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

[StealthP3D]

On the flip side, those $120k in tesla shares are now worth a roadster 2.

We got our model x 90d 2016 and the model3 RWD 2018, to confirm the investment thesis and partially financed with gains from options gambles whenever any of the car fire fud stories and media frenzy suppressed the stock price.

Most of the purchase price was financed and the rest put back into tesla stock which today I can say did many times beat the 4% car finance rate .

While I think I can see your point, I view vehicle purchases as expenses, not investments. And, yes, the reason I didn't allot $120K to an early Performance Tesla is because I didn't believe in allocating that much money to a car (even though I could have easily afforded to do that).

But my point was, had I known how much better the driving experience of a state-of-the-art EV is, I would have forked over the money. It wouldn't have been the first time a car cost me over a million dollars in stock appreciation that never happened! If I knew how much more I would have liked it than my ICE car, I would have done it anyway. I was simply ignorant of exactly how much better an EV actually is.

 

[Rammstein]

I’m almost more happy that I’m right over the money I’m making. All the pieces that I studied about the company made it obvious to me that it was going to be a big winner.

Drove the car.
Got to know Elon Musk.
Learned about battery production.
Learned about car manufacturing.
Studied about how to solve FSD.
Could see through Analysts cheer picking data

This forum has been a great resource. Thanks for all the insight. This is pretty awesome showing how right I am to my friends and family who kept telling me to sell my shares. Hell they are still telling me. Long and strong!

 

[Artful Dodger]

That guy has a gambling problem. Should just bet on black at the nearest casino.

That was his problem: He bet on RED.

Cheers to the Longs!

 

[adiggs]

• A significant portion of those are delta hedges from convertible bonds holders as per @ReflexFunds.
• Another portion is rumored to be an expense from the oil industry rather than an investment.
• Many shorts are still going to assume Q1 will be bad (with the help of virus) and assume they'll be able to cover at better prices post-Q1.
• Volume is likely to be very high in the near term, and there are definitely going to be profit takers (swing traders + weak longs), so there should be some shares available for shorts that want to cover.
• Most importantly, when have people being short TSLA ever been rational? Being short at $650 now is a terrible idea, being short at $380 five weeks ago was a terrible idea, and being short TSLA at $180 back in June was the most stupid trade anyone could make at the time, yet plenty of stupid and/or deceived people were short TSLA back then. Don't expect this to change over night, if ever.

I could easily be very wrong like I was at $420, and price could run up a lot more in the near term, but I'm personally taking my one small short term bet off the table, and converting it to shares.

I think you've got it all backwards here @FrankSG. The short at $650 has never been better. Of course, waiting another day or 3 and people that so desire, may be able to short at $750. What a screaming deal! Heck - at this pace, people might have the opportunity soon to short TSLA at $1000.

Amazing opportunities available.

/s

 

[StealthP3D]

If you’re going to insult someone, you’d better get your facts right.

Elon said he would hold it after Q1, sometime in April. He did NOT say after Q1 results. The other things happening comment referred to the usual end of quarter push.

That's not what I remembered hearing but I'm willing to take your word for it since you sound surer of it than anything I claimed.

But that doesn't change how your comments about Elon "wowing" us with "advanced technology" struck me.

 

[Zaxxon]

Solving the Money Problem has a nice video deconstructing today's Yahoo Bull-Bear 'debate.' I think this largely got lost in the earnings madness today, which is a shame as it's IMO very well done and can be used as a solid starting point when friends who don't obsessively follow the company or own the products ask us about the FUD they hear.

Steven Mark Ryan jokingly says this is a one-off, but I rather hope he makes them at least semi-regularly. I think relatively bite-sized BS-fighting serum like this one would be quite useful.

 

[M3Rider]

FYI for Y order holders -

It seems wheels got auto-updated +1 inch for the same price, check your order.

If you change it back, keep in mind the price is now +$1k, unless you didn't update your order since the reveal, in which case the price may be cheaper, b/c it went down $2k before today's bump plus the white color became free.

I guess RWD or 18" are no longer an option, maybe they still honor existing RWD?

 

[Artful Dodger]

I’ve been a believer in Tesla for a long time but I didn’t have the epiphany, guts, whatever to buy any shares until last year and I’m so glad I did. This message board is a wonderful resource with so many knowledgeable posters. Thank you all so much! As an aside, @Artful Dodger , I used to bum around as a kid on SoCal Pirate bbs’s back in the 80’s with that handle. Brings back the “mems”.

It’s been a much more productive use of my time reading your posts with that handle! To say the least!

Cheers!

Lol, de nada amigo.

Folks should reread what I wrote since Spring 2019 about the "G-Cube". Bty Day is coming in April, and Elon said tonight "some retail investors have figured it out".

3 WORDS: First Prinicples Thinking

Cheers to the Longs!

 

[ckessel]

So now it is decision time

when is the best day to sell my call options expiring on Feb 7? Should I just sell tomorrow or on Friday? Or should I be greedy and wait till next week hoping for a good squeeze to set in?
Any and all ‘Not an advice’ from this group is most welcome.

Based on EvNow's (I think?) spreadsheets posted a bit earlier today, the average time to the low after an ER is a couple days. The average time to a high was something closer to a week or two. I'm guessing those are localized minima/maxima, not sure where the line was draw, but that would lead me to think the worst timing would be to sell them this week and likely better late next week.

I'm in the same boat on both sides. Some 2/7 $650s I bought late today and some _sold_ $520s expiring Friday I sold about 3 weeks ago. Trying to figure out the best time to get out of each. Based on those spreadsheets, probably end of day tomorrow for the $520 sold calls or Friday, then sometime late next week to get out of the $650 bought calls. Nothing is guaranteed, but under the theory the future is more likely then not to mirror the past, I guess that's my strategy.

 

[MP3Mike]

Margin calls don't work instantly like that. The client is given some time to either move $$ into the trading acct, or sell other equities to maintian the min. margin req'd.

Margin calls don't have to be delayed, they can be instant. And a single day, including AH, move of >14% could cause brokers to do an instant margin call on their weaker clients.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Next time, a pole dance.

Giga Krakow?

 

[TradingInvest]

Be careful. Tesla did not guide anything for Q1 other than a statement that it will be challenging due to the usual seasonality in sales and a China ramp that might not be perfect. Remember how much the market freaked out after Q1 last year? We've got 2 months before these bad sales numbers are disclosed. It almost has to take the stock price down, doesn't it? At some point between now and then the market will figure this out...

In 2019 Q1, there were not enough demand, we discussed in details why it happened that way.
This Q1 is different. Q1 production capability has improved a lot from last year, yet this quarter's production is basically all sold out and we are still in January. There are almost 1 million Tesla cars on the road, so awareness is much better now. A Model 3 is not just better, it's way better than any other cars. A test drive will sell the car, it's still true.

Lots of Tesla shareholders now can buy Tesla cars like buying rotisserie chicken from Costco. I bet many people on this forum know what I am talking about. There are at least 500,000 Tesla shareholders. This wealth effect should not be ignored.

 

[adiggs]

I see many people with their prognostications on what's going to happen next. Even bigger spike upwards. Brief and sharp pullback, followed by a new surge to yet another ATH. The typical retreat after a big move. ...

I don't have an opinion on short term movement in the shares.


I do have an opinion on what I see going on right now, the short version of which is that what I see is that we are now 3 months into a collective market realization that TSLA at $280-$380 was incorrectly valued. And much like the run in 2013, the market is now off seeking a new trading range that fairly values the company.

I've mentioned this idea off and on - I think of it as the market realizing the old trading range was "wrong", but not yet knowing what the correct trading range is. These things are always highly dependent on which points you choose to look at - there was a 6 month run from 3/13 through 9/13 that ran from the $30's to the $180 range. Then over the next 6 months, the stock fell back to the $130 range before continuing on to the $250 range, after which we had 3 years in the $180 - $280 range.

So I think I prefer the 1 year view, even with the big correction, as the amount of trading time needed to find the new trading range for the company.
TSLA Interactive Stock Chart | Tesla, Inc. Stock - Yahoo Finance

So whatever your trading strategy, my Not-An-Advice is that whatever you're doing, the larger macro view of TSLA is it's in a big upwards move right now that will be going on for months. And it's probably premature to be looking for the big 1/3rd correction (by analogy to 2013, it's premature by 3 months and ~$1000 worth of share price).


If we think that history repeats, then that 2013 move was from 20s/30s to 250 - that was a nearly 10x move in 12 months (with a 1/3rd pullback partway through the run, from 180 to 130). If that repeats, then we might be looking at $2,500 in the next 9 months.

Or maybe the company is so much bigger now, the magnitude of the share price change will be smaller.

Or maybe there's an even better money making story to be told today, both organically to the business, plus external factors that can influence the company share price (big short interest, S&P 500 inclusion, best single business to invest in for the renewable and sustainable economy, ..), so the move will be bigger.

 

[kengchang]

In 2019 Q1, there were not enough demand, we discussed in details why it happened that way.
This Q1 is different. Q1 production capability has improved a lot from last year, yet this quarter's production is basically all sold out and we are still in January. There are almost 1 million Tesla cars on the road, so awareness is much better now. A Model 3 is not just better, it's way better than any other cars. A test drive will sell the car, it's still true.

Lots of Tesla shareholders now can buy Tesla cars like buying rotisserie chicken from Costco. I bet many people on this forum know what I am talking about. There are at least 500,000 Tesla shareholders. This wealth effect should not be ignored.

Q1 19 delivery sucked because logistical screw up in Europe and China.

 

[Rande]

In my opinion, the reason why Battery Investor Day keeps getting pushed back is because Elon/Tesla want to have a working in-house cell production line first. They had a similar approach to Autonomy Investor Day: the FSD computer was already in production. This approach helps avoid Osborne effect and increases the impact of Investor Day events.

 

[AudubonB]

Lol, de nada amigo.

View attachment 505886

Folks should reread what I wrote since Spring 2019 about the "G-Cube". Bty Day is coming in April, and Elon said tonight "some retail investors have figured it out".

3 WORDS: First Prinicples Thinking

Cheers to the Longs!

Uh....



That’s only two words*



*(and a salad)

 

[Cosmacelf]

That's not what I remembered hearing but I'm willing to take your word for it since you sound surer of it than anything I claimed.

But that doesn't change how your comments about Elon "wowing" us with "advanced technology" struck me.

Yeah, I just relistened to Elon’s answer. I am correct.

As far as taking offense to my half sentence glib comment ... the rest of this commentary here isn’t completely targeted at you.

Because I was live blogging the conference call, I think I’ve made something like 50 or so posts today. In two of them I said things that weren’t completely rah rah on the stock price or Tesla. And some forum members here are having a bird about these comments.

I think people have gotten too used to this thread being a bull thesis echo chamber as the stock went hyperbolic the last month. It isn’t particularly healthy as an investor to not be thinking about downsides or getting upset if someone points out that Elon isn’t perfect (he isn’t, you know). I’ll leave it at that.

 

[Cosmacelf]

Q1 19 delivery sucked because logistical screw up in Europe and China.

It was a bit more than that. US tax subsidy expiration and seasonal downturn also played a role. Q1 is just a bad quarter for ALL automakers.

Will Tesla buck the industry trend this quarter? If they do, it’ll be very impressive. If they don’t, the stock price might take a hit (which, just like Q1 last year, would be temporary).

 

[StealthP3D]

Doh! 30 min b4 u wrote this you were all like "I wunna bought'em if I wasn't prepared to lose it all". REALLY faked ur self out on that 'un!

LOL, now you have to console urself with >75% of the profits tomorrow or Friday. Well, BUSSING!

Haha! I see what you are thinking there but there will be no "consoling" tomorrow, big grins all around! I do consider the odds at all times. And an expiring asset should not always be held to the end. In this case, I only sold 1/4 of my 2/7/2020 call position in order to modify the risk/reward more to my liking. Nobody hits the sale timing of expiring calls perfectly every time. My call position expiring three weeks later is four times the size and I haven't sold any of them. My remaining calls are golden. So, yeah, I cashed in 1/16 of my calls at today's regular session highs, right before earnings. The price was right considering they expire in seven trading days. Just because I'm willing to lose 100% of my position, doesn't mean I might not want to hedge against the chance of exactly that. It didn't hurt that they had already appreciated to four times their original value. I hate leaving money on the table when holding a long-term long position but, as you know, options are a different tool with different rules.

Last year, I held some near term TSLA calls too long and let them expire worthless. But all my other calls have been golden, like a high-speed cash printing press! Who is willing to give me such good deals? LOL!

And thanks for the nice compliment!

 

[sparcs]

FYI for Y order holders -

It seems wheels got auto-updated +1 inch for the same price, check your order.

If you change it back, keep in mind the price is now +$1k, unless you didn't update your order since the reveal, in which case the price may be cheaper, b/c it went down $2k before today's bump plus the white color became free.

I guess RWD or 18" are no longer an option, maybe they still honor existing RWD?

Is the range impact to Model Y AWD a little better than Tesla was stating in the shareholder letter?

It was 280 miles at launch for AWD, but the default wheels were 18". But now the default wheels for AWD are 19" and they are saying 315 miles of range.

am i reading too much into this? any sort of technology implications?