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

[jerry33]

A good friend of mine has been telling me how crazy I am to be involved in TSLA for a couple of years now. He is, unlike me, VERY well schooled in everything stock market. He follows the charts religiously. He looks at all the trends. He follows all of the best advice regarding his investments.

And therein lies the problem. When the "best advice" has an agenda and you don't recognize that, you get lead down the garden path.

 

[Dan Detweiler]

The Jan 21 $650’s were also $1 and thanks to a heads-up on this forum - apologies, I don’t remember whom - I bought 10, which are currently 890% up.

Now my problem is what to do with them... I’m thinking to roll into Jan 2022’s which are 2.5x the price, but a lot more time value...

Any suggestions?

Ha!
That all sounded like Charlie Brown's teacher to these uneducated ears! Whatever you just said, I hope it works out for you!

Dan

 

[Tslynk67]

@Lycanthrope
Take the money and run, buy shares with the profits
(I’m too cautious to do options)

I have thought about this, however, I do believe the SP has quite some distance to run yet and I think my current 10x could go 10x higher yet, which would buy my wife's (Made in Europe) Model Y.

Maybe a good strategy would be to sell 5 of the 10 and get 2022 LEAPs with the proceeds.

Blah, it's much easier when they expire worthless...

In other news - the re-market effort by shorty-bears to spook the SP seems to have been relatively ineffective - I expect the accumulation to continue at open. Not an advice.

 

[KarenRei]

Does anybody have an up to date graph of the NL+SP+? real time deliveries?

eu-evs.com does Just beware that the latest datapoint in both the combined data and the Norway data is often wrong or misleading during the day; if you do combined or Norway data, leave the last datapoint off. Usually late in the evenings (my time) combined and Norwegian figures look normal.

 

[MikeAtkinson]




They'd need a rapidly-tested cost metric; genetic algorithms require lots of cycles (and remember, to evaluate the cost metric you have to first train each neural net in the population). There's also some options apart from differential evolution that involving slope following, which converge faster but are more likely to get stuck in local minima. And hybrids thereof, to try to "jump out" of local minima. The optimal choice depends on the problem you're solving.

True, not saying it is easy, but something similar was mentioned at a conference I went to a couple of years ago, they were using much, much less data though.

 

[Swampgator]

OK, time to come clean...

I am an absolute idiot...in regard to some things. I have virtually no knowledge of many things that impact my life. I will say that I consider myself very knowledgeable in some regards, most of which no longer have any impact on my financial well being. Things like teaching music I can have a very in depth, knowledgeable discussion about. Stock however, is definitely not in my wheelhouse of enlightened perception.

A good friend of mine has been telling me how crazy I am to be involved in TSLA for a couple of years now. He is, unlike me, VERY well schooled in everything stock market. He follows the charts religiously. He looks at all the trends. He follows all of the best advice regarding his investments. He is glued to a company's "fundamentals" (I still don't really understand what that is precisely). In short, he is WAY out of my league when it comes to the financial markets. He is genuinely concerned for me that I am so invested in such a fraud that is lead by such a criminal as Elon. (Yes, those are his words.)

Shorting, hedging, puts, calls, charts, "Max Pain" (what the hell is that anyway?) This stuff is all Greek to me and I don't understand it one bit. So, why the hell do I own TSLA? Great question. Well, all I can say is this. I heard about the company back when it was just the Roadster and the Model S. I liked what they said they were trying to do. I could never afford their products, but were amazed by what they were capable of. I test drove a Model S. "OMG this thing is incredible!" They announced the Model 3. On a whim, I made a reservation just because it made me feel good. I bought a little stock. First time ever buying any stock of any kind. I had a two year wait before anything went final so I started doing some more research. "Who the hell are these people that call themselves TSLAQ?" "Is the company really a fraud?" "Is it all a lie?" Two years later I get the email...time to configure or cancel. By that time my little investment has earned enough for a sizable down payment. I go for it and sell my TSLA shares. Get the car...game over.

6 months into ownership and I have a little money to play with. I get back in. About a year later I have the opportunity to purchase some land for our dream retirement home. Yup, you see where I'm going. Made enough on TSLA for the purchase. I leave a small number of shares untouched. In the weeks since the land purchase the stock has skyrocketed and is making me more money. By the time my Cybertruck reservation (yeah, I jumped on that bandwagon too) comes to delivery, I hope to have made a chunck for another sizable down payment for it. TSLA has made it possible for me to have things I never would have been able to have without it.

So...my investment philosophy, coming from a guy that knows absolutely nothing about how the market works? Find a company you believe in. Check it out. Experience what they offer. Then, if it feels right and you have some discretionary funds...pull the trigger and then ride it out knowing you are supporting a company that makes sense for you. Yeah, you could lose everything, but if you know that is a possibility going in, it shouldn't hurt as bad if it all goes belly up. The upside?...well, for me it has been amazing!

My friend still knows WAY more than me about investing to make money. But, I don't think he gets what it feels like to be part of something you really believe in. He STILL thinks I am idiot for investing in Tesla. LOL!

Definitely, unequivocally, without a doubt NOT, IN ANY WAY an advice!
(feeling really happy about my little investment though)

Dan

Love this. The old Peter Lynch strategy.

 

[KarenRei]

OK, time to come clean...

I am an absolute idiot...in regard to some things. I have virtually no knowledge of many things that impact my life. I will say that I consider myself very knowledgeable in some regards, most of which no longer have any impact on my financial well being. Things like teaching music I can have a very in depth, knowledgeable discussion about. Stock however, is definitely not in my wheelhouse of enlightened perception.

A good friend of mine has been telling me how crazy I am to be involved in TSLA for a couple of years now. He is, unlike me, VERY well schooled in everything stock market. He follows the charts religiously. He looks at all the trends. He follows all of the best advice regarding his investments. He is glued to a company's "fundamentals" (I still don't really understand what that is precisely). In short, he is WAY out of my league when it comes to the financial markets. He is genuinely concerned for me that I am so invested in such a fraud that is lead by such a criminal as Elon. (Yes, those are his words.)

Shorting, hedging, puts, calls, charts, "Max Pain" (what the hell is that anyway?) This stuff is all Greek to me and I don't understand it one bit. So, why the hell do I own TSLA? Great question. Well, all I can say is this. I heard about the company back when it was just the Roadster and the Model S. I liked what they said they were trying to do. I could never afford their products, but were amazed by what they were capable of. I test drove a Model S. "OMG this thing is incredible!" They announced the Model 3. On a whim, I made a reservation just because it made me feel good. I bought a little stock. First time ever buying any stock of any kind. I had a two year wait before anything went final so I started doing some more research. "Who the hell are these people that call themselves TSLAQ?" "Is the company really a fraud?" "Is it all a lie?" Two years later I get the email...time to configure or cancel. By that time my little investment has earned enough for a sizable down payment. I go for it and sell my TSLA shares. Get the car...game over.

6 months into ownership and I have a little money to play with. I get back in. About a year later I have the opportunity to purchase some land for our dream retirement home. Yup, you see where I'm going. Made enough on TSLA for the purchase. I leave a small number of shares untouched. In the weeks since the land purchase the stock has skyrocketed and is making me more money. By the time my Cybertruck reservation (yeah, I jumped on that bandwagon too) comes to delivery, I hope to have made a chunck for another sizable down payment for it. TSLA has made it possible for me to have things I never would have been able to have without it.

So...my investment philosophy, coming from a guy that knows absolutely nothing about how the market works? Find a company you believe in. Check it out. Experience what they offer. Then, if it feels right and you have some discretionary funds...pull the trigger and then ride it out knowing you are supporting a company that makes sense for you. Yeah, you could lose everything, but if you know that is a possibility going in, it shouldn't hurt as bad if it all goes belly up. The upside?...well, for me it has been amazing!

My friend still knows WAY more than me about investing to make money. But, I don't think he gets what it feels like to be part of something you really believe in. He STILL thinks I am idiot for investing in Tesla. LOL!

Definitely, unequivocally, without a doubt NOT, IN ANY WAY an advice!
(feeling really happy about my little investment though)

Dan

Investors frequently suffer from a serious Dunning-Kruger effect.

Dunning–Kruger effect - Wikipedia

I'd personally argue that Mt. Stupid is much bigger and wider than it's usually portrayed as. That the people on the far right end more often suffer from Imposter Syndrome.

To put it another way: the less you know, the less you know of your own deficiencies, and the more confident you become. The more you know, the more you know of your own deficiencies, and the less confident you become.

A lot of people who consider themselves market experts on Twitter and the like (some of whom even run official "investment funds") are people who feel confident in themselves because they've made some right calls at various times in the past, and so said right calls MUST be because they're brilliant at analyzing the market, right? Plus, they've, like, read Investopedia.

If you want to minimize risk, go with what you feel is going to be a success in the long run, and make investments based around long-term events. I've made the mistake of investing around shorter-term events - the problem with the short term is you can "be right and still be wrong". For example, in Q4 the shorts were saying that the Q3 profit was a one-time thing, rigged, they'll never do it again. I was quite confident that Q4 was going to be profitable again, so I bought calls for after the Q1 ER. Sure enough, Q4 was profitable! But what also happened? The US declared a trade war on Tesla's biggest growth market, macros tanked, T. Rowe Price bailed, and Deepak left during the conference call. I was right on my thesis, and still oh so wrong on my investment.

There's a lot of noise in the short term - for good (lotto ticket FTW!) or bad (OMG, what happened to my money??). If you want to avoid it, pick your winners and focus on the long term.

 

[Tslynk67]

Apparently, $TSLA is in the "buy zone" - I tend to agree, but the "zone" was much better a few months ago... No need to click, headline is pretty much all it is...

Dow Jones Futures: Tesla Leads 5 Stocks Reclaiming Buy Points As Market Rally Hits New Highs; Boeing Extends Losses

 

[UncaNed]

The Jan 21 $650’s were also $1 and thanks to a heads-up on this forum - apologies, I don’t remember whom - I bought 10, which are currently 890% up.

Now my problem is what to do with them... I’m thinking to roll into Jan 2022’s which are 2.5x the price, but a lot more time value...

Any suggestions?

Such jabberings by knowing, much appreciated investment elders have motivated me to buy a few calls myself. Results remain to be seen. I've still much to learn.

 

[EV Promoter]

A lot of people who consider themselves market experts on Twitter and the like (some of whom even run official "investment funds") are people who feel confident in themselves because they've made some right calls at various times in the past, and so said right calls MUST be because they're brilliant at analyzing the market, right? Plus, they've, like, read Investopedia.

Sounds like the biography of Mr. Unicorn

 

[ReflexFunds]

Given this is such a powerful driver of Tesla stock price, I thought it worth trying to quantify all of these options delta hedging and short stock feedback mechanisms. The result is larger than i expected. I believe a +$10 increase in share price would require the purchase of 4.7 million Tesla shares worth $1.6bn. I think much of all stock volume every day is delta hedging related.

Full detail on all Tesla options value and delta exposure from calls, puts and converts below. These are approximations, but I think close enough.

Tesla Calls open interest:
There are call options on 69 million shares outstanding.
The current market value of all call options is $3.3bn with $0.8bn expiring this week and $2.1bn expiring within the next 3 months. $2.8bn of the calls are in the money and $0.5bn out of the money.
It will be interesting to see what call holders do with their profits. Take profit, buy stock or buy OTM calls?
Delta hedge requirement for these call options is 38 million Tesla shares, worth $13bn. So if all Tesla call were sold by market makers (most likely were) and are 100% delta hedged (market makers should be), then 38 million shares would have to be held to hedge the option position. In reality some of this is cancelled by Put options.

Tesla Puts:
There are put options on 144 million shares outstanding.
These have collapsed in price and current market value of all put options is now only $0.4bn with $0.1bn expiring within the next 3 months.
Delta hedge requirement for these put options is 5.5 million Tesla shares sold short, worth $1.9bn.

Convert hedges owned by Tesla:
Tesla bought call options and sold warrants to limit potential dilution from its 2021, 2022 and 2024 convert issuance. The value of the Tesla calls Tesla owns are currently worth $1.4bn and the Warrants it sold worth $0.6bn. For banks to delta hedge their net option exposure to Tesla from the calls & warrants would require purchasing 4 million Tesla shares.

Net delta exposure from options market.
The gross delta exposure from Calls, Puts and Convert Hedges can all be netted out – they are all likely held by the same market makers. So this is 38 million long from Call open interest, 5.5 million short from Put open interest and 4 million long from Tesla’s convert hedging transactions. This nets out at 36.6 million Tesla share long, currently worth $12.6bn.
Note that while individual market makers can delta hedge with other options rather than shares (but they mostly do shares), this is only passing on delta exposure to a different exposure. So this 37 million shares overall options market delta exposure is what is needed if everybody is 100% delta hedged. Some calls will be sold unhedged by people like Mark Spiegel etc, and some puts likely sold by Tesla retail longs, but I expect the vast majority of the market is delta hedged most of the time. So these means delta hedging accounts for ownership of towards 37 million Tesla shares currently. This is relative to 212 million total Tesla shares (180 million real shares outstanding, 32 million virtual/duplicated shares sold by shorts). Many of these market makers likely loan their long shares to shorts so they may not disclose ownership anywhere close to their real economic ownership of stock.

Convertible bonds:
Most convertible bonds will be held by funds who will delta hedge their exposure to Tesla equity. At current prices this would require selling 8.7 million Tesla shares short. So this is a large chunk of the 30 million Tesla short interest. These are held by different investors to the options open interest so can not be netted out.

Outright short equity:
Short interest is currently 32 million shares sold short or c.$11bn. About 23 million of these shares of c.$8bn are likely sold by real shorts and not from convert hedging. These 32 million short shares are shares that are now owned by 2 different long investors. The short borrowed a share from one long, promised to give it back eventually, then sold it to a new long. Two different long investors now have economic ownership of the same share so in effect the share has been duplicated, with a virtual share or repayment obligation now also trading in the market. This means there are now really 180 million real shares outstanding plus 32 million virtual shares owned by Tesla longs, or a total of 212 million shares.

What is the exposure of all of these positions to a +$10 move in Tesla share price?
For +$10 the net change in delta hedging requirement from the whole options market and from the convertible notes hedging is + 4.0 million shares or $1.4bn of Tesla stock purchases. This is an incredibly powerful feedback mechanism to drive the stock higher.
For +$10 share price the size of the Tesla short owned by real shorts will increase in $ terms. To maintain the same $ size of position Tesla short will have to buy Tesla shares to reduce the number of shares short. For $10 this would have to be 0.7 million shares.
So between the two, this is buying pressure for 4.7 million shares due to a $10 increase in share price.

What is the exposure of all of these positions to a -$10 move in Tesla share price?
For $10 the net change in delta hedging requirement from the whole options market and from the convertible notes hedging is - 4.7 million shares or $1.6bn of Tesla stock sales. This is again a powerful feedback mechanism to drive the stock lower. At the moment the mechanism is slightly more powerful in the downward direction – this is because the recent price increase has moved so many Tesla calls into the money and delta to its maximum of 1. There is more room for changing in delta with downward movements currently. This will likely even out as calls mature and people roll calls into more out of the money strikes.
For -$10 share price the size of the Tesla short owned by real shorts will reduced in $ terms. To maintain the same $ value, Tesla shorts will sell a further 0.7 million shares short.
So between the two, this is selling pressure for 5.4 million shares from a -$10 move in stock price.

Note: All these numbers are approximations and use a $345 share price and a fixed 45% volatility for all options/strikes/maturities. I don’t have a data source with volatility or option price for every option matched to open interest, and these approximations makes it much easier to make quick options pricing calculations.

@Fact Checking @hacer @Zhelko Dimic @EVNow @MFranc123 @Doggydogworld

Updating these options open interest numbers for anyone interested.

Full detail on all Tesla options value and delta exposure from calls, puts and converts below. These are approximations, but I think close enough.

Tesla Calls open interest:
There are call options on 105 million shares outstanding.
The current market value of all call options is $3.6bn with $0.8bn expiring this week and $1.8bn expiring within the next 3 months. $3.1bn of the calls are in the money and $0.5bn out of the money.
Delta hedge requirement for these call options is 38 million Tesla shares, worth $14.5bn.
So if all Tesla calls were sold by market makers (most likely were) and are 100% delta hedged (market makers should be), then 38 million shares would have to be held to hedge the option position. In reality some of this is cancelled by Put options.

Tesla Puts:
There are put options on 135 million shares outstanding.
The current market value of all put options is now only $0.4bn with $82m expiring within the next 3 months.
Delta hedge requirement for these put options is 5.5 million Tesla shares sold short, worth $2.1bn.

Convert hedges owned by Tesla:
Tesla bought call options and sold warrants to limit potential dilution from its 2021, 2022 and 2024 convert issuance. The value of the Tesla calls Tesla owns are currently worth $1.7bn and the Warrants it sold worth $0.8bn. For banks to delta hedge their net option exposure to Tesla from the calls & warrants would require purchasing 4 million Tesla shares.

Net delta exposure from options market.
The gross delta exposure from Calls, Puts and Convert Hedges can all be netted out – they are all likely held by the same market makers. So this is 38.1 million long from Call open interest, 5.5 million short from Put open interest and 4.0 million long from Tesla’s convert hedging transactions. This nets out at 36.6 million Tesla share long, currently worth $14.0bn.
Note that while individual market makers can delta hedge with other options rather than shares (but they mostly use shares), this is only passing on delta exposure to a different market particpant and not hedging exposure of the overall options market net exposure. So this 37 million shares overall options market delta exposure is what is needed if everybody is 100% delta hedged. Some calls will be sold unhedged by people like Mark Spiegel etc, some puts likely sold by Tesla retail longs, but I expect the vast majority of the market is delta hedged most of the time. So these means delta hedging accounts for ownership of towards 37 million Tesla shares currently. This is relative to 209 million total Tesla shares (180 million real shares outstanding, 29 million virtual/duplicated shares sold by shorts). Many of these market makers likely loan their long shares to shorts so they may not disclose ownership anywhere close to their real economic ownership of stock.

Convertible bonds:
Most convertible bonds will be held by funds who will delta hedge their exposure to Tesla equity. At current prices this would require selling 9.3 million Tesla shares short. So this is likely a large chunk of the 28.7 million Tesla short interest. These are held by different investors to the options open interest so can not be netted out with the options delta hedging requirement.

Outright short equity:
Short interest is currently 28.7 million shares sold short or c.$14bn. About 20 million of these shares or c.$7.4bn are likely sold by real shorts and not from convert hedging. These 29 million short shares are shares that are now owned by 2 different long investors. The short borrowed a share from one long, promised to give it back eventually, then sold it to a new long. Two different long investors now have economic ownership of the same share so in effect the share has been duplicated, with a virtual share or repayment obligation now also trading in the market. This means there are now really 180 million real shares outstanding plus 29 million virtual shares owned by Tesla longs, or a total of 209 million shares.

What is the exposure of all of these positions to a +$10 move in Tesla share price?
For +$10 the net change in delta hedging requirement from the whole options market and from the convertible notes hedging is + 3.6 million shares or $1.4bn of Tesla stock purchases. This is an incredibly powerful feedback mechanism to drive the stock higher.
For +$10 share price the size of the Tesla short owned by real shorts will increase in $ terms. To maintain the same $ size of position Tesla short will have to buy Tesla shares to reduce the number of shares short. For $10 this would have to be 0.7 million shares.
So between the two, this is buying pressure for 4.3 million shares due to a $10 increase in share price.

What is the exposure of all of these positions to a -$10 move in Tesla share price?
For -$10 the net change in delta hedging requirement from the whole options market and from the convertible notes hedging is -4.2 million shares or $1.6bn of Tesla stock sales. This is again a powerful feedback mechanism to drive the stock lower. At the moment the mechanism is slightly more powerful in the downward direction – this is because the recent price increase has moved so many Tesla calls into the money and delta to its maximum of 1. There is more room for changing in delta with downward movements currently. This will likely even out as calls mature and people roll calls into more out of the money strikes.
For -$10 share price the size of the Tesla short owned by real shorts will reduced in $ terms. To maintain the same $ value, Tesla shorts will sell a further 0.8 million shares short.
So between the two, this is selling pressure for 5.0 million shares from a -$10 move in stock price.

Note: All these numbers are approximations and use a $381 share price and a fixed 45% volatility for all options/strikes/maturities. I don’t have a data source with volatility or option price for every option matched to open interest, and these approximations makes it much easier to make quick options pricing calculations.

 

[willow_hiller]

Some interesting anecdotes from around the forums regarding the EoQ rush:

In Richmond VA, guy getting service done notes about 100 deliveries in the last 2 days.

In San Jose, CA, guy taking delivery notes that Tesla is even scheduling deliveries for Christmas day.

 

[elasalle]

Couple of articles out there giving the credit of yesterdays 6%+ rally due to Credit Suisses, Dan Levy's (Known Bear) notes ..
We believe Tesla is leading in the areas that will likely define the future of carmaking – software and electrification," notes analyst Dan Levy.

If this is the MM group think, and MM are realizing the reality I don't think the SP gonna go down much today ... cheers!!

 

[dl003]

OK, time to come clean...

I am an absolute idiot...in regard to some things. I have virtually no knowledge of many things that impact my life. I will say that I consider myself very knowledgeable in some regards, most of which no longer have any impact on my financial well being. Things like teaching music I can have a very in depth, knowledgeable discussion about. Stock however, is definitely not in my wheelhouse of enlightened perception.

A good friend of mine has been telling me how crazy I am to be involved in TSLA for a couple of years now. He is, unlike me, VERY well schooled in everything stock market. He follows the charts religiously. He looks at all the trends. He follows all of the best advice regarding his investments. He is glued to a company's "fundamentals" (I still don't really understand what that is precisely). In short, he is WAY out of my league when it comes to the financial markets. He is genuinely concerned for me that I am so invested in such a fraud that is lead by such a criminal as Elon. (Yes, those are his words.)

Shorting, hedging, puts, calls, charts, "Max Pain" (what the hell is that anyway?) This stuff is all Greek to me and I don't understand it one bit. So, why the hell do I own TSLA? Great question. Well, all I can say is this. I heard about the company back when it was just the Roadster and the Model S. I liked what they said they were trying to do. I could never afford their products, but were amazed by what they were capable of. I test drove a Model S. "OMG this thing is incredible!" They announced the Model 3. On a whim, I made a reservation just because it made me feel good. I bought a little stock. First time ever buying any stock of any kind. I had a two year wait before anything went final so I started doing some more research. "Who the hell are these people that call themselves TSLAQ?" "Is the company really a fraud?" "Is it all a lie?" Two years later I get the email...time to configure or cancel. By that time my little investment has earned enough for a sizable down payment. I go for it and sell my TSLA shares. Get the car...game over.

6 months into ownership and I have a little money to play with. I get back in. About a year later I have the opportunity to purchase some land for our dream retirement home. Yup, you see where I'm going. Made enough on TSLA for the purchase. I leave a small number of shares untouched. In the weeks since the land purchase the stock has skyrocketed and is making me more money. By the time my Cybertruck reservation (yeah, I jumped on that bandwagon too) comes to delivery, I hope to have made a chunck for another sizable down payment for it. TSLA has made it possible for me to have things I never would have been able to have without it.

So...my investment philosophy, coming from a guy that knows absolutely nothing about how the market works? Find a company you believe in. Check it out. Experience what they offer. Then, if it feels right and you have some discretionary funds...pull the trigger and then ride it out knowing you are supporting a company that makes sense for you. Yeah, you could lose everything, but if you know that is a possibility going in, it shouldn't hurt as bad if it all goes belly up. The upside?...well, for me it has been amazing!

My friend still knows WAY more than me about investing to make money. But, I don't think he gets what it feels like to be part of something you really believe in. He STILL thinks I am idiot for investing in Tesla. LOL!

Definitely, unequivocally, without a doubt NOT, IN ANY WAY an advice!
(feeling really happy about my little investment though)

Dan

I've got to say TSLAQ helps reinforce my conviction in Tesla by no small degree. First time I came across them on Twitter, I did not know much about the company at all. Nevertheless, without going into any discussion of fact, there is something horribly wrong with that crowd. The name calling, the conspiracies, the personal insults, just overall petty junks getting retweeted over and over, etc...
So, my simple philosophy is this: If you're at a fork on a road and one path is shared by a bunch of delirious basement-dwellers, YOU GO THE OTHER WAY even if you don't know where it leads.

 

[ke6jph]

OK, time to come clean...

I am an absolute idiot...in regard to some things. I have virtually no knowledge of many things that impact my life. I will say that I consider myself very knowledgeable in some regards, most of which no longer have any impact on my financial well being. Things like teaching music I can have a very in depth, knowledgeable discussion about. Stock however, is definitely not in my wheelhouse of enlightened perception.

A good friend of mine has been telling me how crazy I am to be involved in TSLA for a couple of years now. He is, unlike me, VERY well schooled in everything stock market. He follows the charts religiously. He looks at all the trends. He follows all of the best advice regarding his investments. He is glued to a company's "fundamentals" (I still don't really understand what that is precisely). In short, he is WAY out of my league when it comes to the financial markets. He is genuinely concerned for me that I am so invested in such a fraud that is lead by such a criminal as Elon. (Yes, those are his words.)

Shorting, hedging, puts, calls, charts, "Max Pain" (what the hell is that anyway?) This stuff is all Greek to me and I don't understand it one bit. So, why the hell do I own TSLA? Great question. Well, all I can say is this. I heard about the company back when it was just the Roadster and the Model S. I liked what they said they were trying to do. I could never afford their products, but were amazed by what they were capable of. I test drove a Model S. "OMG this thing is incredible!" They announced the Model 3. On a whim, I made a reservation just because it made me feel good. I bought a little stock. First time ever buying any stock of any kind. I had a two year wait before anything went final so I started doing some more research. "Who the hell are these people that call themselves TSLAQ?" "Is the company really a fraud?" "Is it all a lie?" Two years later I get the email...time to configure or cancel. By that time my little investment has earned enough for a sizable down payment. I go for it and sell my TSLA shares. Get the car...game over.

6 months into ownership and I have a little money to play with. I get back in. About a year later I have the opportunity to purchase some land for our dream retirement home. Yup, you see where I'm going. Made enough on TSLA for the purchase. I leave a small number of shares untouched. In the weeks since the land purchase the stock has skyrocketed and is making me more money. By the time my Cybertruck reservation (yeah, I jumped on that bandwagon too) comes to delivery, I hope to have made a chunck for another sizable down payment for it. TSLA has made it possible for me to have things I never would have been able to have without it.

So...my investment philosophy, coming from a guy that knows absolutely nothing about how the market works? Find a company you believe in. Check it out. Experience what they offer. Then, if it feels right and you have some discretionary funds...pull the trigger and then ride it out knowing you are supporting a company that makes sense for you. Yeah, you could lose everything, but if you know that is a possibility going in, it shouldn't hurt as bad if it all goes belly up. The upside?...well, for me it has been amazing!

My friend still knows WAY more than me about investing to make money. But, I don't think he gets what it feels like to be part of something you really believe in. He STILL thinks I am idiot for investing in Tesla. LOL!

Definitely, unequivocally, without a doubt NOT, IN ANY WAY an advice!
(feeling really happy about my little investment though)

Dan

Similar position. Did not sell but kept buying since Feb 2012. We must have the same friends (). I try and explain that being in the auto industry I see every day the mess that the OEM’s have made lately. Have a life changing amount on paper for retirement and am still riding out the “storm”. Thank you for the post. Nice to hear a little guy like myself has also enjoyed the show

 

[KarenRei]

I've got to say TSLAQ helps reinforce my conviction in Tesla by no small degree. First time I came across them on Twitter, I did not know much about the company at all. Nevertheless, without going into any discussion of fact, there is something horribly wrong with that crowd. The name calling, the conspiracies, the personal insults, just overall petty junks getting retweeted over and over, etc...
So, my simple philosophy is this: If you're at a fork on a road and one path is shared by a bunch of delirious basement-dwellers, YOU GO THE OTHER WAY even if you don't know where it leads.

I credit TSLAQ as well to me starting investing. I was a big Tesla fan and advocate beforehand, just the same as today - and that ended up putting me into conversations with TSLAQ. The depth of their wrongness, and their in-your-face, self-assuredness about it, just became too much. It was a case of, "Well geez, if this is the opposition thesis..."

 

[Tslynk67]

Such jabberings by knowing, much appreciated investment elders have motivated me to buy a few calls myself. Results remain to be seen. I've still much to learn.

I could count myself as an "elder", but that's about it

What I have learned with options is that you'll probably lose your initial investment, so that should be your expected outcome, anything more is a bonus.

Secondly, short-term calls are risky and too volatile based on things totally out of your control - last Friday was a good example, looked like $TSLA would soar in early trading, but the less-than-expected "trade deal" gave the bears and MM's a good platform to push the stock below the Max Pain for the day, so I lost some pocket change. General rule, if they go into the money, sell them, immediately!

Long term options seem a good bet when the SP has suffered a massive drop, as happened recently - the 2021's were just stupid cheap and we "got lucky".

None of this is advice, I have no idea what I'm talking about, past performance is not indicative of future performance, the value of your investment may go down as well as up.

Etc.

 

[ZeApelido]

One of these Larry's is already a board member. Maybe the second one is buying himself a seat at the table?

View attachment 489157

My first thought when he stepped down from Google.

 

[printf42]

Has anyone heard Elon Musk provide his opinion on stock splits? I know it doesn't change anything fundamentally but I think it would send a strong message to announce a 3 or 4 for 1 stock split. Ears would perk up and I think the price would react favorably.

Robinhood and many other apps supports fraction shares now, so unit price is not a problem anymore.
Last I heard SP500 weight is based on share price, not market cap...
So, better not split to keep it higher, or, even a reverse split to hack the dis-functional system.

Edit:
What I remembered is apparently wrong:
What Does the S&P 500 Index Measure and How Is It Calculated?
SP500 is market cap weighted.

 

[ZeApelido]




They'd need a rapidly-tested cost metric; genetic algorithms require lots of cycles (and remember, to evaluate the cost metric you have to first train each neural net in the population). There's also some options apart from differential evolution that involving slope following, which converge faster but are more likely to get stuck in local minima. And hybrids thereof, to try to "jump out" of local minima. The optimal choice depends on the problem you're solving.

Aka gradient descent the de facto standard (mostly) for training deep nets currently.