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

[woodisgood]

Corona is killing the old and chronically ill. Sucks for them and their loved ones, but will not kill the economy. Italy has 23% of its population over age 65; US has 16% and our elderly have less contact with young relatives who may infect them.
Why the Coronavirus Hit Italy So Hard

People with normal immune systems are recovering or getting mild or no symptoms. Try to calm yourself.

It's an interesting thought. I've always criticized American society for how poorly (IMHO) we take care of our elders (especially compared to some other countries/cultures), but it's possible the "independence" some elders have in the US will be beneficial in this case, considering young asymptomatic folks are primarily the carriers and chronically ill elders the victims.

I am willing to bet when the data is fully analyzed, age will just be a proxy for pre-existing lung injury/disease (in the form of somking history, asthma, etc.).

 

[RobStark]

Elon forgot to add a [for Fremont factory, along with COVID tests] at the end of this tweet:
View attachment 523310

Alameda Sheriff says ventilators are not an "essential business" during a pandemic.

 

[S3XY]

Over 350 have signed the petition already. Their goal is to get 500 to sign. I reported it, stating that it intends to supercede Federal law denoting automotive production and delivery as critical process.

View attachment 523139

[In the voice of Jerry Seinfeld] Who are these people? No, really. It would be one thing if they were all employees. But if not...

 

[XHabjab]

Mostly agree, but I think you are OVERESTIMATING the task.

What they would do (if it became necessary/obviously needed), is DISASSEMBLE the GA4 Tent line complete, and move it to a remote site that is out of reach of the SFO County restrictions but is still accessible for logistics.

People here forget that in 1946, after WWII ended, Volkswagen was building Beetles in a bombed-out factory WITHOUT a roof! Get'er'dun! #WHATEVERITTAKES

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Just wondering, ... what county is at the other end of the nearby Boring tunnel?

 

[StarFoxisDown!]

[In the voice of Jerry Seinfeld] Who are these people? No, really. It would be one thing if they were all employees. But if not...

Lol that is so stupid. The use of Seinfeld perfectly fits how stupid that petition is.

 

[FrankSG]

I am now beginning to get concerned about the possibility of Tesla getting bought or going private. If this has been discussed already here, I apologize for not having caught up on the thread.

With the current stock price, a 20% premium would put it at ~ 420 range. If the stock drops another 10% tomorrow, $420 would seem like a great price for a company with this high level of potential growth. We talk about VW having lost their chance last year when Tesla was below $200, but we are getting dangerously close to dropping below $300 - that is cheap for a company with such sound fundamentals. In fact, now it is an even better buy, as they have proven to be successfully profitable 2 quarters with continued demand for their products.

I don't believe VW or anyone else could do a hostile takeover, but would Elon be willing to sell to someone, if he stays on for a certain period to get it through the growth over next few years? Alternatively, would he be so fed up of all the struggles that he tries to take it private - as he tried in 2018? Even with this market crash, there is plenty of money that could be raised. Heck, China might be willing to fund him themselves.

There's no way Elon would be okay with anything like this at this point in time. Elon would not okay a go-private event and force people to sell shares at a price less than ~$800 or so, and even then I highly doubt it. This would be a terrible deal for retail investors who got in this year as well as participants in the recent equity raise, and Elon would not betray these people's trust like that.

There's also 0% chance someone could accumulate a majority stake on the public markets for a SP under $2,000. Too many shares are in the hands of people who will not sell before then (Elon, mutual funds, many retail investors, ARKK, etc.).

 

[PeterJA]

I am willing to bet when the data is fully analyzed, age will just be a proxy for pre-existing lung injury/disease (in the form of somking history, asthma, etc.).

Also, some drugs might increase risk from Corona, although this is not yet proven. These include drugs commonly prescribed to elders for heart disease or diabetes, and marijuana and NSAIDs used by youngers.
Coronavirus Disease COVID-19
(last link: "ACE2 and COVID-19")

 

[XHabjab]

OK. SO when no one is asking the Sheriff for his opinion, he blabs it out on social media like little Miss Gossip.

Now, when reporters want to know what's going on, he clams up like a dog with a bark collar.

Ask me why I have a dim view of law enforcement officers in the 21st century (it wasn't always this way).

Sad world these days. On the bright side, I'm loving the negativity here this morning and hearing about so many people bailing from their TSLA positions at bargain basement prices. This always happens during major market events like this. Now I can really smell the fear! Which can mean only one thing - the bottom is near!

I looked at the Twitter interaction with the Sherriff. After making his single unsolicited remark, he was inundated by TSLAQ and sympathizers accusing him of bribery and payoffs and various predictable stuff. The volume was substantial. I'm sure that most tweets were not from people within the county. In his defense, I think he was overwhelmed in a time of crisis.

 

[FrankSG]

Ouch, that's so confused! Hard to unpack this *take*.

Let's try with just this statement: "lower short interest ... indicate more real investors having changed their mind". So:

• short sellers are NOT real investors; they are anti-investors
• # of shares shorted goes UP when sentiment is poor; DN when good
  
• fewer Short shares reduces supply; net effect is to increase SP

So in the scenario where both the number of Short shares AND the share price have gone down, we conclude:

• sentiment has improved in Anti-Investors
  
• the supply of shares available from Long investors increased

This seemingly contradictory conclusion can only be justified if we also conclude that the group(s) that are buying are covering their shorts, AND they are doing it by scaring the shares out of low-information Investors.

Matches the headlines and the intraday bear raid tactics over the past 10 weeks of trading. But this is already too long, and it would take 3x this analysis to parse the rest of your thesis, so I won't.

Cheers!

I'm unable to follow all of the reasoning in this post, but here's my thinking:

If suddenly APPL short interest skyrocketed to 20%, I would be very concerned that suddenly people were willing to bet against APPL to the tune of $200B. There'd likely be something worrisome going on in the business to have caused this spike in SI.

However, TSLA has a history of being heavily shorted ever since IPO, and these shorts have been completely wrong all along. High SI when SP is low, and low SI when SP is high is a further indicator that these are not logical, money-making shorts. Therefore, high TSLA SI does not cause me to worry about the company's fundamentals.

A significant increase in SI would mean that there are now more shares available for longs, and this might've contributed to the falling SP. Meaning, irrational short sellers who will eventually lose their money and have to cover their position, will have been part of why TSLA SP has fallen a lot.

 

[FrankSG]

Wuhan went into lockdown on Jan 23rd, almost two months ago. They are not fully out of lockdown, yet.

Really? I don't keep up to date with this, but I'd imagine that things have at least loosened up a while ago already, because at this point infections in all of China are down to single digits.

 

[Matias]

Thanks to this market I'm downgrading to this.
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This reminds me of when many years ago I was pedalling a pedalo boat and went beside a yacht where three topples women were dancing. I felt the economic inequality very strongly

 

[Juhoru]

I am willing to bet when the data is fully analyzed, age will just be a proxy for pre-existing lung injury/disease (in the form of somking history, asthma, etc.).

Elon just posted this on Twitter, Sounded like it supports what you are saying:

 

[woodisgood]

So I didn’t realize GM and Ford offered to manufacture ventilators as well. Color me skeptical but could it be that these same companies may realize they’ll need another bailout in the near future and their participation in such an endeavor would make their survival more likely?

Whereas I believe Elon doesn’t need to prove he’ll always try to have Tesla do what’s in humanity’s best interests.

 

[samppa]

European central bank prints more money

European Central Bank makes new 750 billion euro bid to rescue economy - CNN

 

[Thekiwi]

moving the assembly line out of Fremont to another county in the event of a long term stoppage is a non-starter, considering the new location could be under the same order at any time.

It would make more sense to import model 3s from Shanghai probably, if they can ramp up extra production there fast enough.

 

[deffu]

Alameda Sheriff says ventilators are not an "essential business" during a pandemic.

The only essential business now is to make toilet paper.

 

[deffu]

moving the assembly line out of Fremont to another county in the event of a long term stoppage is a non-starter, considering the new location could be under the same order at any time.

It would make more sense to import model 3s from Shanghai probably, if they can ramp up extra production there fast enough.

short term no. Eventually, I would like to see Tesla move Fremont factory out of CA to another state, maybe in the Southwest region Nevada/NM. Water/electricity/labor all cost way more in bay area than other parts of the country. Tesla rezones the land to residential and sells it to developers, can make billions enough to cover all the expenses of the move.

 

[CyberDutchie]

Really? I don't keep up to date with this, but I'd imagine that things have at least loosened up a while ago already, because at this point infections in all of China are down to single digits.

Local government has stated that they need to see 14 days of no new cases before the lockdown will be lifted in Wuhan.

 

[RobStark]

Tesla rezones the land to residential and sells it to developers, can make billions enough to cover all the expenses of the move.

The County has the sole authority to rezone land.

There is a reason Toyota didn't sell the land to home developers.

The land is considered toxic for residential use after 40 years of ICEv manufacturing.

It would take a reclamation project and about 20 years before it meets residential standards.

At the time Toyota sold the factory to Tesla the reclamation project was estimated to cost $750M to $1.1B.

And the land was said to be worth $1B if it was rezoned residential.

Toyota didn't want to be affiliated with toxic reclamation project for 20 years, nobody else wanted the property, so they sold it to Tesla for $42M after agreeing to invest $50M in Tesla.

 

[Fact Checking]

Local government has stated that they need to see 14 days of no new cases before the lockdown will be lifted in Wuhan.

That's sensible, there's probably quite a few smaller rural communities in Hubei who locked down and where the infection might still be propagating internally within the community, without any hospital cases, testing and reporting.

Since for most people Covid-19 infection is without symptoms or with very mild symptoms, they might not even be aware of it.