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

[Krugerrand]

Yes I've had all these feelings at sometime, except that I'm actually growing the pot with this same 65% hold + 5% swing, 30% cash for rainy day recession sale. (A bit of ARKQ in there too.)

Shall I describe how the Options traders feel on days like this, or maybe I'll just refrain in their mercy? Ouch! What does "Zero" value feel like with that leveraged gambling?

I prefer my strategy anyday, I'm with @lklundin.

You’re growing pot? Good to know. PM coming your way.

 

[avoigt]

Thats what the market should focus on:

 

[myt-e-s-l-a]

ETrade just raised the margin maintenance requirement on Tesla from 30% to 35%. Instant margin call. So much for me buying the dip...

ETrade is my least favored brokerage among the discounts

 

[Toolsmack]

I may not be interpreting this correctly but on the last earning call, Elon said they should be profitable in all future quarters, except perhaps when there is a large dept repayment due.

At the time I took that to mean that he was pretty sure Q1 might end up negative and was making sure to make that caveat.

If he is now targeting a tiny profit, I don’t feel this is a downgrade on Q1.

However, I think the overall message of the letter had too many references to challenges, survival etc to not be viewed negatively by most outside this forum

 

[Drax7]

Soon we will be Down to one model and one color to get max efficiency

 

[humbaba]

I get that... but the tiny profit, maybe, bit... I just don’t see Tesla/Elon going that far with the downbeat unless it’s pretty much a lock that Q1 won’t be nearly as good as Q3 or Q4.

I don't feel like digging up quotes, but late last year the rational speculation I remember seeing was that Q3 & Q4 would be profitable, but that this Q1 might not be -- that it would be very close -- before returning to more solid profits in Q2 and beyond.

Seriously, lets not rewrite history about Q1 expectations. Sure, some bulls were more optimistic, just like some bulls (much less bears) are more pessimistic.

(maybe I shouldn't post without spending the time to dig up citations for what I'm referring to, but it bugs me that having a small/tiny Q1 profit is being spun now as an ohknoes11!!1 and yet I don't have time to go digging)

 

[shlokavica22]

Bought some lotto 315c for today, because I hate money.

 

[MarcusMaximus]

ETrade is my least favored brokerage among the discounts

I don’t much like them either, but I get reserved stock via e-Trade, so necessary evil for me.

 

[BaneBeater]

I cannot give you certainty, unless you have a time machine.

Note that with that cannot-possibly-do attitude Elon would probably fire you on the first day.

So after you've so casually dismissed FSD, only income from new products counts in your book? I now see why you see no growth in 2019.

Seriously, that's how Tesla managed to grow so fast, first they introduced new products and kept them steady to grow for the next phase of products. The Model 3 ramp was actually the fastest product ramp of Tesla's history and resulted in two profitable quarters in a row - quite likely three profitable quarters - with healthy cash generation to fund capex for growth projects.

Seriously... you really think FSD is coming this year?

They still don't have their cross-country road trip. They still don't seem to have any cars testing on live roads today.

Full autonomous driving isn't a thing where you just "flip a switch and it works." It's going to take a ton of live, real-world testing before it goes out to the masses.

Waymo has racked up millions of autonomous miles. Why hasn't Tesla?

I suspect the experts at CES are right, and level 4 autonomous driving is still at least ~5 years away.

 

[Garlands]

we creepin up

 

[KarenRei]

Nice price action (for those who nought low). Over $307.

 

[BaneBeater]

I may not be interpreting this correctly but on the last earning call, Elon said they should be profitable in all future quarters, except perhaps when there is a large dept repayment due.

Debt payments don't impact profitability...

 

[lklundin]

Thats what the market should focus on:

Ha. After Fred shamelessly used the first video from that helpful person without crediting the author, this second video has the twitter account burned into it...

 

[SebastianR]

Going up a bit now... Where would a close around 315 leave us with regards to options expiring today?

 

[Fact Checking]

In that regard- anyone have any idea whether the loan will go towards the equipment as well? Are the Grohmann build machines going to be invoiced to the China subsidiary?

There's no authoritative answer for this that I'm aware of, but there was a leak about the bidding process between Guangdong and Shanghai - and Tesla was getting a jaw-droppingly sweet deal from Guangdong, including a 3 billion dollars no collateral loan, yet Shanghai won...

So I would assume that there's no restrictions on how the loan is spent, other than the obvious ones such as that it be spent on the Shanghai project.

 

[SteveG3]

I totally understand why people like curious sunbird do it. Shorts make a lot of money on fear and spreading what ultimately turns out to be BS time and time again.

What I don’t understand are why are there so many investors getting fooled by them still? Almost every single bear argument has either been debunked or goalposts moved. You’d think this would be a cried wolf moment and weak investors would wise up.

1) Bear narratives get effectively police escort to run at full speed and volume through the media's loudspeakers

2) I think there are 3 basic TSLA actors so to speak,

-Bearish betting,
-Bullish betting,
-Traders who've noticed the volatility and clean up on it,

I think all three groups know the bearish arguments are nonsense (well, in the case of the bears not all, but, most). So, the traders know the bearish arguments are nonsense, but, they take their profits happily whether we're trading up $40 in three days, or down $40 in one day.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

They still don't have their cross-country road trip. They still don't seem to have any cars testing on live roads today.

All they need to do is drive the route a few dozen times for the FSD it "learn" the route detail while running in the background. I assume this will happen in the spring.

 

[brian45011]

I may not be interpreting this correctly but on the last earning call, Elon said they should be profitable in all future quarters, except perhaps when there is a large dept repayment due.

At the time I took that to mean that he was pretty sure Q1 might end up negative and was making sure to make that caveat.

If he is now targeting a tiny profit, I don’t feel this is a downgrade on Q1.

However, I think the overall message of the letter had too many references to challenges, survival etc to not be viewed negatively by most outside this forum

Repayment of debt does not affect the Operating Statement (profits & losses) just the Balance Sheet and Cash Flow Statement.

 

[Singuy]

Okay now I know to buy more because even people here misinterpreted the letter.

With luck Q1 of 2019 will post a small profit and you should EXPECT this because we are talking almost a month worth of model 3s taken out of circulation for shipment. So basically Q1 2019 is trying to post a profit with 60-75% of deliveries capable of any given quarter. So Elon is saying we will try to get a profit despite these disadvantages via reduction in staff, higher ASPs, and increase production.

Q2 will not have this disadvantage but an advantage of deliveries in Europe so you should expect an explosion of revenue.

 

[Opus BC fan]

The last 10 minutes of today's game will be very interesting. How much more SP damage will be accomplished with the uptick rule in place?
I'm gonna go microwave some popcorn

Edit: added "more"