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

[ruralectric]

OT.

SpaceX lost another Starship last night. Not clear if this one was actually destined for flight, but I believe it was to be static fired.

They'll figure it out. But this is the reason SpaceX is not yet public: Failure is part of Elon's process.

 

[jbcarioca]

Generally agree with your analysis. But want to point out cruise passengers tend to be old but also tend to be the healthy old who are able to roam around the world.

Based on only the cruise habitués I know (obviously not remotely conclusive) all the old ones I know have numerous serious ailments and choose cruises precisely because they are equipped with geriatric support facilities. Thus I would caution to make any assumptions about health of cruise ship,passengers without corroborating evidence.

 

[lklundin]

I’ve said this many times, and will say it again now:

The mechanics of Max pain means it’s like a magnet, the further the price gets from the max pain point, the less strong the pull and the less likely it will have an effect on closing price.

OK, to be sure I took one more look at the definition of Max Pain. In no way does it work like a magnet(ic field), in fact it works in the opposite way:

The closer the current SP is to Max Pain, the less incentive the option writers have to move the SP towards Max Pain and the further away the current SP is from Max Pain, the more incentive the option writers have to move the SP towards Max Pain.

You don't even have to look at the definition. Just go to e.g. opricot.com, type in your favorite stock symbol (duh) and look at the bottom most graph. The area around Max Pain will typically have both the call and put gradient being almost flat (i.e. little change in losses as SP moves a given amount), whereas towards both the lower and upper price extreme the gradient there increases, indicating a more substantial difference in losses as the SP moves a given amount.

To get actual values for a specific example, just take today's graph for TSLA next week, where Max Pain is currently at 780$, with gains at that SP totaling ca. 138M$. Compare it to the SP at 760$ with gains 147M$, so a difference of 9M$ for moving the SP 20$. Compare to the SP being near this week's close at 670$, with gains at 278M$ and 20$ closer to Max Pain, i.e. 690$ with gains there at 236M$, i.e. a drop of 42M$. So the option writers would gain almost 5 times more money by moving the SP 20$ up to 690$, than 20$ up to Max Pain at 780$.

PS. Btw, next week will see almost 38k 100$-puts expire worthlessly...

 

[jbcarioca]

Generally agree with your analysis. But want to point out cruise passengers tend to be old but also tend to be the healthy old who are able to roam around the world.

Before so quickly making that assumption consider this:
Princess Cruises: FAQ: Cruise Answer Place : Prepare For Your Cruise
The few avid worldwide cruise passengers I personally know cruise because if the specialized medical support they provide. I haven’t definitive data but I doubt Princess and others would promote their medical support facilities were that not a lucrative market. The single specific couple I know has an annual cruise budget of US$150,000. Their existing conditions include pacemaker, diabetes, dementia and others. Such examples are not rare, they tell me (the non-demented one) precisely because the healthy ones can socialize while the sick ones are treated with assisted living. Princess even gives special loyalty program support for such people. My friends have their highest status. Proof, if you need it, is that these vessels have onboard morgues. My friends claim several onboard deaths per voyage. Last time cruisers, they say.

 

[dww12]

OT

Given the height of the trunk door, a button seems a necessity:

Can anyone tell if this is powered? - gas strut here:

That looks like a nice fold down camping bed. Lots of 3 trade ins coming.

 

[lascavarian]

And note that this is a vulnerable demographic: cruise ship average passenger age is about 10 years more than the median, and the coronavirus is more severe with older patients. This shift of 10 years in the average age is a significant factor - for example in the U.S. only one out of the 66 cases is listed as 'serious'.

It would be informative to know the rate of smokers in this cohort.

 

[Driver Dave]

These are the best, most interesting, important vehicles coming in 2020 | Boston.com

Missing Model Y. The most interesting and important vehicle of 2020.

One of the reasons why TSLA will always be a good buy.

All auto journalism in media is dictated by dealer ad dollars.

And for them Tesla doesn’t exist. Can’t exist.

So the majority of people out there still have really no clue what’s going on.

TSLA.

If you are paying attention,
You have an unfair advantage.

If you own one,
You have inside info.

 

[dww12]

I honestly and sincerely believe the hysteria has peaked.
I also truly believe the virus is a joke. It's just not that scary. Very nonlethal.

I also HAPPENED to cash out a lot in the upper and mid 800s and spent it on various luxuries and kept like 30 grand as powder, most of which I've now redeployed.

I am just sort of intuitively and luckily killing the game. I don't think most here are as disingenuous as what you're describing here, but that's my personal situation.

Hysteria won’t peak until it is known to be everywhere and everybody is not dead. Right now each case is like an AP crash, news headlines 24/7. Did Tesla drivers stop using AP? No, we just became more aware of it’s (current) limitations. It’s probably everywhere already and we just don’t know it yet because it’s not ebola, everybody doesn’t die and it’s mild for most people. The CDC workers that went to CA did not use any protection. Those people all probably have it and then got on planes and took it everywhere. We just don’t know yet because 100% of the population has not and can not been tested. One of us probably already has or had it, unless you don’t work in an office with people that travel or have kids or shop in a grocery store. At least we don’t touch gas pump handles.

 

[elasalle]

RayTesla️ on Twitter
China Delivery Update: crazy delivery time returns back to
@teslacn
. Almost all flatbed trucks in Shanghai are rented for #Model3 home delivery

 

[sparcs]

RayTesla️ on Twitter
China Delivery Update: crazy delivery time returns back to
@teslacn
. Almost all flatbed trucks in Shanghai are rented for #Model3 home delivery

you missed this part about China:

RayTesla️ on Twitter:

Talking about demand, it’s not slowing down either. New orders submitted today will be delivered in May, according to a sales rep.

Remember that there are no significant transit times out of Giga Shanghai. They just need to make and deliver as many as they can.

 

[JBRR]

2019-nCoV: preliminary estimates of the confirmed-case-fatality-ratio and infection-fatality-ratio, and initial pandemic risk assessment

Helpful for thinking about severity of this pandemic.

 

[The Accountant]

Where were you during the 2009 Avian Flu?
One's reaction to the Coronavirus ranges from calmness to great concern. I'm in the calmness camp for now.

The 2009 Avian Flu Statistics:
10–20% of the global population (700–1400 million people) contracted the illness.
Fatalities were about 150,000–575,000 people.
The WHO declared it a pandemic.

Governments may not be prepared but Organizations are
I worked for a global Pharma company at the time and we activated our disaster preparedness plan. We increased our inventory on hand from 6 weeks to 4 months and many of our suppliers did the same. We ensured that we had back-up suppliers in different continents and our suppliers did the same. We wanted to ensure that the supply chain remained intact in case of any temporary shortages. The company implemented other measures such as some minor travel bans, distributing 10 masks and 100 gloves to each employee (we had 60,000 globally), etc.

9 months later we terminated our Avian Flu preparedness program as we saw no impact to our business. Actually, the only cost to our business was the cost of the preparedness plan itself which tied up our cash flow in excess inventory.

Perhaps the Cornavirus is different, but for now I am going to reamin calm knowing that organizations around the world are activating their preparedness plans and we will move on with life as we did with the 2009 Avian Flu. Just think about it? 10%-20% of the global population contracted the Avian Flu and up to 575m deaths. That death count is sad and I don't want to diminish that but for most of us life went on.

 

[Hock1]

Look what we've found by comparing today's FINRA Short Selling Report with NASDAQ's 'per-minute' Trading log: the volume of 'naked short selling' today is almost exactly the same as an unusually large trade in the After-hrs session at 7:07 PM (EST).

This is compeling evidence of MMs covering their naked short sales from today, but look at the premium price they paid After-hrs: $674.00 vs. todays VWAP $646.79

They must have really needed those shares to spend $200M on them, hmm?

View attachment 516329

EDIT: this also implies that a single entity is behind both today's outsized 'naked short selling' and the equally large After-hrs trade to acquire the shares which were sold earlier (without first being located as required by the #SEC)

EDIT2: Appreciate all those who filed complaints with the SEC. This is the first time I have seen evidence of 'naked short' covering on the same day and in a bulk trade. Perhaps we are finally getting some traction with the investigators at the SEC who's job it is to protect Investors from abusive practices conducted by certain brokerages, who act as both Market Makers and conduct 'for profit' proprietary trading.

Paging @Fact Checking

"These ARE the 'droids you're looking for."
- Old Ben Kenobi​

​

Paging @Hock1

Cheers!

Great find, AD! Not that I've been looking on a daily basis, but I believe this is the first evidence I've seen of a same-day covering of NSs.
Makes one wonder, if they are real, where those shares to cover came from. Thank you for your continued efforts to shine light on the biggest crime ever perpetrated against investors.

 

[Highway2Heel]

From the Department of Redundancy Department: Model Y demand is through the roof.

Tesla has an office in Brooklyn and my contact there for a utility-scale battery project (I was steered in this direction a few weeks ago by a forum member here - thank you!) gave me plenty of good vibes about how the Model Y “...is gonna be very, VERY popular...actually, it already is!” and then he sort of reined himself in and went back on target to our utility discussion.

Couple that good vibes business exchange with frequent Twitter posts talking about wait lists for 5 and 7 seat Y’s and you really start seeing a picture of massive, MASSIVE demand.

I’ll stop preaching to the choir but it’s exciting times. I hope you’re continuing to hodl and buy the dips.

 

[Compton]

Where were you during the 2009 Avian Flu?
One's reaction to the Coronavirus ranges from calmness to great concern. I'm in the calmness camp for now.

The 2009 Avian Flu Statistics:
10–20% of the global population (700–1400 million people) contracted the illness.
Fatalities were about 150,000–575,000 people.
The WHO declared it a pandemic.

Governments may not be prepared but Organizations are
I worked for a global Pharma company at the time and we activated our disaster preparedness plan. We increased our inventory on hand from 6 weeks to 4 months and many of our suppliers did the same. We ensured that we had back-up suppliers in different continents and our suppliers did the same. We wanted to ensure that the supply chain remained intact in case of any temporary shortages. The company implemented other measures such as some minor travel bans, distributing 10 masks and 100 gloves to each employee (we had 60,000 globally), etc.

9 months later we terminated our Avian Flu preparedness program as we saw no impact to our business. Actually, the only cost to our business was the cost of the preparedness plan itself which tied up our cash flow in excess inventory.

Perhaps the Cornavirus is different, but for now I am going to reamin calm knowing that organizations around the world are activating their preparedness plans and we will move on with life as we did with the 2009 Avian Flu. Just think about it? 10%-20% of the global population contracted the Avian Flu and up to 575m deaths. That death count is sad and I don't want to diminish that but for most of us life went on.

Up to 575000 deaths? So about 10% of the amount of people who (according to WHO) die each and every year from car crashes and outside air pollution combined? Life indeed goes on.

Side comment; ~7 million are estimated to die prematurely annually if both indoor (cooking, heating) and outdoor air pollution is included.

 

[KarenRei]

you missed this part about China:



Remember that there are no significant transit times out of Giga Shanghai. They just need to make and deliver as many as they can.

We may have seen the last ship for this quarter - Hoegh Oslo (time will tell, they could still send more if they wanted, but I suspect they need to manufacture for the US now). And contrary to expectations, it went to China, rather than Europe. IMHO, I think this was a conscious decision to try to reduce Chinese wait times at the cost of increasing European wait times. A typical ship to China usually has <= 2,5k cars (vs. 3k or so to EU), which matches a reasonable estimate of how much production they lost at GF3 due to the virus.

Final numbers (RO-ROs only; smaller markets are served by container ships):

Location: Q1 / Q2 / Q3 / Q4 / Q1
China: 8 / 7 / 5 / 5 / 2
Europe: 8 / 5 / 7 / 8 / 7
South Korea: 0 / 0 / 0 / 2 / 2
Japan: 0 / 1 / 0 / 1 / 0
Taiwan: 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 1

Note that while there were a solid number of ships to Europe this quarter, they were somewhat lagged (by both a late start and some delays on the first couple ships) compared to past quarters, so I wouldn't expect incredible February numbers. This will be a very "wave-y" quarter in Europe.

 

[tinm]

You’re welcome Rivian. On the back of Tesla —

Some here may not realize that one of the reasons Rivian is making progress on the legislative front is that their VP of Public Policy is none other than Jim Chen, who used to be one of Tesla’s key policy folks, and back in the day fought many a good fight on behalf of Tesla in state legislatures around the country. Rivian was smart to bring Jim on.

 

[deffu]

Ok pope got it too.
Vatican confirms Pope Francis and two aides test positive for Coronavirus - MCM

 

[JBRR]

Ok pope got it too.
Vatican confirms Pope Francis and two aides test positive for Coronavirus - MCM

don't see this confirmed elsewhere or on the vatican website. Got other sources?

 

[Unpilot]

What was market's response to the 2009 Avian flu?
It's seems to me to not have been nearly as severe as the current panic.