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

[CorneliusXX]

(Side question, are those blue things in the picture bulk materials hoppers?)

All the blue machinery on the left appears to be Donaldson air filtration equipment. The hopper looks like the bottom of one of their systems. Possibly paint shop expansion, but there are probably many parts of the production that require air filtration. Here's a screenshot of some of their products.

 

[UncaNed]

[QUOTE="

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Showing early stages of Model Y assembly line installation, IMHO.
[/QUOTE]
No robots, but the shipment from the Blue Hopper company has been off loaded and is ready and waiting at least.

 

[Pezpunk]

if by some weird glitch in the matrix whatever numbers Tesla releases are miraculously perceived as a "beat" by the media, I think we really could be looking at a severe short squeeze situation. We're already way up from where a bunch of these $TSLAQ geniuses staked out positions, and cracks in their resolve are already beginning to show. One more big push could send them off the ledge. *fingers crossed*

 

[anthonyj]

if by some weird glitch in the matrix whatever numbers Tesla releases are miraculously perceived as a "beat" by the media, I think we really could be looking at a severe short squeeze situation. We're already way up from where a bunch of these $TSLAQ geniuses staked out positions, and cracks in their resolve are already beginning to show. One more big push could send them off the ledge. *fingers crossed*

Has Tesla ever had 3 misses in a row?

 

[skivi]

How important are the Q3 financials for WS when the Outlook and Guidance for future Quarters look strong?

 

[Right_Said_Fred]

Has Tesla ever had 3 misses in a row?

Real misses or engineered misses?

 

[Artful Dodger]

WooHoo! Somebody got 4K+ discounted shares at the start of retail pre-market trading right at 08:00 ET. And those shortzes shortly lost their shortz, now up to $262.25 and stablized... there's a quick way to lose $3.25/share

 

[KarenRei]

WooHoo! Somebody got 4K+ discounted shares at the start of retail pre-market trading right at 08:00 ET. And those shortzes shortly lost their shortz, now up to $262.25 and stablized... there's a quick way to lose $3.25/share

View attachment 467032

This sort of stuff would be a good reason to keep some "unlikely to get filled" orders out there.... just to profit off of those with fat fingers. One would need to update what counts as "unlikely" regularly, of course.

 

[Dan Detweiler]

Who cares!
Of course "media" people read this forum. Of course wall street commentators of all shapes and sizes read this forum. Of course the FUD will continue as long as big oil has a foothold on the auto industry.

It's not our responsibility to curate the optics of our discussions here past a very basic level of civility. It seems likely the MY may begin production in Q1 2020. I always felt that Q3 2020 seemed unnecessarily late. People will spin and manipulate regardless.

True, but why feed the fire with more speculation?

Dan

 

[Dan Detweiler]

I coulda sworn I remember Elon saying the M3 would eventually get the MY's next-gen wiring harness

I expect it, eventually

I think the breakthrough technologies that really improve margins will eventually see their way to the entire line...eventually.

Dan

 

[Dan Detweiler]

Wow.

I don't think this kind of organic expansion of U.S. Tesla demand ever happened before on such a scale, so early in a quarter (we are 2.5 weeks into Q4).

Previously we had big increases in orders when production volumes were still low and new Model 3 variants were released (Q2-Q4 2018), but that was primarily pent-up demand. None of that happened in this quarter and production has expanded further, which makes it even more impressive IMHO.

While Tesla did indicate an uptick in the order book in the Q3 delivery report, based on production levels I guessed it to be max of 1-3 weeks worth of demand - not 4-10 weeks (!).

I'm really curious what caused this:

• Is this the Nürburgring effect? Did Tesla finally crack one of the secrets to Porsche's stable sales and sky high margins?
• Is this the Taycan effect? Did a good chunk of the 30,000 Taycan reservations flock to the Model S and M3P in disappointment at Porsche's mediocre performance where the only thing 'ludicrous' is the price?
• Is this the trade war effect? Does the unconditional capitulation of Trump tremendous win of Trump in the trade war against China and the resulting cease-fire ease consumer worries about short-term U.S. recession and job loss risks?
• Is this the portfolio effect? Does a +40% rise in TSLA and other high-tech stocks improve U.S. balance sheets enable some profit taking or deleveraging to allow another Tesla for the family, or two?
• Is this the final $1,750 federal tax credit effect? Use it or lose it - but only ~1.5% of a Model S/X ASP, and only ~3% of a Model 3 ASP, so according to @neroden's tax credit model it's worth about 1-2 weeks of pull-forward demand.
  
• Is this the Smart Summon effect? Over half a million Smart Summon demonstrations all across the U.S. over a single weekend sure caught attention. If yes then the Halloween pranks with Smart Summon will add another week or demand or so to the backlog ...
• Is this the V10 release effect? Sentry mode finally usable, Caraoke, Netflix, Spotify, computer games - what more to ask for?

Or something else?

Very curious development, and while Q3 earnings could be really bad ("Tesla missing Wall Street expectations" in all categories), this is bullish AF in the long run. I'm particularly happy about Model S/X order queue of 4-10 weeks - this is a big potential GAAP profit factor.

This IMO also explains the Model Y leaks and the Pickup Truck unveil: Tesla is now focused on developing Q1 demand. Would not be surprised if the Pickup Truck unveil was in late November, to guarantee that any media attention and influx of orders would help the January/February numbers.

The more tenacious long term shortz will also have to start seriously considering the prospect of Tesla being added to the S&P 500 in May-June or August-September next year: if Q4 is profitable and Q1 or Q2 is borderline profitable with a bit of FCA credits and deferred revenue help, then S&P 500 addition looks probable, given that the bad Q1'2019 (and Q2'2019) losses will have rolled out of the 4-quarter window of the S&P 500 profitability equation:

• Q2'2019: -$408m
• Q3'2019: -$200m?
• Q4'2019: +$410m?
• Q1'2019: +$200m?
• Q2'2019: +$300m?

I.e. if Q3 isn't "too bad" - say -$200m loss, then Q4 earnings of $410m or better, and a profit of $200m in Q1'2020 would trigger S&P 500 inclusion of TSLA. Or if not then, then in Q2, with August-September addition to the S&P 500, because the -$408m loss of Q2 will have rolled off then.

Still way too early to call though and not advice - I have a particularly bad track record with GAAP profitability and S&P 500 inclusion speculation ...

Probably a combination of all of the above.

Dan

 

[SpaceCash]

True, but why feed the fire with more speculation?

Dan

Because it's extremely interesting

 

[UncaNed]

This sort of stuff would be a good reason to keep some "unlikely to get filled" orders out there.... just to profit off of those with fat fingers. One would need to update what counts as "unlikely" regularly, of course.

More so a reminder to those of us with fat fingers to double check before we hit "Send". Funny what a difference one errant little digit can make.

 

[shootformoon]

I don't know about that. It seems pretty silly to avoid talking about production schedules on an investor forum simply because we don't want to be disappointed. We are all adults here, not kids waiting for Santa on Christmas morning.

If you have leaks, rumors or reasons why you think the Model Y won't ramp early, feel free to tamp our expectations back down. But let's not avoid talking about things of such primary importance to an investment in Tesla. The Model Y is widely expected to be Tesla's most important car to date in terms of revenues, profits and impact on the transition to sustainable transport. When it hits the streets is extremely relevant.

I'm thinking Tesla will purposefully keep a slow ramp on the Model Y by starting with only one production line of high margin versions. This is less problematic to do with the Y than the 3 since the Y shares 75% of its parts with the 3. This will allow some fine-tuning of the production process before exporting the production process/line to G3 in China. Around that time they will probably replace one of the Model 3 production lines with Model Y because it's bound to steal some demand. Or, if Model 3 demand continues to grow anyway, export production to the Nevada gigafactory where they will have enough space to fully meet demand.

i always curious this 75% is in terms of count, value-added or weight etc.

 

[Artful Dodger]

More so a reminder to those of us with fat fingers to double check before we hit "Send". Funny what a difference one errant little digit can make.

Who 'fat-fingers' 4,000 shares at $0.76 below the previous close at the moment the market opens? It was also $0.90 below the final trade at the end of yesterday's After-hrs session. Nawh, I think this was the dogz rushing outta da gate when the whistle blew. And, somebody layed down the SMAK! REJECTED! Lost $13K M2M in just a few minutes. LOL

 

[Dan Detweiler]

Because it's extremely interesting

But at what cost?

Dan

 

[Chocochip]

But there's been some deleveraging and taking profits, which is prudent to TMC readers, as expectations are of not particularly nice Q3 earnings:

• GAAP losses of -$200m,
• revenue of $6.2b - which is lower both quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year,
• probably lower FCF than in Q2, in part due to Model Y and GF3 spending,

Also, FactSet expectations seem to be too high, almost guaranteeing "Tesla missed expectations" headlines.

So if these are the Q3 numbers then the "Tesla growth story is over!!" FUD will flood the media again, any Model Y advances will be ignored and it will be a perfect time for a bear attack as well.

I've been thinking about this for the past few days, and especially with the new record for consecutive green days for TSLA... does it make sense that this is just shorts covering and accumulating funds for a more-or-less organised share dump one week from now, when the right "analysts" will make sure the "news" look particularly bad (see quote above)?

Not to mention, if spending time (like, waaay too much time!) reading this forum and its previous incarnations over the past 4 years has taught me anything, is that the overall sentiment here is a pretty good contrarian indicator for what the SP will actually do next. I have become particularly good at detecting exit points for batches of my trading shares whenever the frequency of "here comes the squeeze!" mentions increases. Keeping in mind that SP movements rarely have much to do with the actual performance of the company, and overwhelmingly to do with sentiment.

And before I get too much hate: my long-term plan - which worked so far - is to simply accumulate as many shares as I can with the funds available, which involves selling parts of my holdings when the SP is high (relatively) and buying more shares when they're cheaper. It's what in the investing community is referred to as "picking pennies in front of the steamroller", and I practice it with glee!

 

[SpaceCash]

But at what cost?

Dan

This is paranoia

 

[UncaNed]

Who 'fat-fingers' 4,000 shares at $0.76 below the previous close at the moment the market opens? It was also $0.90 below the final trade at the end of yesterday's After-hrs session. Nawh, I think this was the dogz rushing outta da gate when the whistle blew. And, somebody layed down the SMAK! REJECTED! Lost $13K M2M in just a few minutes. LOL

Why did that also seem to first set off a little price spike -the daily high as of now- first?

 

[mongo]

Who 'fat-fingers' 4,000 shares at $0.76 below the previous close at the moment the market opens? It was also $0.90 below the final trade at the end of yesterday's After-hrs session. Nawh, I think this was the dogz rushing outta da gate when the whistle blew. And, somebody layed down the SMAK! REJECTED! Lost $13K M2M in just a few minutes. LOL

The bid/ask spread was huge after that (matching the ends of the dip). It could also have been a market sell vs limit combined with an extended hours vs market issue (also a fat finger).
So no one feel bad you didn't jump on that dip, you couldn't buy at that price (though if you had an order already in...).