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

[hobbes]

Those that post dozens of times a day have highjacked this thread, currently unreadable. I'll do my part. This will be my last post until when I buy back in, expecting August at the earlierst.

I feel completely the same. But if all the posters who keep calm, only post if they have something to say and refrain from ad-hominem attacks leave, the hijacking is made much easier for the others .

 

[jerry33]

“[Texas] is a large, deregulated market. Users of electricity have a choice in who they buy electricity from and the type of energy that they buy,”

Sort of, but yes and no. Texas has a three tired system. Electricity producers, Electricity providers, and Billing companies. The consumer has the choice of the third, but not the second or first. Yes, you can choose an 100% renewable plan, but that's not exactly the same thing. What happens is that if you choose this type of plan, sometime within six months from when you use the electricity the amount of electricity used has to be put in the grid from renewable sources. The good news is that almost all new electricity producer site applications are solar. Mainly because that's the fastest to get up and running. From slowest to fastest the order is nuclear, coal, natural gas, wind, solar. The first two are pretty much dead in the water. There are a lot of NG plants, but little on the horizon.

 

[BornToFly]

The questions surrounding EVchampion's account: How many shares, what is the cost basis, and how big is the margin call now? How low will the SP get, and how big will the margin call get if the SP goes to 500 or 400? It may get to the point where buying protective Puts can't make it all go away. I can't say for sure. It might make sense to sell some shares at a loss now just in case, and then use Puts to protect the rest. All I know is that I thought I was completely screwed last year and would have to sell lots of shares at a loss, and instead I was able to keep all of them through the sub-200 low by buying OTM Puts..

 

[ZeApelido]

Elon's popularity on Reddit may have taken a deep-dive, but he's just reached 33.6 million followers on twitter. It's just been one or two days since 33.5 followers.

Note the Y-axis is zoomed in on that plot to magnify the change, we don't have perspective on really how big it is.

 

[StarFoxisDown!]

One last parting thought before I take my leave from TMC again

It's pretty alarming and surprising to see people emotionally selling with expectations of a 400-500 share price that they'll be able to buy back in at towards the end of Q2. Not saying it's impossible that the stock goes back to 400-500 but I have a hard time seeing logical investors ignoring that Q3 will likely produce 175-185k vehicles with revenue of 10-11 billion.....even if Q2 slumps because of little production out of Fremont. Smart money is not going to focus on Q2 and ignore Q3.

2020 so far has showed us that once momentum changes in this stock, you can easily see anywhere from a 20-40% rise in the stock price in only a week. Any surprise announcement of Fremont production starting before beginning of June will be a pretty big positive catalyst and there's no way you're gonna be able to get in front of a surprise announcement like that.

Maybe its just me but I'm ecstatic to be moving funds around to buy more in the 600 to low 700 level after that Q1 earnings. 30% margin at 175-185k deliveries has me savoring the thought of buying more at the end of this upcoming week (the sooner those funds clear the better )

 

[wtlloyd]

I have checked with many old TMC friends that have departed this site on the subject of recent EM posts. My crude numbers show about 2/3 say...'No worries' while 1/3 have expressed concern....only a few of those concerned have or are selling shares.

Just one person's data point but given the loss of many of people from TMC that I know have decent knowledge of Tesla/TSLA/EM I am inclined to hold shares and buy on dips.

Not advice

PS: The loss of people with knowledge of Tesla/TSLA/EM far exceeds the current knowledge that is shared here currently. A shame in this poster's opinion. A real shame.

I've only been reading avidly here for the last month or so, although I joined back last year. Very much a sense of arriving when the party's nearly over, the tables laden with discarded, emptied drink glasses, and you wouldn't feed what's left of the dip tray to a dog. Hopefully, just a lull and it will freshen.

 

[SMAlset]

California Snowpack Already Nearly Bare As Drought Worsens | The Weather Channel

I am guessing we will see increasing demand of stationary battery pack this year as PG&E need to shut down electricity to combat early fire season.

demand for the PWs isn’t a problem. Installation is. When we placed our order in January there was a 3 month backup for our area (PG&E wildfire shutdown area). Of course just when we were being scheduled for completion by end of March, the covid shutdown hit us instead and all work stopped. Not considered essential.

If covid resurges in the fall along with the regular flu, we could be back to filled hospitals and work stoppages again if we don’t have better testing and a vaccine. Even with better testing won’t someone be able to infect others before knowing they’re infected? Will be interesting to see how treatments play into reducing hospitalizations or if caught early could be prevented all together.

With wildfire season here also hitting starting in the summer, trying to judge SP should be quite challenging despite what Battery Day brings. Don’t recall but did Fremont have a power shutdown last year? I know many tech companies located closer to the actual Bay were safe from the shutdowns (because of the way the lines ran I think).

 

[Mo City]

Jason Yang is out with a new video from Giga Shanghai

Thanks.

What is the expected max annual production from Giga Shanghai after all construction is complete? Should be well over 1 million annually, right?

 

[CanadaEV]

I've only been reading avidly here for the last month or so, although I joined back last year. Very much a sense of arriving when the party's nearly over, the tables laden with discarded, emptied drink glasses, and you wouldn't feed what's left of the dip tray to a dog. Hopefully, just a lull and it will freshen.

It's been yet another casualty of the virus. EM has expressed this vector in his own way.
The world was screaming for a refresh, and the virus has come along to act as the trigger.
Until this happened, all the hopes and dreams had become empty cardboard cutouts of what once looked like a shiny future - you can't run a future on hopes and dreams, you have to get down to it.
Therefore, the stock price *is* too high. But it doesn't have to be.
We have to let go of vanishing expectations and get real, find hard cold reality and get our teeth into it

 

[kbM3]

I don't understand #2.
The sampling method is critical, I agree. Just as with drive through vs walkup where ppl with cars are less likely to use mass transit. So where is the detail on this?

‘People that either want to be tested, or that doctors decide need to be tested because they have COVID symptoms are FAR more likely to have the disease than a random person from the population at large. They are far more likely to have COVID because they have symptoms. I have no desire to be tested, but someone who has lost their sense of smell, has a fever, weakness and a racking cough has a desperate desire to be tested and will have priority in being tested. Therefore because testing is not currently applied on a total random basis, it’s not including nearly as many disease free people.

The N.Y. anti-body tests randomly asked people at grocery stores to be tested. Although not perfectly random, it is far better. The results showed an infection fatality rate of 0.5% to 1%. I would think 0.8% is a good bet.

if you are obese, have diabetes, cancer, high blood pressure, or are old, you are in pretty high danger of hospitalization and possible death. Otherwise, it’s not too bad.

 

[Hock1]

I don’t think people here are focusing on the most damaging tweet. Elon claimed the doctors in this article are making good points. Doctors’ viral video rebuked by health officials; YouTube removes it

Here was the argument:
1) 12% of people tested for CV in CA. have the disease.
2) Therefore 12% of all Californians have the disease.
3) Therefore if we divide the current number of fatalities (wrong since fatalities lag infections by up to a month), by the number of Californians infected, we can see the mortality rate os 0.03 (they apparently meant 0.03%, but like many math illiterates they confuse fractions and percentages).
4) Therefore Coronavirus is less dangerous than the flu.

‘This logic is so beyond stupid, it beggars belief. It is fully equivalent to claiming 80% of Californians have cataracts, because that’s the percentage of people with symptoms of cloudy vision that are later determined to have cataracts. You have to take very randomized samples when extrapolating to larger populations. I spotted this flaw within seconds of watching the video and I am no expert in surveys, or medicine!

‘Elon making the claim that they have good points which minimize the seriousness of a pandemic, while we’re in the middle of it boils down to the following possibilities
1) He really thought they had good points (incompetent and borderline stupid).
2) He didn’t pay close attention to the claims and just tweeted without thinking (Reckless and dangerous).
3) He knows that it was incredibly bad schlock Science, but tweets it anyway for some other purpose (Completely reprehensible).

I am in the middle of an email argument with 10 different surgeons (including a head of surgery and who’s studied infectious diseases), after a friend included me in a thread about this video.

It is so completely unbelievable that these very smart surgeons can be taken in by these Bakersfield doctor’s claims. I believe they’re all Republicans and don’t believe in Climate Change. But it is even more strange that they can be taken in by something so blatantly wrong and in their field.

But of much greater concern is that Elon is apparently being taken in by schlock Science and doubting mainstream experts (remember he also tweeted we would be at zero new cases in the U.S. last week)? We need Elon to be rational and to have an accurate view of the world, in order to be making the best decisions.

P.S. I’m still 70% Tesla and will probably deploy cash to buy more if it drops from here, so I still believe in the Company and I still believe in Elon, but this is HIGHLY, HIGHLY concerning.

I am not a doctor. I have a few comments and questions for you:
First, comments:
1) In your characterization of the argument, your statements 1) and 2) are black and white oversimplifications.
2) You may be literate in math, but I think you might not have listened correctly, as I remember it Dr. Erickson said there is a .003 chance of dying from Covid. He also used the equivalent percentage of .3%. He characterized this number as about the same mortality rate as the flu.
At no point did I hear him say the flu is more dangerous.

Questions:
1) Are you a doctor? What field?
2) I may have misunderstood, but are you saying that "10 different surgeons" , that you have spoken with, believe that Erickson had some good points, perhaps even endorse his findings? So, if you are a doctor, you are saying that 10 other doctors disagree with your position? If you are not a doctor, you have no skin on that particular game and, as such, everything you say is meaningless and should not be taken as truth.

 

[Mo City]

I'm not so sure. Autonomy Day gave us great insights into how Tesla's AI works - yet it was a flop from a share price perspective. Except for one or two, the dumb analysts didn't understand the tech and to this day don't realize how the 3 Billion miles of available training data will enable Tesla to win. Instead, all they seemed concerned about who was charging what. They care about the FSD business model, not the FSD tech.

The same could be true for Battery Day. The analysts will likely ask what this means for the Panasonic relationship and whether it means GF1 will shutdown while they transition over, not what this battery tech means for Tesla's future vehicles. As a result, they'll see supply interruption costs, vehicles with old tech that Tesla has to discount to sell, etc. Remember the expression: Those who can - do; those who can't - teach? The third one is "Those who can't teach - become analysts." These folks are mostly not business savvy, are tech ignorant, have very short term views, and their idea of predicting the future is literally looking to the past.


Another example of where analysts don't get tech is with Tesla's recent FSD update. I think it's HUGE. Tesla is getting tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of neural net trainers for free. Everyone who turns stop sign/light/intersection on in their vehicle is training Tesla's neural net on recognition and what to do/not do, and Tesla isn't paying them - they're paying Tesla! Tesla probably gets more data from this in a day than Waymo gets in a year - and Tesla is getting data all over, not just from targeted cities.

I've had it on for only a couple of short rides now. It slowed for an intersection, I gave it the go-ahead, and then a pedestrian decided to cross. I saw the car recognized the pedestrian, and was about to manually brake, but the car slowed to a stop on its own until the pedestrian passed and then proceeded through the intersection. Very cool.

The information presented during Autonomy Day was very difficult to comprehend and quantify. Battery Day should be much different. Like last year, the technological stuff won't mean much to the market. However, hard numbers on reduced costs per kWh plus a production ramp road map will provide enough red meat to react on.

 

[mblakele]

Take the corona treatment posts to the corona thread. We don’t want the main thread infected with the endless in-depth medical discussions that rage over there.

Quoting for anyone who missed it

Link: Coronavirus

 

[SOULPEDL]

‘People that either want to be tested, or that doctors decide need to be tested because they have COVID symptoms are FAR more likely to have the disease than a random person from the population at large. They are far more likely to have COVID because they have symptoms. I have no desire to be tested, but someone who has lost their sense of smell, has a fever, weakness and a racking cough has a desperate desire to be tested and will have priority in being tested. Therefore because testing is not currently applied on a total random basis, it’s not including nearly as many disease free people.

The N.Y. anti-body tests randomly asked people at grocery stores to be tested. Although not perfectly random, it is far better. The results showed an infection fatality rate of 0.5% to 1%. I would think 0.8% is a good bet.

if you are obese, have diabetes, cancer, high blood pressure, or are old, you are in pretty high danger of hospitalization and possible death. Otherwise, it’s not too bad.

Would love to chat more, still waiting on a citation from what was published earlier here, but Fred already deleted one of my posts on this topic (sorry, got dragged in). I moved to corona thread if you want to pick up. Like this one. Coronavirus

 

[JRP3]

There's a Coronavirus doomsday freakout thread directly below this, feel free to share your sentiments there.

My reply to you had nothing to do with that thread, so no.

 

[EVNow]

I think Elon was just adding gravitas to his argument. Pretty sure he will throw them a bone like pre order money to make sure they survive a few more weeks/months.

Not talking survival - talking about how fast they can restart (and depending on which state / country they are in, when they can). Also they would have their own ramp up times etc.

Zach referred to a bit of this by stating that there will be some ramp up time needed once Fremont restarts.

Immediate issue would be how to get shipments to Europe produced, shipped & delivered within Q2. The amount of reg credit they can bill FCA would depend on the number of deliveries, I guess.

 

[EVNow]

Smart money is not going to focus on Q2 and ignore Q3.

Smart money would also not ignore the possibility of a second wave.

As to buying before TSLA quickly goes up - yes, it seems to always run up before I can buy. That's why I have not sold any shares (even the IRA / 401k ones).

 

[mickle]

Too many message here, time for a Sunday drive. Maybe will check out the Fremont factory.

If we had FSD, could just send the car to drive around the capitol in Sacramento for a few days..

 

[EVNow]

There's a Coronavirus doomsday freakout thread directly below this, feel free to share your sentiments there.

LOL. Just because your unfounded posts there are always challenged and you have been repeatedly shown to have made wrong statements.

Oh BTW, Musk has also made statements that are obviously naively optimistic. As optimistic as his FSD claims.

Elon Musk on Twitter (Mar 19)

Based on current trends, probably close to zero new cases in US too by end of April​

 

[StarFoxisDown!]

Smart money would also not ignore the possibility of a second wave.

As to buying before TSLA quickly goes up - yes, it seems to always run up before I can buy. That's why I have not sold any shares (even the IRA / 401k ones).

If the US as a country can't get effective safety protocol in place by Q3 that's good enough to run a manufacturing facility......then I give up on this country and support moving all tesla production out of this country lol. A second wave could happen but a competent country should be able to effectively mitigate that if its has protocols in place

I think however the combination of much more testing and tracking, natural herd immunity, safety protocols, and somewhat effective drugs will allow full production in Q3 and I feel smart money is going to think this way too. Other countries have shown the ability to get back to at least manufacturing norms and somewhat social norms through the above methods. The US would be an epic fail if we can't get to that point by August.