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

[Yuri_G]

Model Y matches the Model 3 on the highway and beats it in the city.
My WAG for the city is improved regen.

The highway match is the more impressive result that I cannot even guess at.

Wasn't there speculation that the cabin and battery heating was being sourced more efficiently from the drivetrain? I'd guess they are finding many improvements that have yet to be implemented in the 3.

 

[LJS22]

Wow!!!! I wish I waited to buy the Y. Well I have a cybertruck reservation. It might even be better Tech by then!

Stats at the cybertruck unveil had a bunch of numbers with “+” by their name. I think by the time it reaches production the dual motor will be closer to 350 miles while the tri will be closer to 550. Also Elon indicated a much higher charging rate than the 250kw.
We are at the infancy of electric car tech, the rapid improvements will be insane on the battery side and if you are aware of that you realize how fast they will make ice cars obsolete.

 

[mongo]

fyi...may have market impact tomorrow.

I just received a safety update/voluntary recall email from Tesla covering early Model X's to replace power steering components (bolts).

This applies to Model X's built before October 2016.

That is nothing new. Tesla has been swapping bolts for a while now. Recall was started March 2018.
Investor post referencing recall (Bosch issue)
General Discussion: 2018 Investor Roundtable
More info and dedicated thread
Power Steering falling apart
Edit, original did not include X. Sounds like it may be the same issue.

 

[RobStark]

Model Y is more efficient than Model 3? How do they achieve that?

Many have mentioned the tech.

Also smaller more aerodynamic tires.

 

[davepsilon]

I don't feel the need to defend myself. For the record, I was way under before this, and due to sheer luck buying deep a few OTM options (to participate in what people where theorizing to be a short gamma squeeze) I came out on top.

For the record though, I almost completely liquidated my Tesla position, and I'm going to turn it into a tiny short on monday compared to what it used to be just to stay invested in this story. When I say tiny, I mean *literally* one share. That's to give you the idea of the size of my portfolio. Again, I'm a retail "investor".

I do feel the need to defend the message. I'm just asking retail people with a lot at stake to consider the size of their position. Nothing is going to change if 10 people sell 500 shares each (which is never going to happen because of my message anyway) when the daily volume is in the billions! If you have 5000 shares or a $10M option position, you're just laughing at me for posting this. I'm just saying, if your retirement is riding on this.

I won't post any further message in this forum. I definitely understand why I'm very not welcome. And if the admins see fit, they can forward my email to law enforcement. While I'm pseudonymous, I am not using any VPN (you can confirm this by checking that my IP is coming from the most popular ISP in my region, or sometimes from a mobile provider IP, again very much used in Italy).

I will just finish this by saying that I did not think my message which literally only talked about position sizing, not direction or timing, would be received this way. Every single conversation I previously had in this forum was people being nice to me.

I wouldn't over-emphasize the reaction icons you got. Providing blanket investment advice is always fraught with potential disagreement. I do think if you have reasons for believing Tesla stock is headed lower setting out those reasons would result in a much more interesting discussion than simply advising readers to book profits after a set of trading days of record volatility.

In general I like to enumerate my own investment thesis and philosophy and let others pull what they find useful and I try to avoid giving investment advice.

 

[azaz]

somethingsomethingsomething on Twitter

Moderator:

This post is not being deleted. However, it is being used as a reminder NOT TO THROW OUT unexamined references from other locations. If something is worth being shared, it is worth the sharer's time to tell us what it is that makes it worthy of this site and its participants.

Fer cry-i....how many times does this have to be beaten into your noggins.

DON'T BE LAZY!

 

[UCF3]

Model Y matches the Model 3 on the highway and beats it in the city.
My WAG for the city is improved regen.

The highway match is the more impressive result that I cannot even guess at.

My guess is the MY 19” rims are more aerodynamic than the 19” sports

 

[RobStark]

Let's assume at most, UK compensates for Netherland

The UK has ~4x the population of The Netherlands.

I expect demand for Model 3/Y to far exceed 30k Model 3 units purchased by the Dutch in 2019.

 

[StealthP3D]

I'm a fundamentals kind of guy --- or at least I like to think of myself that way. Months ago I modeled Tesla gross profit from growth as being worth a share price of ~ $800 in two years. Let's just say my wife was amused.

Let me guess: She let you know in no uncertain terms that in two years she was confident it would be worth 2-4 times that amount?

Why is the female partner in a relationship often the most financial savvy one of the two?

 

[gerebgraus]

That is INSANE. I'm so looking forward to learning how they pulled off that bit of magic.
I also cannot think of a reason why the magic cannot make it into the next generation of Model 3

We do not know whether the update of Model 3 is high enough priority or investing resources to other projects are more important. On the other hand, there were hints that the Chinese Model 3 manufacturing has lots of updates compared to the Fremont lines. So lots of questions - few answers for now.

 

[UnknownSoldier]

That's pretty funny. He's addressing TSLA investors as if we all sold at $800 or $900. I mean, we can't "jump back in" if we still have our original positions. At least that's the impression he's trying to create (that we all sold during the two day drop).

There's no way to tell if we drop significantly lower before making new highs. Normal volatility and time suggest we probably will, at some point, touch prices maybe around $100 lower. On the other hand, we may not.

Stock momentum is not like momentum in classical physics in which once forward momentum has been stopped, there is no momentum left. With stocks, momentum is caused by human factors and a lot of eyes have been opened recently. So, it's not a given we will go a lot lower which is why I'm not selling at $748. I've ridden a lot of stocks down and back up to spectacular new highs - it's just the way it works.

TSLA's all-time closing high is $887.06. Currently $748.96, a difference of $138.10 or 18.4% off the high.

Look at this QCOM chart from the beginning of Qualcomm's 1999 run. On April 19th the price had dropped 21.4% off it's all-time high that was set 3 days trading days previous, April 14th. Since the shares had nearly tripled since the beginning of the year, many believed the stock had topped out. That this was the "blow-off top". But then, only two days after dropping 21.4% from April 14th all-time high, it went on to make a new high where it continued to climb for the rest of the year, eventually reaching over 8 times the valuation of it's April 14th high. Yes, it did decline for a few years after it's grand all-time high when the tech bubble burst, but it never retreated as low as its original all-time high of April 14th. That's an important point. Anyone who sold during that April high (or shortly after) never had a chance to buy it back for less. And they missed all the gains to the true end of the year top (actually in January).
View attachment 508714
My point here is not that I expect TSLA to mimic QCOM, I don't. It's simply that when everyone thinks there was a blow-off top, a top that was so crazy over-valued that it couldn't possibly do anything but continue to go down, it just might keep going up. And up. Also note that this chart has more than one big "gap up" that never got filled.

There are many other stocks that provide examples of this, I'm only using Qualcomm because I participated in it and am familiar with how so many people assumed it couldn't continue to climb after nearly tripling early in the year and then dropping so sharply and quickly. People were giddy at that point that they had nearly tripled their value since the beginning of the year. I held on and became a multi-millionaire before the year was finished. Again, I really don't expect that to happen here, that quickly. The point is that stocks can fly higher, much higher than anyone thought.

Just for the record, this was the infamous run just before the dotcom crash. QCOM reached the dotcom ATH of $88 a share by the end of 1999. QCOM was below $20 a share by 2002. QCOM would not ever pass $88 a share again until THIS YEAR, 2020. We don't really want TSLA to mimic QCOM. At all.

The reality is that you got lucky. You had QCOM during the dotcom run-up, it went to the Moon, and then you got out before the dotcom crash. Most of the time, investing isn't about being smart. It's just about being lucky. All of us who were in, or got in reasonably early, when TSLA ran from $180 to $960 were lucky. We weren't amazing investing geniuses. It just happened that the Q3 and Q4 earnings reports triggered this monster run and the reality is that it could have been anything that touched the run off and luck is luck, period.

 

[gerebgraus]

From memory Model Y also has a very low drag coefficient...

What might be interesting is the weight of a Model Y compared to a Model 3, do we know that?

Model Y has the same drag coefficient as the Model 3. That is impressive as it is easier to make a sedan aerodynamic. Nonetheless, the Y has bigger drag. ( drag = drag coeeficient x cross section.)

 

[Prunesquallor]

Model Y has the same drag coefficient as the Model 3. That is impressive as it is easier to make a sedan aerodynamic. Nonetheless, the Y has bigger drag. ( drag = drag coeeficient x cross section.)

Drag=dynamic pressure x drag coefficient x cross sectional area.

 

[FrankSG]

At this point I don't pay too much attention to the stock price, I care how many shares I own. I'm a proud cult member and a share collector.

We have the exact same objective. All I'm trying to do is accumulate as many shares as I can, while not taking on any crazy risks.

All of the long term option plays I make, I've calculated potential pay offs in # of shares, rather than in $ gained.

Therefore, I expect to sell my Jan'22 $500s around the time we hit $1,000 or $1,100 per share, and buy shares with the proceeds.

I think there's way more money to be made by holding onto them longer, but even if stock is $2,000 upon expiration, that'd only translate into less than 20% upside in terms of how many extra shares I'll be able to convert them into.

At $1,000 tomorrow or next week, those options will likely trade for ~$600 each, and can be converted into ~60 shares each. At $2,000 upon expiration, they would be worth $1,500 each (2.5x), but can only be converted into 75 shares, which is less than 20% upside.

So I plan to exchange those for shares around $1,000-$1,100, and then if there is another dip, recession, Q1 turns out to be a disaster, or something of that nature, I could leverage up a bit again through different options.

 

[FrankSG]

fyi...may have market impact tomorrow.

I just received a safety update/voluntary recall email from Tesla covering early Model X's to replace power steering components (bolts).

This applies to Model X's built before October 2016.

So that's like what? 15-20,000 vehicles? Media might spin it, but that's a big nothing burger in my book.

 

[Alphacrux]

Trolls are out in force in the comments section:
Tesla’s Stock Boom: It’s OK to Miss Out

Anyone with a subscription want to comment there?

WSJ folks (aside from obvious or paid trolls) remind me of these people (Musk == Brains):

 

[MC3OZ]

Model Y has the same drag coefficient as the Model 3. That is impressive as it is easier to make a sedan aerodynamic. Nonetheless, the Y has bigger drag. ( drag = drag coeeficient x cross section.)

Still the drag coefficient is very good for a vehicle of this type....

And to record those mileage numbers I bet the weight is good, the motors are good etc... overall the Model Y seems like a well executed design, that is even better executed than the Model 3......

 

[FrankSG]

Another great contribution from @DaveT

 

[kalefranz]

Do any of the more senior members here have context for when the IV might subside? Or alternately, would we expect IV to remain relatively high (elevated above the ~45% baseline) from now through S&P inclusion? Are MMs already pricing in S&P inclusion into options prices?

 

[UnknownSoldier]

Do any of the more senior members here have context for when the IV might subside? Or alternately, would we expect IV to remain relatively high (elevated above the ~45% baseline) from now through S&P inclusion? Are MMs already pricing in S&P inclusion into options prices?

On a stock which quite literally rose and fell 20% in the course of 2 days, representing a 48 hours change in market cap larger than the entire market cap of Ford, I would expect IV to remain relatively high for quite some time. The big movements aren't done yet, this is one volatile stock which is subject to massive amounts of manipulation so hold on to your butts, we're going for a ride.