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

[Krugerrand]

Lucid Motors was founded in 2007. 13 years ago.

Jeez they've been talking smack for 13 years and still haven't produced a single car. Who the heck is funding them?

Saudis

 

[BOBTHEJOCKEY]

Prices have gone down on the 3 in line with tax credit decreases. I definitely agree that if they can squeeze even a tiny profit in Q1 that will be the next catalyst. The bears are positive that Q1 and then 2020 in general will be a demand disaster. I think many of us longs are also still traumatized by Q1 19. I'm hoping my pessimism is unwarranted. Q1 results will overshadow Model Y ramp and battery day by far, unless the announce something really crazy.

What's the expiration date?​

I have two June $700 calls. I will hang onto them until after the earnings. 3 quarterly profits in a row in a manufacturing and tech company growing at over 50 to 100% a year has to be worth a lot more.

 

[Right_Said_Fred]

My broker DeGiro is active in the whole of Europe and they say that in January Tesla was the most traded stock on their platform in nine countries.

Blog Post

 

[thait84]

WARNING:

my brother bought $1,880 calls. He doesn’t know how calls work. Every time he’s purchased calls he made 10x-100x. Every time he buys a stock it turns to gold. I don’t understand how it works, but that’s just how it is. So there’s my warning

What's the expiry? 2/14?

 

[juanmedina]

WTF how can the Model Y be so efficient compared to the Model 3 even the tires will be wider:

2020 TESLA MODEL Y LOMG RANGE (look at that typo):
19": 255/45 (114mm sidewall, 711mm diameter)
20": 255/40 (102mm sidewall, 711mm diameter)

2020 TESLA MODEL Y PERFORMANCE:
19": 255/45 (114mm sidewall, 711mm diameter)

2020 TESLA MODEL Y PERFORMANCE UPGRADE:
Front: 21" 255/35 (89mm sidewall, 711mm diameter)
Rear: 21" 275/35 (97mm sidewall, 726mm.

I wonder if a new upgraded Model 3 is about to come out ?

 

[anthonyj]

Prices have gone down on the 3 in line with tax credit decreases. I definitely agree that if they can squeeze even a tiny profit in Q1 that will be the next catalyst. The bears are positive that Q1 and then 2020 in general will be a demand disaster. I think many of us longs are also still traumatized by Q1 19. I'm hoping my pessimism is unwarranted. Q1 results will overshadow Model Y ramp and battery day by far, unless the announce something really crazy.

What's the expiration date?​

28th. He bought 1. I bought way OTM calls for the 14th. Spent like a g

 

[BOBTHEJOCKEY]

Prices have gone down on the 3 in line with tax credit decreases. I definitely agree that if they can squeeze even a tiny profit in Q1 that will be the next catalyst. The bears are positive that Q1 and then 2020 in general will be a demand disaster. I think many of us longs are also still traumatized by Q1 19. I'm hoping my pessimism is unwarranted. Q1 results will overshadow Model Y ramp and battery day by far, unless the announce something really crazy.

What's the expiration date?​

Over the period last year I was BROKE. Every time Tesla dropped I bought another option. Up until 2 months ago I had 2 690s, 4 600s, and 3 520s all June expiration and 1 Jan 2021. ALL these cost me about $700. Now I have the 2 700 June calls left with $40,000 in cash. From $700 to about $70,000 in one year. Before I pat myself on the back I had $260,000 in 2014 all on Tesla and lost it ALL. I think I have learned my lesson. When you are sitting on gains in options sell the lower priced options and buy higher priced ones. I did not know how to do this in 2014 I DO NOW. Let's get an AMEN to that baby.

 

[SageBrush]

FWIW, the following cycles have been used on MY2020 Tesla cars tested to date per the 2020 data file:

2-cycle: Model 3 SR, MR, LR RWD
5-cycle: Model 3 SR+, LR AWD, P18, P19, P20, Model Y P19, Model S (all), Model X (all)

So comparing the 3 P18 and Y P19 numbers is comparing apples to apples. It would still be interesting to see the individual cycle data, as I'm expecting FTP-75, HWFET, SC03, and US06 to be worse for Model Y, but Cold FTP to be much better.

Very interesting. Paging @AlanSubie4Life

 

[Chickenlittle]

Yes, and left in Jan 2012 several months before the heavy lifting of making Model S started. Reason for departure given at the time was that he wanted to attend to some family matter back in the UK. I bought that story until he turned up at Lucid the following year. Take a leave of absence, do family, return. That’s how you’d do it if things are good.

Adding: He’s worked his way up to CEO of Lucid as of last year and now he’s trash talking Tesla.

Sampson also left at the same time without any explanation. So I contend they both got told to pack their things.

It was Jerome who stepped in and Eric Bach.

PETER RAWLINSON AND NICK SAMPSON LEAVE TESLA! | Tesla

If voluntary doesn’t speak well for their judgement

 

[gerebgraus]

It was somewhere between 0% and 100% of the reason.

You have learned nothing from Adam Jonas: -20%, as well as 120%, is possible.

 

[chrsk]

With useful comment explaining it in simple terms:

by Kirk57

I’ll give you an example:

In June when the stock price was $180 Fred (being a very astute Tesla fan) realized, it was fundamentally very underpriced. Rather than buying more shares, he decides to buy call options at $750 / share that expire Feb. 7th. XYZ institution makes a lot of money by capitalizing on irrational dreamers like Fred. They looked at their data and realized no large company ever has stock that goes up 4X in less than a year. So they’re willing to sell Fred 10k options at $0.15 each.

Each option gives Fred the right to buy 100 shares of Tesla from XYZ at $750 any time over the next 8 months. So:

each option costs Fred $0.15 * 100 = $15.
10k options cost Fred $150k.

They give him the right to buy 1M shares of Tesla anytime on or before Feb. 7th for $750.

Fred’s breakeven point on the stock is $750.15. He would buy the 1M shares at $700, sell them at $700.15 and get his initial $150k back.

However if Tesla is at $1500 per share Friday, Fred buys the 1M shares from XYZ for $750, resells them for $1500 and makes $750M!

XYZ institution is sitting there in June feeling very happy with the $150k they got from Fred. Easy money!

In July TSLA goes back in the $200’s but XYZ is not that nervous.

Tesla releases the surprise Q3 results and Tesla soon jumps into the $300’s .

Now XYZ is a little nervous, so they buy 50k shares of Tesla stock. That way at least as Tesla rises, they’re protected a little in their bet, because they’ll have some of those shares, plus those shares appreciate, so it would mitigate their loss to Fred.

Tesla releases q4 and the stock jumps again. Now XYZ buys 200k shares of Tesla. XYZ and other institutions are now continually buying shares to hedge their bet against people like Fred, just in case they have to give him 1M shares below market value.

Ironically this is happening to such a large extent, this hedging causes the stock price to rise again and causes XYZ to buy even more shares! They’re now caught in a positive feedback loop where this call hedging, plus shorts covering, is causing TSLA to skyrocket, gaining more and more each day.

Now it’s Wednesday and TSLA is shooting up to over a $200 gain in one day following a $100 gain the day before. Poor XYZ has only bought 300k shares, but come Friday, they’re going to have to sell Fred 1M shares. They now know they are looking at a $750M loss to Fred, but maybe even worse, if the positive feed back loop accelerates.

So they decide to illegally force Tesla down. The problem is that if they do it more than 15 minutes before close, it will trigger a rule that will prevent them from continuing the next day. So 13 minutes before close they borrow 2M shares and sell them for lower prices than they’re worth to immediately stop Tesla’s momentum and drive the price down. They know lots of nervousTesla shareholders set limits in the $900’s to lock in their gains, and so they can start a reaction where those investors will automatically sell and the price will drop under $900 / share.

Now early yesterday morning they can sell more shares in the small German index and drive the price down further very easily, and spook lots of investors and cause everyone to sell and drive the price to the $700’s. Now slowly they can buy back the 2M shares at $750 that they borrowed at $950 and make a very nice profit of $400M.

On Friday, Tesla will close at $748 and Fred will get $0.00. XYZ pockets Fred’s $150k and they win again. They know there’s no risk, because the SEC never prosecutes stuff like this.

THE END

What about this? Predicted the closing price and only missed by .07..?

 

[printf42]

Not sure whether it’s posted or mentioned
Dave Camitta on Twitter

So even if TSLA goes to zero overnight, Shorts would be at overall loss. Of course individual shorts could be profitable. But that is pretty amazing.

It’s really hilarious and remarkable at the same time...

 

[Krugerrand]

If voluntary doesn’t speak well for their judgement

I’ve watched all the Sampson videos/interviews since he became part of Faraday. Not sure how he lasted at Tesla as long as he did, other than Elon wasn’t always in charge or aware.

Rawlinson is more of a mystery to me, but his path after Tesla to today strongly suggests to me that he butted heads with Elon about choices, direction, whatever.

Interestingly I’d forgotten about Jerome being involved back then.

 

[KarenRei]

WTF how can the Model Y be so efficient compared to the Model 3 even the tires will be wider:

2020 TESLA MODEL Y LOMG RANGE (look at that typo):
19": 255/45 (114mm sidewall, 711mm diameter)
20": 255/40 (102mm sidewall, 711mm diameter)

2020 TESLA MODEL Y PERFORMANCE:
19": 255/45 (114mm sidewall, 711mm diameter)

2020 TESLA MODEL Y PERFORMANCE UPGRADE:
Front: 21" 255/35 (89mm sidewall, 711mm diameter)
Rear: 21" 275/35 (97mm sidewall, 726mm.

I wonder if a new upgraded Model 3 is about to come out ?

See here:
Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the 2019-2020 Investors' Roundtable

 

[dakh]

They left 2 bucks on the table today for some reason, weird. I'm really starting to think this can be exploited to make some quick buck.

 

[qphan79]

Over the period last year I was BROKE. Every time Tesla dropped I bought another option. Up until 2 months ago I had 2 690s, 4 600s, and 3 520s all June expiration and 1 Jan 2021. ALL these cost me about $700. Now I have the 2 700 June calls left with $40,000 in cash. From $700 to about $70,000 in one year. Before I pat myself on the back I had $260,000 in 2014 all on Tesla and lost it ALL. I think I have learned my lesson. When you are sitting on gains in options sell the lower priced options and buy higher priced ones. I did not know how to do this in 2014 I DO NOW. Let's get an AMEN to that baby.

Can you explain a bit more your reasoning on why to sell the lower priced options and buy higher prices ones? I currently have one at $550 and $650 June 2022. No real strategy other than i think TSLA will be about $1500 in 2 years. Thanks in advanced!

 

[Dan Detweiler]

WARNING:

my brother bought $1,880 calls. He doesn’t know how calls work. Every time he’s purchased calls he made 10x-100x. Every time he buys a stock it turns to gold. I don’t understand how it works, but that’s just how it is. So there’s my warning

As with ALL things in life...it is always better to be lucky than good. lol

Dan

 

[Khamul]

OT:
Good news for SpaceX, very bad news for Boeing:

There have just been a press conference with Boeing and NASA, where it turned out that there were multiple software issues with the Starliner crew capsule. Starliner flew an uncrewed test flight in december, but had multiple failures which meant they couldn't proceed to the International Space Station, and had to abort the mission. Now it turns out that they will, among other stuff, have to review 1 million lines of code, and very possible refly the uncrewed test flight.

So, unless SpaceX has any critical failures (they shouldn't - they have passed all major milestones, but never say never), they should be the first commercial crew program to get to the ISS, and get the flag kept there. It'd be a huge prestige win for them.

 

[Sancho]

So cute that they tried to push the stock price down from 750. After this week I am a firm believer of max pain. I mean what kind of precision of manipulation one can have to push and pull a stock to exactly max pain despite + and - 20% volatility all week? That's like a drone strike on a moving vehicle kind of precision.

The more I watch this, the less I think this is manipulation at all.

I don't know whether this is true for other stocks and in other eras, but for the last few years for TSLA, there is so much money being invested in options, that it very naturally drives the underlying stock price. So just as the SP will rise if demand for the common stock rises above supply, if more people buy higher calls, that too will increase the SP, but not immediately. Because the calls don't exercise until a date in the future, the SP will more slowly rise and fall to eventually take into full account the value of the options.

Max Pain isn't fixed. It changes as the week goes along, based on option bets made in previous weeks and in the current week. Nobody needs to manipulate this if the amount of money invested in options is big enough to act as a magnet to the underlying SP.

The SP doesn't always end up at Max Pain, primarily because things can happen in the last few days that move the SP faster than the options market can adjust to it. But if you want to play short term probabilities, it's likely a good bet that if the SP is well above or below Max Pain by Tuesday/Wednesday, that the SP will end up pretty darn close to Max Pain by the close. Personally, I have no interest in these kind of bets that are completely untethered by fundamentals.

Was the big pushdown in the last few minutes of Tuesday active manipulation? We can all speculate, but the fact is that somehow or another during this week Max Pain as of Tuesday afternoon would have likely driven the SP down to about 750 by Friday close, absent some news or macro changes.

Bottom line for me is this: there are two markets for investing in TSLA, the common and options. One isn't manipulating the other nefariously, they are financially linked at the hip.

 

[AudubonB]

Sorry.
RTP = Research Triangle Park
RDU = Raleigh Durham area (and airport)
PhD = (sugar) Piled Higher and Deeper

For the unwashed, as well as for sticking to the MuskMaxim, you should go back to First....uh...Principles(?):

BS - well, that needs no elaboration
MS - More of the Same
PhD - Piled Higher & Deeper

You're welcome