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

[dakh]

I am curious about peoples thoughts on why they think differently, other than "Elon said so"

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

So yeah, similar sentiment. I'm probably less qualified than you since I just dabble in the space at the moment.

 

[EV forever]

I thought I would post my investment situation this week, with a heartfelt thanks to the learnings on this forum!

There have been days this year when I have posted that I made more than my yearly salary with TSLA, even before I got out of bed (live in CA and not a morning person, so miss half the trading day!). Well, on black Wednesday this week, I lost about 4X my yearly salary in one day. I have to admit, seeing that large negative number in red font on my account felt bad, but that feeling lasted for just a few moments. All I did was shrug and think to myself 'long term story on Tesla is still the same, so nothing has changed'. I sold absolutely nothing, and instead bought another 50 shares at 752. I had another order placed for 730 but that one didn't trigger, wish I had increased the buying price in time before close.

All in all, even with the huge drop on Wednesday, I am doing remarkably well. Since October'19, my IRA where I trade TSLA has grown to 5X of its value, with TSLA growing from 20% of this portfolio to almost 60%. Of the remaining, 20% are in Apple and Costco, my other two favorite companies, with the remaining in ARKK and a few other funds or cash. The cash is due to selling off of Feb 7 options a week early, which turned out to be lucky. I had placed a sell order on these with a ridiculous price target, it triggered the sell on Jan 31st. Can't complain, those were at 5000% profit from the purchase price in Sept'19. I still have significant amount of Feb 21, Feb 28 and later options. My target is to bring my Tesla shares to 1001 by end of this year, currently at 651. That '1' share bought at 420.69 will always be kept as an odd share, my good luck charm!

I really want to thank this forum for the tremendous combined experience and learning that is freely shared. This knowledge has given me the confidence to continue holding and adding more slowly and steadily to build my portfolio. All my adult life, the advise for investing was 'diversify, diversify, diversify'. The idea that focusing on a few companies with strong fundamentals and growth potential for maximum returns is entirely something I learnt here. I cannot do this in my current 401K, as there are limited number of mutual funds to choose from, but that is the strategy I am following for my IRA and personal investment account.

I am still not 'all-in' Tesla, and likely never will be. But I expect to reach my target for >1000 shares for long term hold, while I continue to play with options. Any money invested in options is money I am willing to lose.

Thanks again to you all!

 

[RobStark]

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?

Lucid Motors was Atieva and selling battery packs to motorsports, OEMs, and electric motorcycle companies. About 6-7 years ago they decided to become an OEM and make an entire car.

Mitsui & Co
Tsing Capital
Venrock Capital

Soft Bank, Ten Cent,Yueting Jia were minor investors.

They were on hold for about 2 years needing funding for their ~$700M-$1B Arizona factory.

and now Saudi PiF has invested $1B and Lucid expects Job 1 by Dec 2020.

 

[M3Rider]

Closed above PUT @ $1.50 today @ 3.55pm when tsla was @ 748
Net profit of $1638.50

and

Sold 1 tsla 200214P740 Put for credit of 51.15 or $5,115

Are you saying we won't hit 790 next week?
Because Ross Ross Gerber on Twitter ?

 

[MC3OZ]

In the unlikely event that Lucid Motors comes up with some engineering / technology that is ahead of what Tesla can do in any area, I expect Tesla to be able to do a tear down and easily understand what they are doing....
So I will not be surprised if some competitors out innovate Tesla is some areas .. briefly...

In the long run smaller companies will struggle from a lack of resources, and larger companies will struggle from inertia.

It will be good when EV industry matures, customers will have more choice, and good that others will help accelerate the cycle of innovation.... so far Tesla is the only one that seems to be driving progress.

I still think there is no credible threat to Tesla for at least 5-10 years... and it is great to see more choice....
The Taycan is an interesting car, I like what Rivian are doing, and Lucid at least seems like an interesting company, that may make some interesting products....

I'm not sure why the Saudis think Lucid is a better investment than Tesla..... perhaps they have more influence, and perhaps they think they can take over the entire company one day... or perhaps they are bullish about future growth .. but they did exit Tesla at a bad time... Lucid growth is going to have to be stellar to make up for that.

 

[avoigt]

246,300 overall units, 367 of those Teslas. Selling a couple hundred cars more than before is anything BUT gaining traction. They don't seem to like Teslas much in Germany, or don't buy much in January, or both.

There is a third reasons.

The subsidiary increase that is on hold but announced to come from the German Government makes buyers wait with their BEV purchase. Its €2k or 50% increase which is substantial. Renault, Hyundai and other pay the 6-8k in € now out of their own pockets to avoid a demand cliff while Tesla does not therefore don't be surprised that we have pent up demand now and people wait for Germany sending the papers to Brussels for approval.

Its a political driven delay for a variety of reasons. One is the EU carbon fines another is lobbying for the FC.

IOW, the Jan number as well as Feb won't tell you anything about real demand in Germany. I see every day now Teslas in town and with the rising SP people start acknowledging here in Germany what has been achieved.

I expect the real demand wave to arrive though when more people look into a BEV after e.g. the ID.3 is out. Many want to compare and my prediction is that the ID.3 will increase the Model 3 demand. Germany will remain a difficult market though as the FUD is extra strong here for obvious reasons. With GF4 in Berlin that will change quite dramatically as a Tesla is then a Made in Germany car.

 

[mrdoubleb]

I don't want to be a party pooper, but 168% increase compared to when? Compared to Jan'19? That wouldn't be very impressive, because M3 EU deliveries didn't start until Feb'19 if I'm not mistaken.

Yeah, I don't know how often we have to talk about this:

TMC service announcement 1: Please ignore every article about Tesla's "falling demand" during the first month of every quarter as all those deliveries are simply leftover from the last end of quarter rush. Doesn't mean a thing as cars produced in any given quarter will only start deliveries ~mid quarter. Rule of thumb: month 3 deliveries are 50%+ of the quarter.

TMC service announcement 2: Please ignore every article about Tesla's "falling demand" related to comparing pre-Model 3 export and post Model 3 export era US numbers.

TMC service announcement 3: Please ignore every article about Tesla sales "soaring" related to comparing pre-Model 3 export and post Model 3 export era EU/China numbers.

PS: These may change as GF3 and GF4 production picks up, but may not completely disappear unless the full range of products is produced for each continent within that continent. (i.e. probably never)

 

[Jack6591]

Cathie Wood on Tesla’s meteoric rise: ‘We’ve been waiting for this’

I feel as though Cathie Wood’s presentation is getting better and better. Like a Tesla it just gets better and better.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Now over 210M shares of TSLA traded this week.

I'll publish a weekly summary with VWSP and total $ales figures once all the data is in from NASDAQ.

Cheers!

After-action Report: Fri, Feb 07, 2020

Today 17,161,920 shares traded at a VWAP of $747.49 for total sales of $12.83B

Weekly Report: 03-07 Feb, 2020

Also note that, this week, total TSLA volume was 213,540,372 (213.54M) shares, VWAP was $793.52 for a total of $168,834,675,150.35 ($168.83B) in TSLA trades.

Look at that last number again: This week, TSLA traded 122.83% of it's entire current Market Cap ($137.453B)

Yahoo Finance currently lists TSLA Float at 141.95M shares. This implies that, on average, every share in the entire float traded 1.50 times during the past week.

Much more to come on TSLA Market Action this past week. In the mean time, see if you notice a couple of things on this 5-day NASDAQ:TSLA chart:

Regards,
Lodger

 

[NicoV]

Cathie Wood on Tesla’s meteoric rise: ‘We’ve been waiting for this’

I feel as though Cathie Wood’s presentation is getting better and better. Like a Tesla it just gets better and better.

I like how she keeps repeating in interviews that the competition has a cost disadvantage in EV’s, so that they have to sell their EVs at a loss in order to compete with Tesla, while they see their ICE sales (and profits) go down. The importance here is that this narrative gets exposed on the financial markets, and more and more investors will start to make investment decisions accordingly.

This is a totally different point of view compared to the ‘It’s a piece of cake for the classic car vendors to make an EV that will outcompete Tesla’, which is frankly the general consensus right now.

With all the classic car companies reporting losses quarter after quarter, Katie Wood’s reasoning will get more and more traction.

 

[avoigt]

Giga Shanghai is go for Monday!!!!

Vincent on Twitter

Monday is going to be an interesting trading day.

The GF3 headline producing again will IMO help the sentiment. Its kind of silly as the impact has been minimal anyway and if I could have had the choice to pick a time of the year for the production stop it would have been exactly that week. But logical thinking is not the best developed skill of most investors (excluding this forum ;-)) therefore that headline alone will give some a justification to buy.

Weekends help often too in giving people time to think and get rid of FUD and with the pattern of strong Mondays (new song title: I do like Mondays) my gut feel is telling me we may have a strong week in front of us.

We all never know and a lot can happen until Monday but the positive trading pattern and consolidation 2nd half of the week lifts my expectation. I did predict on Twitter a correction of usually around 20% when we have been above 900 which has been a lucky punch.

Its been overdue after that amazing run that makes me still smile having been a part of it and after the consolidation we have a chance to move a bid higher again. $960 will likely be now a resistance until we have a new catalyst to break even that number but with the irrational market we are in, volatility will in my understanding remain high. Friday has been the usual pattern and exception as the option expiry date is a valid reason for the big buys to manipulate more than usual.

With still a lot of shorts hoping for lower prices to get out with just one black eye they will of course continue to try to extend the down move we have seen to a lower level. Since many weak longs did jump from the ship already looking for better entry points this may be their chance and I am not sure how Shorts will construct a fear sentiment again but they also have a weekend to restructure forces.

Since Genie is now out of the bottle it will be hard for Shorts & FUDsters to get him in again.

 

[RobStark]

Bernie would probably reinstitute EV subsidies for American made cars only

Which will be deemed illegal by the WTO granting European,Korean, and Japanese right to install countervailing duties.

And might start a trade war with Germany,Japan, and S Korea if not rescinded.

And maybe China too.

 

[Artful Dodger]

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

Lol, he from Texas, partner? What expiry?

Cheers!

 

[RobStark]

2020 Porsche Taycan Turbo S vs. 2020 Tesla Model S Performance

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

This is getting too lawyerly for me. I retreat to individual cycle raw data and drag coefficients

Seems like a good plan. I am pretty sure my highway numbers in the spreadsheet for the Model Y will be close to the actual value from the test. Has to be!

In any case, Model Y looks like it will (predictably) have much worse range than Model 3 on the highway, under best case conditions at least (it is still fine though). I would guess long term they’ll want to cram more battery in there if they can.

 

[Artful Dodger]

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 ...

Yes, it was manipulation. From Tue-Thu, FINRA reported there were 2,136,450 shares sold marked as "ShortExempt", which means they were not located before being sold.

This would be illegal naked short selling except for the Market Makers Exemption (the "Madoff Rule"), which allows MMs to artificially (and without limit) increase the float even during times of high volume (when there is plenty of liquidity). This is an abuse of the exemption, which was intended to 'provide liquidity' but is now being used by unscrupulous parties to crash the SP while they scoop huge profits.

On Wed-Thu this week (in the middle of this bear raid), FINRA reported "ShortExempt" sales reached 9% of total shares sold short: (during a period of huge trading volume when liquidity is NOT AN ISSUE).

This had the effect of killing the sustained rally of Tue afternoon, and causing widespread panic selling amongst real shareholders (sorry @Right_Said_Fred this is the illegal practice you got swept up in).

This is market manipulation, pure and simple. Your hand waving attempt to explain it away does not change the reality, nor deal with the underlying problem: Regulation SHO (see below).

Let's see if these anonymous MMs can locate all these naked short shares before they are legally required to report their activity in the Failure to Deliver (FTD) report after 13 days. If these MMs are able to locate shares post hoc, it simply means legitimate investors were duped into selling their shares by the panic created by the dumping of millions of non-existant shares. If they can't locate shares, there are no consequences, and the actors involved remain anonymous.

Tell me again how this isn't manipulation? Where is the SEC?

Paging @UncaNed @Hock1
Info: @Fact Checking @KarenRei @lklundin

More here about the Market Maker's Exemption (Regulation SHO):
Regulation SHO | FINRA.org
Key Points About Regulation SHO

A final note: FINRA-reported volume is just a fraction of total trading on NASDAQ. During this week for example, FINRA reported a total volume of just 94,702,898 (94.70M) shares, while we know that total NASDAQ volume was 208,823,482 (208.8M) during that time (FINRA only reports numbers for Pre-Market and the Main Session, does not include the After-Market Session).

We have ZERO visibility into how much the rest of NASDAQ trading is sold short, or conducted under the short selling exemption. We do know that last week, we have no short selling information on 54.65% of all TSLA trades done on NASDAQ.

Think about what that means for Investor confidence and the transparency of the Market.

 

[Thekiwi]

Which will be deemed illegal by the WTO granting European,Korean, and Japanese right to install countervailing duties.

And might start a trade war with Germany,Japan, and S Korea if not rescinded.

And maybe China too.

Doesn’t China already offer EV subsidies only to China built EVs? Or am I incorrect in that belief?

 

[Christine69420]

View attachment 509179

View attachment 509178

2020 Porsche Taycan Turbo S vs. 2020 Tesla Model S Performance

And this was the Model S Raven. I expect Model S Plaid to be even better in the speed tests.

 

[Aeon]

View attachment 509179

View attachment 509178

2020 Porsche Taycan Turbo S vs. 2020 Tesla Model S Performance

Fuel Economy:
10 / 10 for BOTH

 

[RobStark]

Doesn’t China already offer EV subsidies only to China built EVs? Or am I incorrect in that belief?

I post this on a quarterly basis. Always thinking the last time should suffice but.....

China entered the WTO as a developing country and as such retained rights to give exclusive subsidies to domestic manufactures.

Trump Administration has argued vociferously this should no longer amply to China meanwhile EU and Japan sit on their hands not wanting to rock the boat.