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

[anthonyj]

SCOOP: NHTSA to investigate multiple occurrences of TSLA’s running over short sellers

 

[EVNow]

All the FSD and rail posts are important I'm sure but why is TSLA up $8+ today? I see lots of negative FUD.

10:24 to 11:18 when the SP ran up $10, Nasdaq actually went down. Clearly someone decided to buy (long or cover) and in a hurry. 1.9M shares were traded in 60 minutes.

We had very high volumes of options around that time as well. For eg. 320 Call had over 7,000 calls traded per 60 minutes around that time. 325 had > 4,000 calls. 330 had > 4,500 calls. Just these 3 are equivalent to 1.5M shares !

Add to that all the puts that got closed > 2000 each at 305, 310 & 315.

We won't know whether call volumes were in reaction to SP changing or they just exaggerate the run up by providing a positive feedback loop.

ps : I wanted to do this kind of analysis for the 10/28 run up to 340 and then down to 225. But my broker doesn't provide any historical information on expired options.

 

[EVNow]

Can we please close above 320 today

Seems to me from 1 PM TSLA is following Nasdaq. If Nasdaq comes back to ~ 8445, TSLA will probably come back to 320.

ps : on cue - TSLA now no longer follows Nasdaq

 

[replicant]

Humans ultimately are individuals, and our individuality is a feature, not a bug.

Please read The Story of Us

 

[Thekiwi]

Hedge Fund Scraps Tesla Short in New Letter After Surprise Rally
Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

For anyone who didn’t click the link - this is a news story saying Adam capital (a large Brazilian hedge fund) has exited its short position in Tesla due to improving fundamentals of the company.

Anyone know how big a position they had?

 

[EVNow]

Ride "sharing" has been a stop gap. Humans ultimately are individuals, and our individuality is a feature, not a bug. We only tolerate riding on public transport out of economic necessity. We do not need nor are we benefitted (on an individual level) by carpooling in most cases. Give all humans the agency to do what THEY need to do for THEIR lives, and economies will benefit. If everybody had their own jetpack, or teleportation device, that would be superior to an optimized "rideshare" system every single time.

The rugged individualism is well and good as a story - but obviously not the truth. For 99.99% of the human evolution individuals couldn't survive alone - nor even in small families. Humans (like Chimps do now) always had to live in groups for survival. Ofcourse those were always groups of a few hundred at most - and thus a city of millions is unnatural for humans.

Coming to present - only reason in the west we are able to enjoy the kind of lifestyle we have is because 6 Billion others can't afford that lifestyle.

 

[TradingInvest]

I saw 4 pieces of news that's positive for Tesla today.

1. IBD sent out an article saying "Tesla is perhaps the most polarizing company. Now Tesla stock has its first real buy point of 2019." I have no idea why they think today is the first real buy point.
2. US said we probably will not need a trade war with EU regarding vehicles.
3. Plaid Model S set a record time. That's very positive. It affects brand image and sales.
4. The stock market is reaching OTH.

In the near term, CyberTruck unveil should be considered positive. In mid term, Tesla probably will join the index, either after Q1 or Q2. Last time this anticipation screwed lot's of longs. Many people, myself included, thought it was a sure thing. Nothing is sure in the stock market.

 

[Mike Smith]

Tesla Autopilot: Building A Network Effect Around Safety

 

[KarenRei]

I saw 4 pieces of news that's positive for Tesla today.

1. IBD sent out an article saying "Tesla is perhaps the most polarizing company. Now Tesla stock has its first real buy point of 2019." I have no idea why they think today is the first real buy point.
2. US said we probably will not need a trade war with EU regarding vehicles.
3. Plaid Model S set a record time. That's very positive. It affects brand image and sales.
4. The stock market is reaching OTH.

In the near term, CyberTruck unveil should be considered positive. In mid term, Tesla probably will join the index, either after Q1 or Q2. Last time this anticipation screwed lot's of longs. Many people, myself included, thought it was a sure thing. Nothing is sure in the stock market.

It's #2. The possibility of an EU trade war has been an albatros around the company's neck. Other automakers rallied too. FCAU is up 2,9%.

We're not out of the water on that front, but it's a start. First real positive news on this front.

 

[EVNow]

In the near term, CyberTruck unveil should be considered positive. In mid term, Tesla probably will join the index, either after Q1 or Q2. Last time this anticipation screwed lot's of longs. Many people, myself included, thought it was a sure thing. Nothing is sure in the stock market.

In the medium term things to watch out for
- Q4 margin. This will tell us whether the gains are sustainable - also whether its a one term improvement or further improvements can happen.
- Q1 deliveries. Can Tesla still deliver enough cars in seasonally low Q1 to show gaap profit.

If these two are positive for Tesla, then I'd expect shorts to mostly disappear.

 

[RFernatt]

This looks to be good news for Tesla Energy and other installers if it gets passed:

Bipartisan Senate bill allocates $100M to ease residential solar, storage permitting

 

[Beltsbear]

Don't forget platooning! That's more efficient than rail.

That should be easier to put into practice than self driving I'd think, and being first with a rear driverless platooning truck will be extremely noteworthy, even if geo-limited to repeatedly traveled commercial routes.

platooning Could be more cost effective then rail but it is no way more efficient per mile then rail. Rail benefits from steel wheels , one engine and platooning. A long train uses less power to move a ton then you could ever get with rubber wheels.

 

[wipster]

Do you have a source for the claim that semi's in platoon are more efficient than rail? Is that a cost/mile metric, an energy / mile metric, or something else? I went looking for a site that provided comparable metrics between the two and couldn't find anything. What I could find is that the train industry is moving a ton of cargo 430-450 miles per gallon of diesel pretty consistently (that's an average calculated from total industry miles and total industry cargo (in tons) moved) and includes all of the switching and shuffling trains and cars that doesn't directly contribute to ton-miles.

If a commercial truck is moving 30 tons (60,000 pounds) at 6 mpg, that sounds like each ton is being moved 5 miles per gallon of diesel (30 tons / 6 mpg = 5 tons / gallon-mile). I readily admit I couldn't find a source for this and I could be doing the math quite badly - if I'm approximately right, then trucks are about 2 orders of magnitude short of trains on energy efficiency. Truck platooning will be a big help but it's not going to increase the second truck's fuel efficiency to 1200 mpg from 6 mpg (so overall pair of truck efficiency is ~600 mpg).

I ask because I'm dubious - the rolling resistance of steel on steel is awfully hard to beat, and train cars tucked in so closely between each other makes for some seriously good wind resistance with each incremental car.


On a cost/mile metric, in the US, I wouldn't be surprised to find that a platoon of semis can compete with trains. In the US though, society subsidizes truck expenses (road maintenance) pretty heavily, while companies that operate trains have to fully fund their track maintenance themselves.


Some obvious limitations of train - trains do a poor job of stopping at every address to make deliveries (they don't ). And apparently trains can still burn relatively high sulfur fuel, while semis have made the switch to low sulfur fuel (leading to lower pollution from trucks than trains). The difference in fuels is changing or has changed.

I think you're missing the point. These would be Tesla Semis, not diesel semis. Perhaps eventually in a platoon with a single driver in the first rig!

 

[elasalle]

For anyone who didn’t click the link - this is a news story saying Adam capital (a large Brazilian hedge fund) has exited its short position in Tesla due to improving fundamentals of the company.

Anyone know how big a position they had?

View attachment 473191

Didn't click the link - Sure it is Adam Capital & not Adam Jonas

 

[Curt Renz]

Reuters - this afternoon: Trump administration notifies U.N. of planned Paris climate accord exit

 

[ReflexFunds]

Surprisingly in-depth and honest article about the end of the ICE age in the German media today. Including Fremont factory visit.

The End of an Era: Will Tesla and Google Kill the German Car? - SPIEGEL ONLINE - International

For a long time -- too long -- the established car companies viewed Musk as a pompous man burning through loads of cash with his billion-dollar investments in charging stations, and car and battery factories. But they were wrong.

Companies like VW got a hold of Tesla's new mid-range Model 3 before it reached the market and dismantled it into its individual parts. Their findings were shocking: They discovered their small American rival was years ahead of them in important areas. In addition to having more efficient batteries, Tesla's cars also have better network connections. It turns out the Musk's aspiration to turn cars into rolling computers was more than just talk.

The engine -- the pride of the German automobile manufacturers and the most valuable part of the cars they produce -- is being eradicated before their very eyes.

 

[wipster]

SCOOP: NHTSA to investigate multiple occurrences of TSLA’s running over short sellers

Is that a "short summon?"

 

[M3Rider]

Nice rebuke to lying Mitchell
Vladimir Grinshpun on Twitter

 

[GBleck]

platooning Could be more cost effective then rail but it is no way more efficient per mile then rail. Rail benefits from steel wheels , one engine and platooning. A long train uses less power to move a ton then you could ever get with rubber wheels.

Steel wheels on steel tracks should have really low rolling resistance. Like make a bike tire on wooden velodrome with slick tires at 150 psi looks like quicksand levels of rolling resistance.

 

[dandurston]

The shorts can't even write an article about slowing demand without a freudian slip revealing the truth. I suppose the author meant to write "stagnating".