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

[Oil4AsphaultOnly]

I have marked it disagree for 2 reasons: 1. Tesla investment and casino gambling have similarities, but there is a huge difference; In casinos, the house always wins and customers lose. In the stock market on average investors win and I do believe that in the case of Tesla investment that is very likely remain more so. 2. Everybody has different utility function and we should respect that. I.e. if you went to the casino with your $5 because by next day you had to have the $1,000.000 in order to gain the hand of the princess, while if you would have less than $1M you would be beheaded then it would be very rational to keep playing with $1000. (There is a scene similar to that in the movie Casablanca, that I saw naturally on opening night.)

You have to distinguish between TSLA stock versus TSLA options. Your reasons might work with the investment of the stock, but doesn't apply with the options - which is why I agree with Hock1.

With IV as high as it is now, the stock will have to continue on a parabolic rate for any options to yield the same amount of gains that the past few months have provided. The past 2 weeks seem to show a more linear SP increase, so the chances of getting a 100+% return after a week or two are pretty much done, until IV drops to more reasonable levels.

Time value is never an option holder's friend.

 

[SpaceCash]

With IV as high as it is now, the stock will have to continue on a parabolic rate for any options to yield the same amount of gains that the past few months have provided. The past 2 weeks seem to show a more linear SP increase, so the chances of getting a 100+% return after a week or two are pretty much done, until IV drops to more reasonable levels.

Sorry but basing your strategy off of any 2 week period is just not reasonable or meaningful. Stonks take breathers no matter which direction they are heading. We could easily be on a path to $1500 by April, there is no way to know right now and pessimism is not an inherently more intelligent nor adult outlook. I am now 100% in 2022 LEAPS and feel very comfortable for the moment. Will readjust as I see fit.

 

[CorneliusXX]

Employees have already begun taking delivery

Shouldn't we be seeing YouTube videos if this were true?

 

[Fobble]

Shouldn't we be seeing YouTube videos if this were true?

I was giving Helpful, but not all Tesla employees are Tesla enthusiasts, thus maybe the reason no Youtube yet. I am just giving the benefit of the doubt.

 

[Lessmog]

At 0:27 the video has 27 images spanning half the lower line of the door handle with a fixed camera. I think that lower line of the door handle measures 17.3 cm (I wish I had one in my garage but I am holding TSLA instead) thus half is 8.65 cm in 27img/30img/sec = 0.9 sec.

Thus 0.0865 m / 0.9 sec = assembly line speed of 0.1 meter per second would be my guess.

That's useful - any idea about the distance between the cars?

Any estimate of cosine for door handles?

 

[kengchang]

Shouldn't we be seeing YouTube videos if this were true?

NDA exists for a reason

 

[Eugene Ash]

I found it amusing that Tesla bulls can be Buffet fans at the same time. it's undeniable that the annual letters has some truth, such as the enterprise should not give back all it's earnings to investors, keeping some is good, like duh! Even with accumulation of capitals for future development in his letter, in reality, he has been advocate share buyback for years.

At the same time the whole premises of buffet's investment is to locate companies that can effectively use it's monopoly position or other means to unfairly suppress competition in order to get better return. Innovation is too risky for him.

The whole thing run counter to Tesla's philosophy. And this whole investment strategy, in my opinion, suppress innovation and competition.

I disagree for the following reasons:
They like moats: Tesla has at least 2 generations moat
Capital distribution: same approach, TSLA has not yet ran out of things to invest, thus no dividends, etc.
They invest in foolproof businesses: to me TSLA is one, but it requires at least a good grasp of physics to understand it is one + sw dev.
They derive synergies from some of their investments (e.g. telecom wires alongside railways, geico float, etc). Tsla: lead in battery integration tech -> grid balancing.
Tsla + insurance move would be interesting to watch.
Munger's essay on building a 2T company is very similar in my mind to TSLA story.

So in one of my IRAs brk.b +TSLA. ultimate barbell.

It would be swell if BRK spends that 100b with TSLA to get rid of these peakers plants!

 

[Etna]

Any estimate of cosine for door handles?

Not needed. I picked a precise image point on the edge of the door handle and let that slide 27 frames to cover its length, so the measure of speed is the actual door handle lower edge length divided by time. This only works with a camera that is fixed, which is not the case of all sequences in that video.

 

[Oil4AsphaultOnly]

Sorry but basing your strategy off of any 2 week period is just not reasonable or meaningful. Stonks take breathers no matter which direction they are heading. We could easily be on a path to $1500 by April, there is no way to know right now and pessimism is not an inherently more intelligent nor adult outlook. I am now 100% in 2022 LEAPS and feel very comfortable for the moment. Will readjust as I see fit.

i stand corrected.

 

[Green Pete]

You have to distinguish between TSLA stock versus TSLA options. Your reasons might work with the investment of the stock, but doesn't apply with the options - which is why I agree with Hock1.

With IV as high as it is now, the stock will have to continue on a parabolic rate for any options to yield the same amount of gains that the past few months have provided. The past 2 weeks seem to show a more linear SP increase, so the chances of getting a 100+% return after a week or two are pretty much done, until IV drops to more reasonable levels.

Time value is never an option holder's friend.

The July 2022 options in the 1500 range are favorably priced IMO. Not as favorable as they were 3 weeks ago, but still quite good IMO. Just an opinion though, I am fumbling my way through doing well at this despite not having a clue what I am doing.

 

[adiggs]

I found it amusing that Tesla bulls can be Buffet fans at the same time. it's undeniable that the annual letters has some truth, such as the enterprise should not give back all it's earnings to investors, keeping some is good, like duh! Even with accumulation of capitals for future development in his letter, in reality, he has been advocate share buyback for years.

At the same time the whole premises of buffet's investment is to locate companies that can effectively use it's monopoly position or other means to unfairly suppress competition in order to get better return. Innovation is too risky for him.

The whole thing run counter to Tesla's philosophy. And this whole investment strategy, in my opinion, suppress innovation and competition.

One thing that you get in spades from his Letter to Shareholders, is something that's helped me with articulating my own buy and hold strategy. He talks about taking positions in companies because what you're buying is fractional (or whole!) ownership in a business - not placing bets in a casino.

The financial industry and media are pretty much geared to create the bets-in-casino mindset; what's the share price TODAY / RIGHT NOW; is it going to go UP $1 or DOWN $1; is guidance too high by 5k cars this year?!?

Mostly, it's a whole bunch of noise designed to get bettors into the casino, making wagers (transactions).


That's the mindset and approach of Buffet's that makes it easy for me to be a Tesla bull, and a Buffet fan. There are elements of his investment philosophy that don't work for me, and there are elements of the attitude that do work. The two fit together easily in my mind.

It also helps that I work in high - tech, and though I don't work in autonomous driving, I do work in a field that uses many of the techniques (data science), so I'm reasonably comfortable evaluating progress and setbacks along the way with one of the technologies Tesla is working on, that we think will be valuable. You'll also find that I'm not investing in the insurance business

 

[Green Pete]

I haven't seen anything about graphene batteries here in recent memory. Is this interesting news?

 

[Unpilot]

Who is excited for Monday?

 

[Nurkbonis]

Correct me if I'm wrong but haven't all the Ys out there had the manufacturer plates and not a temporary tag? I doubt Tesla could "deliver" cars to employees and let them use the manufacturer plates and not actually register the car to them. Could be wrong.

NDA exists for a reason

 

[KarenRei]

I haven't seen anything about graphene batteries here in recent memory. Is this interesting news?

Graphene is way too expensive for me to care about it.

 

[qphan79]

We’re almost in March.

I wonder if the first Y delivery will be the 31st or hopefully sooner in the month?

I’m starting to think it will be similar to the first few deliveries of Giga Shanghai. Many were assuming that Tesla would try to deliver hundreds of cars before the end of the year. But instead it was a dozen or so to employees...

 

[SpaceCash]

Shouldn't we be seeing YouTube videos if this were true?

Not if they've been told to keep it on the hush.

Correct me if I'm wrong but haven't all the Ys out there had the manufacturer plates and not a temporary tag? I doubt Tesla could "deliver" cars to employees and let them use the manufacturer plates and not actually register the car to them. Could be wrong.

That's a solid point. I've been looking for the reddit thread I saw last night featuring pictures of the supposedly delivered model Y sitting in the supposed employee's driveway and I can't find it anywhere. So either I was dreaming or it got 86'd

 

[Green Pete]

Graphene is way too expensive for me to care about it.

According to that video around the 6minute mark they claim to have reduced costs by 99.999% to $0.01 per cm^3. Im have no expertise here and I am willing to admit I may be making noise for about a big nothingburger.

EDIT: Karen came to the rescue and made it clear this is still not interesting yet. Ignore my ramblings and thanks Karen for feedback

 

[Nurkbonis]

Saw a similar pic. Could have been delivered or could just be one of the RC Ys that is being driven with manufacturer plates and hasn't been delivered. Feels like it'll happen soon if it hasn't started.

Not if they've been told to keep it on the hush.

That's a solid point. I've been looking for the reddit thread I saw last night featuring pictures of the supposedly delivered model Y sitting in the supposed employee's driveway and I can't find it anywhere. So either I was dreaming or it got 86'd

 

[Artful Dodger]

supply chain and battery pack production might: the "Battery Workshop" docks were still not operative in the latest video from three days ago, so I think they are still working with imported GF3 battery packs

We also learned that Tesla began pack assembly at GF3 in late December. Previously, we were informed that the 1st gen Grohmann pack building machine was shipped from GF1 Sparks to GF3 Shanghai. Lastly, on Jan 4, 2020 Elon said that he still thought GF3 was using cells from Nevada, since locally-sourced LG cells weren't quite up Tesla's standards at that time.

The straightforward conclusion (based on limited info) is that the gen 1 Grohmann pack machine was assembled and operating inside the main building by late Dec 2019, and that Tesla is likely in the process of converting SR production at GF3 from Panasonic cells imported from Nevada, to LG cells sourced locally.

All we need to know now is what ‘soon’ means in China. A few weeks or a few months?

As always, batteries are the constraint. I predict that we will get the next significan step change in production at GF3 when the supply of CATL modules becomes available in volume. This has been hinted at happening by Summer, 2020 in reports from various sources about the CATL contract.

Cheers!

P.S. Again, do not assume CATL will produce modules with LFP chemistry: Tesla China has teased on Social Media that something else is coming on Battery Day in April: