mean they are not competitors nor the the competent one has a monopoly.

Anyway, the thesis is ridiculous because of emerging Chinese, Korean and German competitors in autos, among others as well as myriad solar panel and energy storage suppliers. Why waste otherwise strong arguments on fallacious suppositions?

Were the thesis have been that Tesla is likely to command the lion’s share of profits I would not argue. That is the MS, GOOG, AMZN and AAPL argument that has clear potential validity.

Well, yes, sort of. But most people think in terms of their particular country. So just because there are competitors worldwide doesn't mean much if in their country there is a de-facto monopoly or oligarchy. (Four or fewer firms competing often result in non-competitive behaviour and usually one or two of the four firms have far less market share than the others).

 

[cricketman]

So, should we individual investors be "terrified of robots in the next decade", is it just an attention-grabbing headline. For me personally, since I don't short-term trade, day trade, buy / sell options, etc. I don't give a damn what these stupid "algos" are doing on a daily basis to cause artificial perturbations in stock prices as long as they do not affect long term moves.

Actually this is a great chance for us to use our "Human" advantage to beat the algo bots and make a lot of money
Algo bots can score a lot of information very quickly, but they are still very bad at assessing sentiment and the wider context of the news article (as are many humans).
So if you wait for circumstances where it is obvious that the bots have got it wrong, then jump in with a trade, then lots of quick money to be made (it will require you to be available to strike when the time is right!)
There was a good example with TSLA stock a few months ago. There was a headline about Nio that said something like "Tesla of China in deep trouble" which lead to the TSLA stock price dropping 5% in one day but then recovering the whole 5% by the next day when the human analysts had worked out that the sell orders had been placed mistakenly by the bots.
Of course, there is a potential cat and mouse game where you may find that certain headlines are designed to deliberately catch out the algo bots by a financial PR company acting in the interest of someone who wants to make money by catching out the algo bots, but I don't think they have reached that level of complexity yet.

 

[madodel]

Every day I check the Guardian to see if either Scott Morrison, our Prime Minister or Anthony Albanese, leader of the opposition, is prepared to acknowledge the problem (greenhouse emissions), or address the problem. Every day, disappointment. They both refuse to acknowledge the climate crisis.

Please don’t pity us. Point the finger at our inaction and denialism. It will be more useful.

I live in the US so I'd be pointing the finger at myself and the dipstick denialists/profitists who run my country into the ground. It is heart wrenching to see all the stories coming from Down Under daily.

 

[DrMazeppa]

While waiting for the P&D report, it is fun to see James May debate EV vs hydrogen cars with himself...

 

[sweter]

Good comments. Given the high frequency of OTA firmware updates I have to hope that Tesla has a fully automatized procedure for ensuring no compromise or other errors during each of these updates.

I also have to hope that Tesla with the increase in market cap & fleet size increase the bounties promised to white-hat hackers - otherwise the dark side will be tempted e.g. outright paid to exploit the vulnerabilities that the software (Tesla's or firmware of COTS components) inevitably will have.

But as Elon said (I believe it was during FSD Investor Day), a fleet wide comprise of the AP would bankrupt Tesla, so the seriousness of the matter is publicly acknowleged.

Years ago there was a Reddit thread where a supposed ex-employee of Tesla described what an amateurish mess was their IT infrastructure. I remember it looked very legit from software engineering side. It wasn't specifically proved to be true, but wasn't specifically proved to be false either.

In any case I do hope it's no longer true, especially that many of these flaws could be fixed in a matter of days or weeks by a competent DevOps person (and there are many in SV).

Ah, found it:

Former Tesla Programmer's anecdotes about problems : EnoughMuskSpam

 

[Krugerrand]

1/2/2020 is the only day since 2011 I personally want it to close DOWN bigtime since I think my 12/31/2019 401k-to-Roth IRA conversion (taxable to tax-free) will be "priced" today instead of at $418.33. I will pay ordinary income taxes on ### shares * price now, so future gains will be all tax-free in the future.

It will be offset in part by some full EV IRS US federal tax credits I rolled forward in my business. So credits for some Teslas I bought will pay taxes on part of my rollover. Sweet. (Of course, I am a moron for not doing this conversion in the low $200's during the summer of 2019! I could have converted all my #### 401k TSLA back then!)

I know from my time at Tesla Fremont Factory on 12/31/2019 and other reports TSLA left quite a few vehicles unsold. That may drive down today's price if the P + S report comes out before the market opens. Time will tell. Does anyone recall exactly when the 2018 Q4 report was released?

Am also hoping to read more dumb analists(sic) issue their silly reports to drive the price down for no reason today other than to maintain high volatility for the traders!

While I feel your pain for having missed the ideal timing, I really, really dislike when people wish for the SP to go down for their benefit, ignoring that others on our side of this fence may suffer because of it. Perhaps they have some options in play or need to cash in some shares for unexpected or expected expenses etc...

Can’t we simply be grateful for the opportunities that are afforded us and instead learn the lessons presented?

And that concludes my New Year’s resolution. Next person who posts about wishing the SP would go down for their own selfish purposes is going to get a very different response and not in a good way.

 

[The Accountant]

Tesla/Elon never misses an opportunity for a spectacle. You have to appreciate the brilliance and uncanny ability to get maximum exposure/value for literally everything.

I’m sure they would have liked to have started Chinese deliveries sooner, rather than build inventory. But when that didn’t quite work out, waiting for the final permits and such, an even better spectacle began to form and here we are; a small ceremony before the end of year to officially open the factory, have a wedding proposal just to put a cherry on it, and then time wide scale deliveries for the anniversary date of groundbreaking. How does that even happen? They could not have possibly timed it better if they’d actually been trying.

Even spectacles people were losing their minds over as disastrous events, like the puff that shook the world, numerological security, and the double downed smashed window have become an unintentional and unimaginable trifecta of genius. How three completely separate ‘OMG, Elon has lost his mind and is going to drive Tesla into the ground’ events became one badass viral meme of superlative positivity is mind blowing from where I sit. You can not make this sugar up.

Regardless of how you define it; The Universe, divine intervention, simulation, intuition, making your own luck — something or someone has got our backs here.

For a guy who thinks Advertising is just a lie, Elon is brilliant at marketing. The lines at Fremont on 12/31 and the lines we will see at Shanghai when the first customers come to the plant for pick-up are reminiscent of those Apple store lines when a new iPhone version was being released. A no cost marketing event that gains tremendous publicity and generates FOMO.