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

[StarFoxisDown!]

Ok, just for fun, if FSD is suddenly a reality for any company, what is it worth?

500 Billion?

A trillion?

Obviously a difficult calculation, but easy to say that Tesla would be tremendously undervalued if this were suddenly a thing.

I am going to go with a trillion to start.

Opinions?

Being 1st to FSD with the most data.......at least a trillion.

Being 1st to FSD with the most data while manufacturing your own robotaxi.....idk add another 500 billion

 

[smorgasbord]

OT

Since it's the weekend now, I wanted to share my findings from an analysis I did in the wayback machine. We all remember our old bear friend John Peterson, who has written more than 50 anti-Tesla articles on Seeking Alpha since 2010. Not surprisingly, he has been pretty quiet on that front in the last year. His last article relating to Tesla was in August 2019.

For those that remember (and those that do not), back between 2009-13 he was pumping a battery manufacturing company called Axion Power, which he stated in one of his articles that "I'm a former Axion director, the stock is my biggest holding and I follow the company like a hawk..." Part of his anti-Tesla stance was likely due to the competition he felt Tesla was presenting to Axion.

Let's have some fun and do some math comparing Axion vs. Tesla stock price since his first Tesla-related article was published in June 2010. It was poignantly named "Why Tesla is Unlikely to Succeed" and was written just before its IPO. Here it is for posterity: https://seekingalpha.com/article/210951-why-tesla-is-unlikely-to-succeed

Sadly for poor John, Axion Power did not fare quite as well as Tesla over the years. Axion has gone through countless reverse stock-splits over the years to try and keep its share price at all relevant and so I have no idea what its actual true share price was back in June 2010. However, its stock chart from today shows that back-calculating the share price through all the reverse stock splits gives us an adjusted share price of $518,000 in June 2010. Axion's share price today is $0.0015 (yes, less than 1 cent). We all know Tesla's IPO share price was $17 at IPO in June 2010 and it is now at $2,050.

Now is the fun part. If you had invested $1,000 in Tesla in June 2010 (which wise old John was arguing strongly against), it would be worth $121,000 today. Invest $1,000,000 then, you'd have $121 million today. 121 bagger!

On the other hand, if you (or John) had invested $1,000 in Axion Power in June 2010, it would be worth $0.0000029 today. What the hell is that you ask? It is about 3 10,000ths of a cent. Sorry, I still can't imagine that. Instead let's say you invested $1,000,000 in Axion Power - that would be worth $0.0029, or 3/10ths of a cent. If you had invested $3 million, you'd have enough now for a 1 cent gummy bear! What level of bagger is that you ask? Well, it's a negative 345,333,333 bagger. Pretty impressive, John.

So comparing investing in Tesla vs. investing in Axion Power (as John argued against over and over back in the day), was comparably a 41,724,137,931 bagger. So in essence, investing in Tesla earned you a 41.7 TRILLION TIMES better return than investing in Axion. Wow.

Thanks for the memories John Peterson, you will forever be remembered as the ultimate contrarian indicator.

I regard John Petersen as a criminal. He was responsible for an Axion fanboi group that formed on Seeking Alpha and had its own group blog (search for "Axion Power Concentrator" for some examples, still up) in which he continued pumping Axion even as he himself was quietly selling.

 

[M|S|M MYP]

OT

Since it's the weekend now, I wanted to share my findings from an analysis I did in the wayback machine. We all remember our old bear friend John Peterson, who has written more than 50 anti-Tesla articles on Seeking Alpha since 2010. Not surprisingly, he has been pretty quiet on that front in the last year. His last article relating to Tesla was in August 2019.

For those that remember (and those that do not), back between 2009-13 he was pumping a battery manufacturing company called Axion Power, which he stated in one of his articles that "I'm a former Axion director, the stock is my biggest holding and I follow the company like a hawk..." Part of his anti-Tesla stance was likely due to the competition he felt Tesla was presenting to Axion.

Let's have some fun and do some math comparing Axion vs. Tesla stock price since his first Tesla-related article was published in June 2010. It was poignantly named "Why Tesla is Unlikely to Succeed" and was written just before its IPO. Here it is for posterity: https://seekingalpha.com/article/210951-why-tesla-is-unlikely-to-succeed

Sadly for poor John, Axion Power did not fare quite as well as Tesla over the years. Axion has gone through countless reverse stock-splits over the years to try and keep its share price at all relevant and so I have no idea what its actual true share price was back in June 2010. However, its stock chart from today shows that back-calculating the share price through all the reverse stock splits gives us an adjusted share price of $518,000 in June 2010. Axion's share price today is $0.0015 (yes, less than 1 cent). We all know Tesla's IPO share price was $17 at IPO in June 2010 and it is now at $2,050.

Now is the fun part. If you had invested $1,000 in Tesla in June 2010 (which wise old John was arguing strongly against), it would be worth $121,000 today. Invest $1,000,000 then, you'd have $121 million today. 121 bagger!

On the other hand, if you (or John) had invested $1,000 in Axion Power in June 2010, it would be worth $0.0000029 today. What the hell is that you ask? It is about 3 10,000ths of a cent. Sorry, I still can't imagine that. Instead let's say you invested $1,000,000 in Axion Power - that would be worth $0.0029, or 3/10ths of a cent. If you had invested $3 million, you'd have enough now for a 1 cent gummy bear! What level of bagger is that you ask? Well, it's a negative 345,333,333 bagger. Pretty impressive, John.

So comparing investing in Tesla vs. investing in Axion Power (as John argued against over and over back in the day), was comparably a 41,724,137,931 bagger. So in essence, investing in Tesla earned you a 41.7 TRILLION TIMES better return than investing in Axion. Wow.

Thanks for the memories John Peterson, you will forever be remembered as the ultimate contrarian indicator.

Just when you think you could not find anyone dumber than Speigel or GLJ (Jonas is spared for now because apparently he turned to the right side for fear of losing his job).....we have a new winner in John Peterson!

 

[Singuy]

OT

Since it's the weekend now, I wanted to share my findings from an analysis I did in the wayback machine. We all remember our old bear friend John Peterson, who has written more than 50 anti-Tesla articles on Seeking Alpha since 2010. Not surprisingly, he has been pretty quiet on that front in the last year. His last article relating to Tesla was in August 2019.

For those that remember (and those that do not), back between 2009-13 he was pumping a battery manufacturing company called Axion Power, which he stated in one of his articles that "I'm a former Axion director, the stock is my biggest holding and I follow the company like a hawk..." Part of his anti-Tesla stance was likely due to the competition he felt Tesla was presenting to Axion.

Let's have some fun and do some math comparing Axion vs. Tesla stock price since his first Tesla-related article was published in June 2010. It was poignantly named "Why Tesla is Unlikely to Succeed" and was written just before its IPO. Here it is for posterity: https://seekingalpha.com/article/210951-why-tesla-is-unlikely-to-succeed

Sadly for poor John, Axion Power did not fare quite as well as Tesla over the years. Axion has gone through countless reverse stock-splits over the years to try and keep its share price at all relevant and so I have no idea what its actual true share price was back in June 2010. However, its stock chart from today shows that back-calculating the share price through all the reverse stock splits gives us an adjusted share price of $518,000 in June 2010. Axion's share price today is $0.0015 (yes, less than 1 cent). We all know Tesla's IPO share price was $17 at IPO in June 2010 and it is now at $2,050.

Now is the fun part. If you had invested $1,000 in Tesla in June 2010 (which wise old John was arguing strongly against), it would be worth $121,000 today. Invest $1,000,000 then, you'd have $121 million today. 121 bagger!

On the other hand, if you (or John) had invested $1,000 in Axion Power in June 2010, it would be worth $0.0000029 today. What the hell is that you ask? It is about 3 10,000ths of a cent. Sorry, I still can't imagine that. Instead let's say you invested $1,000,000 in Axion Power - that would be worth $0.0029, or 3/10ths of a cent. If you had invested $3 million, you'd have enough now for a 1 cent gummy bear! What level of bagger is that you ask? Well, it's a negative 345,333,333 bagger. Pretty impressive, John.

So comparing investing in Tesla vs. investing in Axion Power (as John argued against over and over back in the day), was comparably a 41,724,137,931 bagger. So in essence, investing in Tesla earned you a 41.7 TRILLION TIMES better return than investing in Axion. Wow.

Thanks for the memories John Peterson, you will forever be remembered as the ultimate contrarian indicator.

So confused about Axion Power. It used to be a few million a share and it went to less than a penny?

 

[Sofie]

Because that is how petty the working world is. I started a new job about a year after I bought my model s. Within the first two weeks, the ceo pulled me aside and informed me that it wasn't wise to have a more expensive car than the ceo where I worked.

Wow! What an insecure CEO

 

[Cherry Wine]

 

[Sanny]

Just when you think you could not find anyone dumber than Speigel or GLJ (Jonas is spared for now because apparently he turned to the right side for fear of losing his job).....we have a new winner in John Peterson!

Actually, when I read about Spiegel's fund performance I immediately thought that even though his reasoning is way off, he still is technically a better investor than me because if I was so wrong with my thesis for so long, I would already lose everything, and he is just underperforming the index! I understand it is a portfolio management and VaR and all that jazz that I'm ignoring and I'm not proud of it.

 

[Green Pete]

Out of curiosity, does anyone have a good guesstimate how much buying pressure it would take 10 minutes before the close of extended hours to push the price up 0.5%. Im trying to better grasp how MM works.

 

[Sofie]

Out of curiosity, does anyone have a good guesstimate how much buying pressure it would take 10 minutes before the close of extended hours to push the price up 0.5%. Im trying to better grasp how MM works.

I definitely don’t know, but I sure wish we could do it!

 

[Artful Dodger]

After-action Report: Fri, Aug 21, 2020: (Full-Day's Trading)

Headline: "TSLA Posts 4 New ATHs; Up 50% Since Announcing Stock Dividend"

Traded: $44,465,414,228.08 ($44.47 B)
Volume: 21,534,076
VWAP: $2,064.89

Closing SP / VWAP: 99.26%
(TSLA closed BELOW today's Avg SP)
Mkt Cap: TSLA / TM = $382.038B / $186.336B = 205.03%​

TSLA 1-mth Moving Avg Market Cap: $296.43B
TSLA 6-mth Moving Avg Market Cap: $180.76B
Nota Bene: Mkt Cap on pace to unlock CEO comp. 3rd tranche Sep 07, 2020

'Short' Report:

FINRA Volume / Total NASDAQ Vol = 49.4% (49th Percentile rank FINRA Reporting)
FINRA Short/Total Volume = 44.6% (46th Percentile rank Shorting)
FINRA Short Exempt Volume was 1.88% of Short Volume (56th Percentile Rank)​

Comment: "MMs sink SP $30 in 5 min at 15:30 to kill Calls at the $2,050 Strike"

View all Lodger's After-Action Reports

Cheers!

 

[mejojo]

I spent 6+ years in this stock waiting for its price to hit $399. Now that's a pretty solid week.

Same for me...since Summer '14

 

[mejojo]

Was said ceo wearing escalator shoes and a really long tie?

FTFY

 

[tinm]

News Flash:

Tesla IR puts out more details sbout Sept 22

Tesla Announces Updates to 2020 Annual Meeting of Stockholders and Battery Day Event | Tesla, Inc.

 

[phantasms]

How do we get whatever letter they’re requesting for proof?

It would be an interesting drive from NY trying to avoid COVID and fires along the way.

 

[OrthoSurg]

Same for me...since Summer '14

My first TSLA stock purchase was 75k as a student 8 years ago. All the money I had saved from working during school in one company.

When the stock dropped from $180 the Thursday my wife and I made the decision to buy to $170 the Friday at close, we regretted putting all our eggs in the same basket and sold 3 weeks after when it reached $178 and we were proud of our $2000...

Gosh times change

 

[jpsgoneev]

'CEO Ingenlath said that Polestar’s ambitions “at some point” is to reach 50,000 worldwide.'

So inconsequential.

So 2015.

 

[FrankSG]

To be clear, that is exactly what I'm contemplating. Unaccounted shares are not issued 4 new shares. It forces a complete accounting to take place during this specific period! Anyone who issued unaccounted for shares has to make good on them, not at their convenience, but at this point in time.

Whether it creates a short squeeze is a seperate question and that would depend upon the size of the (assumed) phantom share problem.

There's another ownership/accounting issue to address: Tesla uses a specific legal term the "Shareholder of Record" in their announcement. Contrast that to the "Benefical Owner":

Stockholder of record - Wikipedia

"Stockholder of record is the name of an individual or entity shareholder that an issuer carries in its shareholder register as the registered holder (not necessarily the beneficial owner) of the issuer's securities. Dividends and other distributions are paid only to shareholders of record. Stockholder of record may be also called shareholder of record or holder of record or owner of record"​

With certain Brokers, it is the Broker themself who is identified to Tesla as the "Shareholder of Record". Tesla issued a block of shares to that broker, who manages sales of them with it's clients (my Broker does this; in early years, I couldn't even vote at the AGMs). It is those clients who are the actual "beneficial owners" of the shares, however is internal record-keeping which is all done by the Broker themself. Tesla has no knowledge of the internal state of its shares at that Brokerage, other than Broker 'X' is the "Shareholder of Record" for Y shares (its a 'Trust').

Here's where the potential problem arises for Broker X after a a stock dividend: Tesla accounting says Broker X has 1,000,000 shares so Tesla issues 4,000,000 more shares to Broker X as the dividend. Now if Broker X has been trading properly, these 5m total shares will cover all their needs. However, if Broker X has been creating phantom shares (ie: via their Reg. SHO exemption) then clients of Broker X will have claims on MORE than 5m shares after the split. Bbut the Broker does not have the ability to create these shares (only Tesla does).

The Broker either has to go to the Open Market to buy sufficient shares to cover their shortfall before the split (driving the SP up >50% since the Stock Dividend annoucement), or the Broker has to buy the shares back from the "Beneficial Owner":

• scary FUD is on the job (as usual? more than usual?)
  
• 'Sell your Shares' buttons on the Broker's App.

This last behavior is a dead give-away that monkey business is going on at a Broker.

Cheers!

Agreed that there are possibly brokers that don't have enough shares to cover their clients, and are effectively naked short x shares @ y $/share = z dollars.

However, if these brokers are willing to act "improperly" like this, why wouldn't they be willing to be naked short 5 * x shares @ 1/5 * y $/share = z dollars?

How does that explain what we are seeing actually happening since the Stock dividend announcement:

1. 53% runup in SP even before any small investor can purchase a single share at 1/5th the price?
2. Heavy volume (up to 500K shares) traded in the early Pre-market when only entities such as MMs and large Hedge funds are allowed to conduct trading?
3. Steep, steady runup in SP until 07:00 am when other smaller entities are allowed to trade?
4. Manipulation to the down side in the few minutes before the main Market session opens, in an attempt to induce panic selling?
5. the large (unpredidented?) volume of open Call Contracts expiring these last 2 Fri? (it's like someone is desperate to buy shares, and is willing to pay++ for them?)

But hypotheticals trump evidence, wot?

Cheers!

None of these are evidence for the stock split hurting naked shorts.

#1 This is evidence of buying > selling since the announcement, but this could literally be any entity: market maker, institutional investor, S&P 500 benchmarked fund(s), etc.

#2 Feb 4th/5th/6th still had much larger pre-market volume. I believe there was a day with 1-2M shares traded in pre-market. And high volume is no evidence of shorts covering.

#3 How is this evidence that naked shorts need to cover because of the stock split?

#4 Don't act like this is the first time in the history of TSLA this has happened. This happens all the time, yet this is the first time TSLA is splitting.

#5 Again, this could be any large entity buying. A short, a naked short, a long, a fund benchmarked to the S&P 500, etc.

It's extremely likely that some shorts have covered since August 11th, and it's also likely some naked shorts have reduced their short exposure to TSLA since then, but I have yet to see any plausible theory or evidence supporting the claims that the stock split forces naked shorts to cover.

It seems like people really want this to be true, but why? Is it somehow better if the run-up is due to naked shorts being forced to cover, than if it is due to a combination of short covering, S&P inclusion positioning, and delta hedging?

 

[SarahsDad]

Today:

Most frenetic day yet

 

[smorgasbord]

So confused about Axion Power. It used to be a few million a share and it went to less than a penny?

That's what a 1:50 reverse split followed by a 1:35 reverse split will do!

 

[Artful Dodger]

News Flash:

Tesla IR puts out more details sbout Sept 22

Tesla Announces Updates to 2020 Annual Meeting of Stockholders and Battery Day Event | Tesla, Inc.

Thanks for the head's up. Now, the difference between the "shareholder or record" and the "beneficial owner" becomes more stark. Quoted from the Tesla IR update:

"In order to join the virtual meeting, you will need the password, which is tsla2020, and a 15-digit secure “control number” unique to you, which you may obtain as follows:

• If you are a “stockholder of record” with shares registered directly in your name with our transfer agent, Computershare Trust Company (a minority of Tesla stockholders), you can find the control number on the Notice of Internet Availability or paper proxy card that was sent to you (please check that it is for the meeting as scheduled for September 22, 2020, NOT as previously scheduled for July 7, 2020).

• If you are a “beneficial owner” and hold shares through a broker, bank or other organization (the vast majority of Tesla stockholders), you will have to register in advance to obtain a control number. Please ask your broker, bank or organization for a “legal proxy” for the 2020 Annual Meeting and submit a copy of it from your e-mail address with “Legal Proxy” in the subject line to [email protected]. If your request is received no later than 2:00 p.m. Pacific Time on September 17, 2020, you will receive a confirmation e-mail with your control number."

It's now clear that most of us are "beneficial owners", and that our brokers are in fact the "shareholders of record" for the stock dividends payable at the end of day on Fri, Aug 28, 2020.

As such, Tesla will issue those dividends to your broker, whom in turn will be responsible for issuing them to you.

Cheers!