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

[MTL_HABS1909]

I don’t know, but volumes in pre and post market are very, very low compared to regular trading. I think you’ll find that prices are not very indicative of the previous and next day trading. Not very good price discovery. When a dislocation happens like an earnings release, it is hard to get a better price than next days regular trading.

Take yesterday for example. The stock was down as much as 7% in pre-market. Many of us knew the stock would recover and would have jumped at the opportunity to buy at those levels. Yet only a certain few got to capitalize because by the time the market opened for us, the stock had almost fully recovered. This makes no sense!

 

[sunhelm]

I just want to wish everyone a Happy Valentine's Day! Yes, I love you all! I love you for your dedication in pursuit of knowledge, I love you for your relentless dig to uncover FUD, I love you for your tireless devotion to this great forum.

There I said it. Spread the love. Go $TSLA!

P.S. - your posts helped me to weather the dark days when TSLA was down and now I am in a good place (not that place) but yeah still here on earth but now able to enjoy and look at the bright side of life.

 

[ZachF]

French Giant Looks at Tesla With Burning Envy
Needless to say, that’s a sliver of what Tesla is worth, even though the U.S. company’s annual output is still almost a rounding error for the Renault-Nissan alliance.

This isn't true anymore.

Tesla's revenue last year was just under $25 billion, and will probably be ±$35 billion this year. Nissan's revenue is ~$100b and falling.

So, in 2018 Tesla's revenue was 20% that of Nissan, last year it was 25% and this year it will probably be 37%... and next year? Half????

The trend is not Nissan's friend. This is why Tesla is worth 8x of Nissan

 

[Bobfitz1]

Is it possible that somebody with first dibs on a cap raise like this, knew this was coming a week ago, and thus decided to heavily short the stock @ $960, knowing they'd be able to get the shares back from the capital raise at a lower price? Any chance that somebody close to Goldman Sachs / Morgan Stanley or they themselves pulled this off?

Not sure if this is possible, but it'd almost be the perfect crime:

With SEC the blind policeman on the beat, threshold for a perfect crime on Wall Street is mighty low.

 

[MTL_HABS1909]

Pretty obvious that they're trying to pin it at $800 today.

 

[vwman111]

This isn't true anymore.

Tesla's revenue last year was just under $25 billion, and will probably be ±$35 billion this year. Nissan's revenue is ~$100b and falling.

So, in 2018 Tesla's revenue was 20% that of Nissan, last year it was 25% and this year it will probably be 37%... and next year? Half????

The trend is not Nissan's friend.

What does the comparison look like in units produced? I think that is what the article was referring to.

Revenue is the key number to be looking at...but it seems the media and analysts like to compare how small Tesla production is compared to the other money losing GIANTS!

 

[Nocturnal]

With SEC the blind policeman on the beat, threshold for a perfect crime on Wall Street is mighty low.

The drop just before close of business before the announcement was an incredible coincidence otherwise.

 

[UCF3]

Here's something I wasn't aware of, despite it being related to my figurative back-yard:

A site in NW England (Greater Manchester area) was a favourite in the contest for the European GF!

And we don't even have tree plantations, WWII ammunition or endangered ants (that I'm aware of) here! We have Brexit tho!

Not centrally located though

 

[woodisgood]

Pretty obvious that they're trying to pin it at $800 today.

Balance between what they've made buying/underwriting the capital raise and max pain, hence why it's a touch over max pain.

 

[Lessmog]

Found a better version of this pic:

Tesla: Ökonomen uneins über Umweltauflagen für Tesla-Projekt

Source is cited as "DPA", whoever that is.

Still would love some drone videos, though! A single picture from the start of the day isn't much.

Someone already answered re: DPA.
As for drones and pix, das ist jetzt verboten according to
https://twitter.com/Gf4Tesla/status /1228005381026336770
due to sensitive nature. Of public, not necessarily the actual nature

 

[ninpb]

I just want to wish everyone a Happy Valentine's Day! Yes, I love you all! I love you for your dedication in pursuit of knowledge, I love you for your relentless dig to uncover FUD, I love you for your tireless devotion to this great forum.

There I said it. Spread the love. Go $TSLA!

P.S. - your posts helped me to weather the dark days when TSLA was down and now I am in a good place (not that place) but yeah still here on earth but now able to enjoy and look at the bright side of life.

Remember those valentines day cards you brought to school as a kid. You would pick a my little pony theme set or transformers set. There needs to be a Tesla set. Each vehicle and of course Elon cards in the set.

 

[gtrplyr1]

Benzinga - 50 minutes ago: How Tesla Could Use Its $2B In Offering Cash: A Cybertruck Plant, China, Debt Payoff

Excerpt:

Ross Gerber, co-founder and CEO of Gerber Kawasaki Wealth and Investment Management, told Benzinga that Tesla is likely thinking ahead to building its Cybertruck manufacturing facility.

That's the first thing I thought of ..... Cybertruck needs to be released sooner than later. It won't cannibalize sedan or suv sales and opens Tesla up to one of the biggest markets in the U.S. (Truck market). In addition, from what I've read and seen it seems like the margins on the Cybertruck are going to be insane ....

Cheers to the longs .....

 

[SOULPEDL]

I don't understand why Elon is always so irritated when asked about raising capital

Another theory... Elon is irritated for the same reason I used to get worried when I heard any rumors of a capital raise just last year. It was a sure sign the FUD was coming on strong and they'd use the story as "proof" Tesla either doesn't have the unit margins or there's no market demand.

I must have read hear over a dozen times that borrowing for growth was the smartest move, but the Market Manipulators knew they could use it against Tesla to create pump up that Fear in FUD which can lead to SP drops. (Feeling like I'm preaching to the choir, but just for the record as I understand it anyway).

Even though the demand question is clearly behind us... it might not be so peachy in everyone's mind. And if the media runs with the speculative narrative of doomsday (why the $2B), people get scared of the unknown and run. We've all seen this game played out several hundred times (in the last 3+ years for me), to the point where it's like a twitch.

It also depends a lot on who asks it (as many are just rhetorical questions that lead to the argument and therefore more media coverage). Hoping that wasn't the intent here, but I'm certainly not as gun shy as I used to be. I will never forget the MMs... no mercy here.

 

[kbM3]

He is now pretty sure now that the stock is so high that he'll get the 1% of the company bonus since the market cap is comfortably above $100b. Conveint that they dilute the company by a little over 1% with the stock offering, thereby his percentage of his ownership stays about the same.

No. Elon currently owns ~20% of Tesla. After the 1st tranche he’ll own 21%, which is a 5% increase in his stake.

 

[sunhelm]

Remember those valentines day cards you brought to school as a kid. You would pick a my little pony theme set or transformers set. There needs to be a Tesla set. Each vehicle and of course Elon cards in the set.

I still have Elon's thank you card for my Model 3 reservation. Got the car because of this forum, got the loan from a credit Union recommended in this forum, and now paid off the car loan from trades based on "not advice" from this forum.

 

[elasalle]

No Cars without Batteries. So smells like "Battery Production" is what is next

 

[Reductionist]

Phase 1 Model Y production is just 1 of four roughly identical buildings ultimately planned for the site.

GF4 is freaking huge. Check it out on map overlays vs. Tesla's other facilities. They could easily do 2M cars per year there, just within the footprint that they've already listed as planning to build on. But they additionally have a ton of outlot land that they could use to expand to even larger sizes if they decided to in the future.

I think you're probably right. In the attached image from the environmental assessment they are referencing the lower left quadrant as phase I, which would mean that the first phase of production is probably only going to fill a portion of the first building. If that's accurate and they can get to 500k with the first quadrant only, then Giga Berlin is going to be truly massive, and may surpass Hyundai's Ulsan plant (1.5M annual production) as the world's largest car factory.
Unfortunately the wording in the environmental assessment is kind of vague so it's hard to say for sure.

 

[KarenRei]

Revenue is the key number to be looking at...but it seems the media and analysts like to compare how small Tesla production is compared to the other money losing GIANTS!

EBITDA is the key number to look at. Tesla's Q4 EBITDA was $1,2B. Nissan averages $2,5B per quarter these days. One could distort Tesla to look lower by averaging across a whole year ($0,75B), but for a company growing as rapidly as Tesla, that'd be a deliberate distortion.

If anyone tries to evaluate Tesla vs. others by numbers of vehicles, always call them out with EBITDA, which is the metric that actually matters, and the direction it's trending. Then point out why Tesla's EBITDA is so good relative to the number of vehicles. High ASPs, great margins, vertical integration (e.g. keeping more of the profit internal), no profit sharing with dealerships, and other smaller but fast-growing side businesses (Superchargers, solar (rooftop, solar roof), storage (Powerwall, Powerpack, Megapack), autonomy, etc.

Investors don't invest relative to how many cars you can make. They invest relative to how many dollars you can make. And not in the present, but the net present value of future profits. And with respect to how future profits are trending, well....

 

[Zaxxon]

Update on Tesla Model 3 Inventory levels in US.

Around 600 M3 appeared in the Existing Inventory on Tesla Website on 2/14/2020.

Including a bunch of stealth performances. Glad to see that those are still being produced.

 

[adiggs]

No. Because at that point it would be sufficient for Tesla to point at the EPA rating of their latest Model 3, Model S, Model X, Cybertruck or whatever vehicle has a skateboard most similar to the one licensed, and ask them to repeat that, but slowly.

Anyway, as I mentioned, I don't see a skateboard licensing deal happening. It would have to be ridiculously advantageous for Tesla from a financial standpoint for them to bother, and at that point it would become too expensive (read: loss-making) for the other OEMs to implement.

Plus, Tesla has soooo many products in the pipeline that can and will absorb all battery cell production for many years in the future... Just, no, it won't happen!

I don't see a skateboard deal for light duty vehicles happening either. Tesla is too good at building light duty vehicles and has too much of the relevant infrastructure already built and expanding.

Where I'd like to see something like this happening is the commercial truck (class 4-7, and 8) markets. The reason being primarily that there are so many details beyond the basic vehicle that Tesla needs to put in place, besides designing and manufacturing the trucks, to be a trusted partner and provider of income producing assets.

There is technical stuff that needs developing, though it may well be that there are 3rd party providers of the commercial truck logging and tracking that Tesla can rely on.

There's all the customization of the truck bed (medium duty), as well as tractor customization (some of the sleeper cabs, I understand, are more like a small apartment on wheels).

There are parts and service infrastructure that needs building. For a buyer of an income producing asset (and effectively all commercial trucks are income producing assets), they're not going to commit bigly to Tesla commercial trucks unless they've got parts available overnight (or faster) at a minimum. Many of them will have their own garages and will do their own service I expect. Broken vehicles need to be repaired and back on the road in days - not months (one reason I'm keeping an overall eye on Tesla service and parts availability - how well that works in the light duty market is an indicator of what Tesla is ready to provide to the commercial market).


So if there's an existing commercial truck manufacturer that wants to go the skateboard (or just drivetrain) route, and provide everything else they know how to do and be aggressive about electrification of commercial trucking, then I'd like to see a partnership between that company and Tesla. I think Tesla + partner can electrify commercial trucking faster, than Tesla going it alone (because the industry needs more work than light duty vehicles - it's not just light duty vehicles over again).