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

[EVNow]

Party aside, Older folks tend to be more "conservative".....

I added a 538 link, that's quite illuminating. Incidentally, the most progressive candidate is probably the oldest in '20 primary.

 

[ReflexFunds]

Since the new factory is not operational, it has no impact on profitability.

So if Tesla's guidance forecasts a loss in Q1, then something else is going on.

Furthermore, 200-300M in profit each quarter is insufficient to fund the sheer quantity of projects they've announced.

The big question on the conference call will be "how do you plan to get to 2-3B net income in 2019?"

A Q1 loss forecast makes that pretty brutal.

Quarterly cash flow before expansion capex is c.$900m higher than net income. This means even with zero profit Tesla can self finance $900m of growth capex investments per quarter (in addition to c.$380m of P&L R&D per Q which is also mostly for growth projects).
This is basic finance.
I cannot believe somebody with financial exposure to a thesis that Tesla is unable to finance its expansion cannot be bothered to try to understand this.

 

[SpudLime]

Just think "sublime", and take it from there.

You rang?

 

[winfield100]

Party aside, Older folks tend to be more "conservative".....

Spoken like a true “young-un”

 

[AudubonB]

You rang?

I see you've been reading your Tom Paine (The Age of Reason, 1794):


From the sublime to the ridiculous.



Bazinga!

 

[RobStark]

Not that the situation in the UK is commiserate as Venezuela,

Corbyn ~ Maduro

Other than that not much similarities.

 

[EVNow]

Corbyn ~ Maduro

Other than that not much similarities.

That's like saying Norway ~ Venezuela.

Other than that not much similarities.

 

[jhm]

GREEN !

GREEN !

 

[reddit_tl]

I liked what Jack Rickard said about Tesla and profits the other day: to paraphrase: "You have to understand: I'm entirely against profits at all. You shouldn't be showing a profit at all. When you show a profit you have to write a check to the United States government and the state of California. You're giving my invested money away to government people! If you make any money, put it back in the company to make growth more next year. And if you don't do that, it's corporate malfeasance. Growth companies are supposed to grow, not make money!"

But, it needs to be done to keep Wall Street content, because unfortunately Tesla is not insulated from what Wall Street thinks of it.

To be honest, I don't buy this logic. The market has its mechanisms. Wall street is not a monolithic piece of steel. Take the example of Amazon, Jeff didn't care what WS thinks. Sure, people tried to attack and had their moments. But who prevailed? Jeff and the people who bought his vision. Big time.

WS is overrated in many aspects.

On the other hand, building a car manufacturing company has its own risk factors that are different from an internet/software company.

 

[dc_h]

Depends on how full they're filling the ships. At 1 ship per week filled only to 2k cars (like the Glovis Captain), that's 17,4k cars to Europe by the end of March. But if they've started filling closer to the max ~6k per ship, that's 52k by the end of March. Really doubt that, though, that would be almost all of their production. It had earlier been stated that Tesla had been planning on sending 3k per week to Europe, which would be 26,1k by the end of March.

Where did the 18k deliveries for Q1 figure come from, exactly? How would we even know that? Q1 isn't even a third over yet.

BTW: Glovis Cosmos is halfway through the Panama Canal right now. These things are almost starting to seem routine

Presumably China should have similar demand for model 3 as Europe, if not more. The latest Glovis is going west to China. Hopefully it was empty before loading up.

 

[sundaymorning]

Presumably China should have similar demand for model 3 as Europe, if not more. The latest Glovis is going west to China. Hopefully it was empty before loading up.

China is Tesla’s 2nd largest market. The Model 3 will simply slay it in China. That white interior is golden, I’m glad Tesla spent time to get the color of the white interior just right, most whites come a bit yellow, but Tesla white is perfect. It’s also easy to clean. Costs about $1,000 more and lots of females I know opt for it.

 

[AcesDealt]

Golly this is a complete shot in the dark, but what are the chances that some smart cookie is buying up 100Ds in China during this current tariff window as some kind of gambit that it might go back up and Tesla seized on it and dropped the 75D to build just 100Ds?

 

[Thekiwi]

The Saudi news was good - although I would have preferred if they had actually sold there shares, rather than “frozen their position” via hedging.

Saudis in my mind were always an overhang risk on the stock - I assumed they might dump there 5% stake at any moment, causing some significant downward pressure on the stock price, now that doesn’t seem to be something that will be an issue if I’m understanding the effect if a hedge position correctly.

 

[dc_h]

Regarding shipping out of San Fran port 80. Grand Aurora has left and due at Panama Canal on feb 3, Glovis Courage pulling in now and CSCC due on feb 3. Almost 2 ships a week at this point. Lot of time left in Q1, but they only have one more month to get product to China and Europe, through customs and delivered. Figure 4000 a week conservatively, that’s 8-9 weeks * 4000 would be 32-36,000. If 6000 with 3000 on average in each ship, that’s 48-56,000 international deliveries. That seems optimistic, probably somewhere between 40-45,000 total. Not bad.

 

[RobStark]

China is Tesla’s 2nd largest market. The Model 3 will simply slay it in China.

China is Tesla's 2nd largest national market.

Europe as whole is roughly twice as big as China for Tesla

 

[ZachShahan]

Fantastic, thank you very much!

Here's a tabulated version, sorted by revenue value (from bearish to bullish), and left off the irrelevant .1 million digits:

Evercore

UBS

JMP

Goldman Sachs

Undisclosed

Wolfe Research

BofAML

Deutsche

Roth

JPMorgan

Undisclosed

Undisclosed

Thomson First Call Consensus

Elazar Advisors

Macquiarie

RBC

Wedbush

Undisclosed

Piper

Oppenheimer

Needham

Canaccord

[TD2] $6,805m [/TD2] [TD2] $6,820m [/TD2] [TD2] $6,848m [/TD2] [TD2] $6,851m [/TD2] [TD2] $6,895m [/TD2] [TD2] $6,899m [/TD2] [TD2] $6,926m [/TD2] [TD2] $6,976m [/TD2] [TD2] $6,985m [/TD2] [TD2] $7,020m [/TD2] [TD2] $7,032m [/TD2] [TD2] $7,067m [/TD2] [TD2] $7,082m [/TD2] [TD2] $7,084m [/TD2] [TD2] $7,089m [/TD2] [TD2] $7,139m [/TD2] [TD2] $7,188m [/TD2] [TD2] $7,192m [/TD2] [TD2] $7,226m [/TD2] [TD2] $7,440m [/TD2] [TD2] $7,523m [/TD2] [TD2] $7,715m [/TD2]

Yes, and it appears to be pretty clear to me that the shorts are trying to manipulate Thomson First Call consensus as well for Q4'18 TSLA results:

• There's evidence of significant gaming of the First Call consensus by bearish analysts, the top 2 revenue estimates are actually ALL from bearish analysts:
  • "Canaccord" initiated TSLA coverage half a year ago with a bearish outlook. They gave a number of mostly bearish interviews and stopped talking about Tesla after the positive Q3 results altogether ...
  • "Needham" of "Tesla's True Value is 'Closer to $200'" infame has the second highest revenue estimate ... Total silence from Needham after the positive Q3 earnings report.
  • "Oppenheimer" is the first genuine bullish analyst.
• Without the fake revenue entries the true median consensus would be below $7b - at around $6.8b-$6.9b...

Everyone who owns $TSLA stock, options or bonds and agrees that this is market manipulation which is harming investors, please file a SEC Investor Complaint:

SEC Investor Complaint Form​

A sample complaint could be something like:

Suspected illegal market manipulation: two of the most bearish $TSLA analysts (Canaccord and Needham) are apparently gaming the 'Thomson First Call consensus' analyst estimates to manufacture an artificial 'miss' on $TSLA by entering artificially high Q4'2018 revenue estimates 6-8% higher than the consensus, which estimates are not consistent with their publicly bearish views of the company. Their apparent intent is to profit from any adverse price reaction, should Tesla "miss" the artificially heightened revenue consensus.

Similar suspected illegal price and market manipulation distortion of the "FactSet" consensus was performed with the January 2 Tesla (TSLA) "Delivery Report", which created a price drop from a $332 closing price on December 31 to below $300 on January 2 - a more than 10% intraday drop. Bearish analysts entered unrealistically high production estimates for Tesla, which created an artificial "consensus miss" that adversely affected investor sentiment and caused a big drop in the $TSLA price - from which short sellers profited.

As a $TSLA investor I was significantly harmed by their action.

It's a classic 'short and distort' tactic that appears to be illegal according to the Securities Act of 1933, also known as the "Truth In Securities Act".
​

I believe the SEC is obligated to at minimum read every complaint made by an investor. Even if they don't act on it, it creates a track record that later SEC administrations can use to form new policy, restrictions on short sellers, more effective regulation of Wall Street analysts, etc.

So it's helpful to file complaints even if nothing happens straight away - the squeaky wheel gets the grease, eventually.

Non-U.S. investors can file complaints as well.

(Paging @ZachShahan and @Papafox.)

Hey, y'all — anything new with this topic?

Am writing something up now.

 

[FS_FRA]

China is Tesla’s 2nd largest market. The Model 3 will simply slay it in China. That white interior is golden, I’m glad Tesla spent time to get the color of the white interior just right, most whites come a bit yellow, but Tesla white is perfect. It’s also easy to clean. Costs about $1,000 more and lots of females I know opt for it.

Traditionally white is predominantly the color of mourning in China.....

 

[diatz]

Where do you see that? I only see a statement of 40x improvement, but that wording has been there for over a year according to the wayback machine.

That was the wording I was thinking of. Didn't recall it being there and with the phrasing being "new onboard computer" I figured it was a reference to the new chip, since the current HW2.5 chip is more than a year old. I guess it's more likely that they just haven't updated since release. And as others have mentioned the 40x improvement probably isn't a reference to HW3 as that is a 10x improvement from current levels. I apologize for getting anyone's hopes up!

 

[Fact Checking]

Traditionally white is predominantly the color of mourning in China.....

True - yet white as a car color is incredibly popular in China:

White is almost twice as popular in China (and Asia in general) as in the U.S. or Europe.

 

[sundaymorning]

Traditionally white is predominantly the color of mourning in China.....

Only with a headband during a funeral, otherwise the Chinese love to wear white, drive white cars, live in white painted homes, carry white Chanel bags, white Nike’s, etc.

Red is also a color of good luck, but people don’t wear it around everyday or paint their homes red.