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

[SO16]

Look...I'm an enormous Tesla/Elon fanboy...I own more TSLA than I should(averaged in at 200ish w/10 year timeline), have owned four Teslas and as soon as that Model S refresh hits, five, then the pick-up of course etc.

With that said I'm not delusional in regards to what has happened since the 420 tweet. As shareholders and Elon fanboys we need to be careful not to give hime a pass on bad behavior. I get it...it's funny for teens(which I think make up 25 million of his 26 million followers) who see their idol sort of acting like them, rebeling against authority(SEC), stupid memes etc. but damn, is that really important in the grand scheme of things? Isn't it more destructive than constructive? Isn't luring institutional investors back to TSLA more important?

I am hoping he has learned his lesson. It also does no good to taunt the shorts. Revenge is a dish best served cold. Just continue to execute and hopefully by the end of 2019, the bear “no demand” case is dispelled once and for all. I did see two new Teslas (X and 3) on a 3 mile stretch of road that I travel all the time. Pretty good for Michigan (the anti Tesla state.)

 

[Webeevdrivers]

I wonder how much of this noise will be around when 80k M3s are sold this quarter?

Suddenly growth will be back and Elon will look like a genius by growing the company without wasting money on advertising.

Meh. I doubt it. Maybe for a few days. Then market forces from other manufacturers, other interests with advertising budgets will kick in and Tesla will get beat down again. Tesla will continue to arrive to a gun fight with a knife and regardless of how good their product is they will lose...until they buy a gun...or a PR firm. I don’t blame Elon for this, this is not his area of expertise, he has a board that should be guiding the company thru this kind of thing. I have no experience in the car building world but in my world, advertizing budgets are directly related to revenue. I get it. In the early years there was no reason to advertise, they sold everything they built with waiting lists. Those times are gone. Now, they better start acting like a grown up company or they will be run over with companies that have products that are half as good but are promoted 10 times as much...which is easy when your competitor doesn’t even try to promote. Anybody in the corporate world who doesn’t believe that PR and advertising doesn’t work is a moron ...and needs to be fired.

 

[Aieukl378]

Hotlobstah is another care bear, coming out with 'Elon should be kicked out' angle. We have seen these types come and go here in TMC.

No way..read my posts...I'm attacking his methods of communication.

 

[Aieukl378]

The recent $375 drop to $235 of TSLA has been disheartening. So I run this simple TSLA risk analysis in my head:

1) Do I believe EVs will continue to escalate in production (at the expense of ICE) to become the most predominant form of auto transportation for both personal and commercial vehicles in their trillion $ worldwide market? In No, sell my TSLA. If Yes, go to 2.

2) Do I believe Tesla is the worldwide leader in premium EVs, and are they continuing to execute on their mission statement, learning from their mistakes, and growing YoY? If No, sell my TSLA. If Yes, go to 3.

3) Stay the course. Fight the FUD. The tide is changing. Be a part of the change to a brighter future.

Hey I'm long big time and scaling at these levels(not recommending this) but if Elon/Tesla can't get a grip on the message soon, I don't know.

 

[Aieukl378]

It's not fair to lump all institutional investors into one pot. There are thousands of institutions all with different mandates and strategies. At any given time some will be divesting and others investing.

We have no idea why T Rowe Price decided to divest at this point in time. They could have been scared of by Elon, or a couple of people on their investment committee that liked Tesla may have retired, or the specific funds that held the stock may have reached maturity, or they may have wanted to lock in profits. Etc.

Until we see multiple large investors selling the current "institutional thinking" stated here is idiosyncratic hearsay.

Well...this chart is pretty telling

 

[Webeevdrivers]

That's exactly it. These cars are spreading out further globally in volumes. Every new customer interacts with more potential customers.

If Elon can hold his crap together and not create more controversy over stupid stuff, it's a matter of just weathering it out. The quality of the vehicles will eventually win out all arguments against. You don't hear about any big Model 3 issues like fit and finish outside of software.

Yah no. Not at all. Just every single day from everybody I know considering an EV...which is a lot in a province where gas is 1.50 a litre.

Chinese car hailing company demands compensation from Tesla in Times Square, NYC - Global Times

These guys are screaming it to the world on three New York Times billboards, and Tesla’s response will be...nothin.

Just sayin.

 

[SO16]

Jeez I'm lashing out because of the self inflicted damage we've all witnessed since the 420 tweet. Of course I'm thinking with my wallet...I mean this is the inventing forum.

And really the only "bad side" is so frustratingly easy to fix vs. the hyper complicated other amazing stuff he does. It just sucks that the few moments a day he gives to a certain social network totally undermines everything else...and he doesn't(nor apparently anyone else on the board) see this.

The stock rebounded in December.

 

[Aieukl378]

The stock rebounded in December.

ok?

 

[Words of HABIT]

Most of my friends/family know my like of Tesla. Sometimes one of them will echo a FUD statement they overheard or read on Media and ask me about it, sometimes even for the sake of challenging my belief on Tesla. In all cases I have fought the FUD with simple facts and personal experiences having been an M3 owner since July 2018. Also I give them references whereby they can check facts for themselves. Example: If Tesla makes a statement why quote a paraphrased media report on the subject rather than having them go to the direct statement release from the source? Yes, they are first shocked my M3 (LR RWD) gets 525km range, and no, you don't need any special electrical plug if you don't want to spend the money and can simply plug into a standard 110 volt outlet, I could go on and on (and sometimes I do). Once you have their attention I find it is a very quick sell to get them on board to EVs and Tesla EVs, and all the FUD literally drops away like washing dirt off in a shower. EVs aren't for everyone yet, but they will be, that I am 100% sure.

Don't get me wrong. Tesla is not perfect, however they learn from their mistakes, and I continue to support them and their cause. Glad to know I am not the only one as have noticed in the Greater Toronto Area, I am seeing far more Teslas (MS, MX and M3) in the last several months than previously.

 

[anthonyj]

Well...this chart is pretty tellingView attachment 401627View attachment 401627

That’s institutional distribution, big money exiting and selling to smaller funds and retail investors. Too much risk for institutions. Refusal to raise capital, panicky decisions like opening/closing/opening stores, completely missing estimates with a $700m loss without fair warning (that’s a huge huge loss), Q2 not profitable, chance of another SEC showdown (even if Elon behaves, they will probably try to get him)

Large investment firms have a limit for risk. Tesla still has huge cash burn and guidance is very optimistic as usual, and it doesn’t seem like Elon wants to raise capital. $2.2 billion is not enough to produce 4 new automobiles and pay the upcoming bonds. Institutions look at this and say “wow if this company makes one more mistake they will go bankrupt quickly” so they sell

I love Tesla and own a lot of stock, and whenever I talk about why a large investor would sell their position I get tons of disagrees. It’s normal

 

[sparcs]

Yah no. Not at all. Just every single day from everybody I know considering an EV...which is a lot in a province where gas is 1.50 a litre.

Chinese car hailing company demands compensation from Tesla in Times Square, NYC - Global Times

These guys are screaming it to the world on three New York Times billboards, and Tesla’s response will be...nothin.

Just sayin.

You can't fix that. Especially if they are completely bogus allegations. No amount of advertising or whatever is going to combat that. The media is happy to eat up this stuff. They are essentially complaints about S and X since Model 3 wasn't even in sale in China until this year.

FUD is going to go to maximum over the next three to six months until Tesla shows signs of profitable quarters again. So the solution is to sell a lot of Model 3s profitably with high quality control. The arguments against Tesla melt away pretty quickly after that.

 

[Causalien]

Tesla survivability isn't guaranteed and Tesla, right here and now, is in a very precarious situation. Would you hold your shares to zero? Would you like to help prevent them from going to zero? I should add TSLA has dropped from the 420 high until now about 40%. There are no stock market rules I'm aware of that it can't drop another 40% then another....

I was wondering when one of you would should up. Even if you are truly a bullish investor, your doom and gloom far surpasses those TSLAQ cloud. Maybe you need to get away to real life for a bit

 

[Words of HABIT]

The mods need to start deleting posts. This forum is impossible to keep up with and still have a life. I just scrolled through about 50 posts FROM THE SAME MEMBER that all said the same thing... "Elon shouldn't tweet".
I started coming here in December to find Tesla news. I have wasted way too much of my life the last few months reading useless posts (like this one). I'll go back to Electrek, Clean Technica and Teslarati for news. I'll check back in when we're back up to 300 and everyone is in a better mood. Good luck to all the longs.

I implore you to use the ignore button. I have well over 100 posters on ignore and still have trouble keeping up, but it makes it more bearable and I don't miss out from those I consider to add value to the TSLA discussion. Oh yah, and I usually just log on once per day and read only those posts with >5 tags (like and the sort).

 

[Aieukl378]

That’s institutional distribution, big money exiting and selling to smaller funds and retail investors. Too much risk for institutions. Refusal to raise capital, panicky decisions like opening/closing/opening stores, completely missing estimates with a $700m loss without fair warning (that’s a huge huge loss), Q2 not profitable, chance of another SEC showdown (even if Elon behaves, they will probably try to get him)

Which is why I think:
1. Close Elon's Twitter account(I swear to you the stock would rally crazy on this alone and the world would be better for it)
2. Hire top level executive PR person where all company communications are generated
3. Hire new CEO who handles day to day...let Elon be chief visionary or whatever

 

[Cobbler]

Regarding Autonomy... I would like to suggest two lectures I found to be very informative. Both are By Shasua (MobileEye CTO) and were presented at MIT’s Center for Brains, Minds and Machines (CBMM).
...

I've took the time to watch the videos. MobileEye beats Tesla in autonomy! Impressive how the system behaves in merges, blockages,... The MobileEye tech will be present in cars late 2020, 2021. Just wondering how much the cost will be for other manufacturers. That could be a tipping point.

Edit: Tesla has the fleet, their own custom cpu and the software stack (almost) ready. It's a matter of getting the NN trained with the real driving data.

Will be a interesting race

 

[Words of HABIT]

The mods need to start deleting posts. This forum is impossible to keep up with and still have a life. I just scrolled through about 50 posts FROM THE SAME MEMBER that all said the same thing... "Elon shouldn't tweet".
I started coming here in December to find Tesla news. I have wasted way too much of my life the last few months reading useless posts (like this one). I'll go back to Electrek, Clean Technica and Teslarati for news. I'll check back in when we're back up to 300 and everyone is in a better mood. Good luck to all the longs.

MODS, may I suggest to limit quantity of posts by any specific poster to no more than 1/2 dozen per day. If they can't say what they need to say in half a dozen posts in one day, then another half dozen isn't going to help them.

EDIT...or help us.

 

[elasalle]

Yah no. Not at all. Just every single day from everybody I know considering an EV...which is a lot in a province where gas is 1.50 a litre.

Chinese car hailing company demands compensation from Tesla in Times Square, NYC - Global Times

These guys are screaming it to the world on three New York Times billboards, and Tesla’s response will be...nothin.

Just sayin.

Just last week, a TSLA fan decided to run TSLA AD's for free in NYC.
Seems this is to counter that, I am sure CNBC will be focusing on it this week.

On Youtube, saw a Munster interview post earnings. Couldn't believe it, but on the part where Munster talks positively of Tesla future, it was drowned with music ...

 

[bdy0627]

Yes but institutional investors don't want a CEO who is ****ing with the SEC! And what's troubling is nobody at the executive level seems to understand that.

That part is absolutely true. Elon has made it very clear that he has no respect for the SEC and has continued to taunt them publicly. I think virtually all of the vocal bullish institutional investors like Baron, Bailie, and ARK have publicly indicated they would very much like him to stop it. They absolutely do not support that behavior. Bullish Munster was even more critical about it. It needs to stop. Having some fun on twitter with jokes and things is one thing, but he needs to put the public SEC taunting behind him. Institutional investors do not like it.

 

[Dutchie]

Can't remember this seeing before. Like what this guy had to say

 

[jbcarioca]

...
I'm super excited about Tesla Insurance, not primarily because of the effects on Tesla's finances and SP (it will take years to take off), but because this is the first time since PayPal that Elon is launching a major high-tech financial product.

If the past is predictive, we might see something special - maybe not in the offering itself (which might look deceptively conservative, like a Model S), but under the hood.

We might, so long as the specifications included in the California application have little to do with teh final product. The rate base structure is very old fashioned and shows negative Tesla bias, at that, in risk category classification. The single innovation was in AP inclusion with categories copied of the ancient autonomy classifications. Even the zip code risk categories are extremely dated and are certainly indicative of generic ice perspective.

I hope that the document was the Front company template and that the actual offers will be completely different. I hope Tesla has at least a person or two who understand motor vehicle actuarial processes.

[Pure Opinion] FWIW, only a couple have the expertise and inclination to treat the BEV category in general, Tesla specifically, with serious use of risk correlations other than speeding tickets, drunk driving and accidents. Examples of companies that actually know how to handle these issues include Progressive, The Hartford and GEICO. That does not mean any of those three will write Tesla cheaper than others, but it does mean they all know how to handle it if they choose to do so. Examples of the clueless include State Farm and USAA. Both of those have other positive traits, but core underwriting talent isn't one of them. OTOH, for many Tesla owners one of the unclued underwriters may do better than would one of the informed.

Despite what we might think motor vehicle insurance is not driven by the same depth of data as is, for example. term life. Much often comes down to biases held by underwriters.