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

[avoigt]

We're talking about Elon and Tesla here, not just some little namby pamby car company like GM or Ford.

I can see several rabbits Elon can pull out of his hat:

• Elon could convince the local decision makers that Tesla has a mandate from the federal government to go back to work.
• Elon could convince the locals that Tesla could do it safely. [Good example to follow is GF Shanghai.]
  
• Move a bunch of trailers onsite. Somehow have meals catered, provide entertainment... so that at least some employees (+maybe their families) can "shelter in place" at the factory at night while they work during the day. [Acknowledged: Supply chain issues.]

I'm waiting for somebody to say that "it is impossible". Then Elon will do it. And that would be a good thing.

[Edit: Add GF Shanghai example.]

Germany is a good example in that respect.

We have a nation wide stay at home regulations but production is ongoing. Just talked yesterday with a friend of mine who is heading a production side for plastic components and they continue production as many others too.

German new infection cases are dropping since days with the largest drop so far yesterday. I expect this to continue since the measured taken are showing the effect this week.

IOW, I am convinced you can maintain a production with the right measures in place.

A 2 week downtime is actually not unusual for an automotive production and if Elon believes it get tight and the situation allows it I would not be surprised them to restart production.

The 500k annual target has been in my opinion an underestimate - overdeliver strategy which may allow them even if 2H goes well to make that number. Imagine what will happen to the stock price.

Most negatives have been factored in the stocks already. We can see this for the positive futures this morning (eu time) now heading slightly in the negatives. A week ago or two if Trump would announces 100k deaths and expected 160k the market would have dropped 10% and more but today the picture is quite different.

Are more negative news to come? of course and without a doubt but that does not mean the stocks will fall.

Are positive news to come? I do see much more opportunity for good news to have an effect of rising prices. Example is Germany and even Italy where numbers are going down since days too.

There is a time in any crisis where even negative perceived news lead to buy orders because people will say thats been it. Short term trades are still not my advice as the market will remain volatile.

 

[CyberDutchie]

Hmmm TMC now joining the spread of FUD?

Tesla Teams Take a Hit as Production Slows

#Tesla #TSLA #TeslaMotorsClub

Tesla Motors Club

 

[CyberDutchie]

If you watch Nightly News for updates on the Virus each day, and you hear what the critical care doctors and nurses are saying, it is clear that Wallstreet has not priced in what is coming the next three months. There is no way around stay-at-home orders for every major city in the next two months. Anyone have a guess on what unemployment will be if all non-essential businesses are closed across the country for the next 2 months? Because most likely that is what is coming. Are we talking 30 Million unemployed? I'm expecting the market to drop 50% in the next two months, and I don't think TSLA SP can fight that kind of Macro. Holding core shares, but planning to go on margin to buy more shares when SP under 300.

Eventually we will start testing for antivirus and letting people who are immune back into the workforce. Many other measures can be taken to get the businesses going again safely. I think you are being overly pessimistic.

 

[CorneliusXX]

We're talking about Elon and Tesla here, not just some little namby pamby car company like GM or Ford.

I can see several rabbits Elon can pull out of his hat:

• Elon could convince the local decision makers that Tesla has a mandate from the federal government to go back to work.
• Elon could convince the locals that Tesla could do it safely. [Good example to follow is GF Shanghai.]
  
• Move a bunch of trailers onsite. Somehow have meals catered, provide entertainment... so that at least some employees (+maybe their families) can "shelter in place" at the factory at night while they work during the day. [Acknowledged: Supply chain issues.]

I'm waiting for somebody to say that "it is impossible". Then Elon will do it. And that would be a good thing.

[Edit: Add GF Shanghai example.]

I wouldn't be surprised if Tesla starts antibody testing in the next week or two and allowing staff who have already had the virus to come back to work. Surely this is the way to restart the movement of people.

 

[MC3OZ]

I wouldn't be surprised if Tesla starts antibody testing in the next week or two and allowing staff who have already had the virus to come back to work. Surely this is the way to restart the movement of people.

That is step 1, There may not be enough staff with the antibody to run production...
They also need another test to confirm that they are not currently infected,

By there should be a way of informing health authorities of all positives to feed in track and trace with the time is right.

To run business it is worth many companies investing in their own testing, and PPE... perhaps even their own treatment.,.

That means they are doing some of the testing for health authorities... report that data to health authorities and it helps the cause...

If they get a single positive they can close down again, but there is lots they can do to avoid that positive...

I posted a suggestion to Google "coronavirus daily briefing podcast" in the CV thread.

The author recommends a 4-6 week shutdown... and details what he thinks is the best way of opening back up...

 

[mars_or_bust]

Germany is a good example in that respect.

We have a nation wide stay at home regulations but production is ongoing. Just talked yesterday with a friend of mine who is heading a production side for plastic components and they continue production as many others too.

German new infection cases are dropping since days with the largest drop so far yesterday. I expect this to continue since the measured taken are showing the effect this week.

IOW, I am convinced you can maintain a production with the right measures in place.

A 2 week downtime is actually not unusual for an automotive production and if Elon believes it get tight and the situation allows it I would not be surprised them to restart production.

The 500k annual target has been in my opinion an underestimate - overdeliver strategy which may allow them even if 2H goes well to make that number. Imagine what will happen to the stock price.

Most negatives have been factored in the stocks already. We can see this for the positive futures this morning (eu time) now heading slightly in the negatives. A week ago or two if Trump would announces 100k deaths and expected 160k the market would have dropped 10% and more but today the picture is quite different.

Are more negative news to come? of course and without a doubt but that does not mean the stocks will fall.

Are positive news to come? I do see much more opportunity for good news to have an effect of rising prices. Example is Germany and even Italy where numbers are going down since days too.

There is a time in any crisis where even negative perceived news lead to buy orders because people will say thats been it. Short term trades are still not my advice as the market will remain volatile.

Am actually pleasantly surprised by the excellent progress Giga Berlin is making, in the midst of the lockdown. The work at the site seems to be going on without delay.

 

[j6Lpi429@3j]

If you watch Nightly News for updates on the Virus each day...

This is a way to drive yourself nuts. nightly news on the virus is driven by scares and clickbait headlines. There is no reason we need to overdose on constant rolling news coverage about this. if a cure or vaccine is discovered then yay, thats news. If government advice on what we should/can do changes, thats news, but a rolling daily death count does nothing but fuel peoples anxiety and panic.

The media LOVES this virus, its been the biggest boost to page-views in decades. That doesn't mean you have to play their game.

 

[avoigt]

Am actually pleasantly surprised by the excellent progress Giga Berlin is making, in the midst of the lockdown. The work at the site seems to be going on without delay.

True, not only that the leveling works are almost finished they also now officially applied for ground breaking to start with the foundation.

That request will very likely be approved as sources confirm it. Also its under the same restriction they used before which sets that if something unexpected happened its on Teslas risks to rebuilt the area. Thats the legal restriction but unlikely to happen.

As of now all workers, material and resources to continue the works are available and I don't see a reasons for that to stop.

In fact the German Government is looking for positive news in this crisis and will continue to do what is needed to get that factory asap up and running.

Beside the GF3 in china the development in Germany is promising indeed. It may take time for the market to understand that and once they do they will start to see Tesla more positive again.

The same is true for deliveries. All Automakers did stop deliveries but Tesla because of their direct sales model and touchles hand-over process. There is a lot where Tesla can surprise.

 

[dc_h]

So does another 30 days of stay at home also mean no factory production for Tesla and other manufacturers? That will be devastating.

I think moving past lockdown is doing to require changes in our standard operating procedures and I think Tesla will figure some of these things out soon and get out of lockdown. In Japan and other parts of Asia, wearing a mask is not weird. Until we have a cure or vaccine, I think we're going to need personal masks in the USA for shopping and public transportation. The same for work environments. The problem in the USA is we still have a significant portion of people who aren't taking this seriously. Some people won't take this seriously here until a family member dies, or the police have the ability to fine people for being careless.
I don't know how long basic masks will be available. Non-medical people need a mask to avoid infecting others, medical people need a mask to keep from getting infected. Until people are wearing masks, I don't see how public transportation and large spaces get off of lockdown. There are cures and vaccines being tried, and based on the swine flu, it is likely a large scale test will be started by this summer. In the USA they gave the vaccine to all military personnel about 6 months after the initial start.
On the other hand, maybe the mild symptom/asymptomatic thing is huge and we will have herd immunity by summer. People have to start assuming we're going to have to figure out how to work, without curing this thing. We need to plan for workarounds, until solutions are in place.
For this quarter, deliveries are probably off by 10 to 15,000. Next quarter it will be worse, but MIC Model 3 will begin to make up for more lost Fremont capacity. If Fremont can run at 50% by some time in April, they are still build and deliver close to 100,000 cars in Q2 and more in Q3. If we're not in the clear by mid April, I'd guess Elon will start making PPE for factory, sales and delivery staff internally.

 

[keydiver]

If we're not in the clear by mid April, I'd guess Elon will start making PPE for factory, sales and delivery staff internally.

There is PLENTY of PPE in China. They are making 10's of millions of masks per day. Just like with the 1,000 ventilators, I think Elon could use his Chinese connections and influence to quickly outfit the entire Fremont factory.
I agree completely, until people change their attitude about wearing masks the CV problem is just going to get worse. Yesterday my wife and I went grocery shopping, and other than the 2 of us, only 1 or 2 other people had masks. We got some strange looks too. This attitude must change, but that is rather hard when no one can buy a mask anywhere. Several people asked us where we got them, but these were masks I bought 14 years ago for the Bird Flu.

 

[EVMeister]

Let the manipulations begin!

 

[Sancho]

Wow, a classic bear raid, just like the old days. Two minutes before opening they engineer a drop in the SP, which sends a dog whistle to everyone to attack the stock.

These people never go away, they just come out from under the rocks every time it’s cloudy.

They got burned big time earlier this year, and they will get burned again soon enough.

 

[ProfTournesol]

Let the manipulations begin!

yeah, somebody is really messing up. Let's hope Elon has some surprises this week

[edit]

Madatory Morning Drop on steroids

 

[ZeApelido]

Welp I reduced my position in my taxable account by 80%, so in total I've reduced total position by 93%.

A few reasons for this:

1) As I've stated I believe the market hasn't fully priced in cascading effects of virus induced recession.

2) Whether it be due to less production or reduced demand, it is hard to believe Q2 will be profitable. TSLA price is highly sensitive to quarter profitability for better or worse.

3) I always intended for my taxable account position to be sold and partially used for house down-payment (or reinvested as last tranches of a DCA if price goes down). There "may" be a future dip in Bay Area housing prices, so I need to be ready.

I think Battery / Investor day could initiate price appreciation (the reason I didn't sell in 900s was waiting for this) but I expect price dips before and after this.

I am still very bullish on TSLA medium and long term, I will DCA in most of my funds back in, obviously hoping to get a good deal on price while not stressing too much over this virus and lock-down effects

 

[Unpilot]

500 seems to be support last few days. Bounces pretty hard whenever it dips below.

 

[Cupidchild]

Welp I reduced my position in my taxable account by 80%, so in total I've reduced total position by 93%.

Similar thought. One thing is we need to try to catch the bottom.
What your guess? I am just going to ladder buys as it goes below 450..
450, 400,375, etc..

 

[Prunesquallor]

Similar thought. One thing is we need to try to catch the bottom.
What your guess? I am just going to ladder buys as it goes below 450..
450, 400,375, etc..

Yep. I had 495, 420 and 390 set up for 60 days. 495 hit last week.

 

[jerry33]

I agree with the overall focus of your post, and pretty much everything except this bullet. Do you have a source, or other reason why you think Tesla has the best internal software systems in the world?

My personal impression, as a customer since 2013, is that Tesla has some of the worst internal software systems in the world. As a data management professional, it seems to me that Tesla doesn't know what a data model (3rd normal form), good database design - it's as if they've only hired software engineers and no data management people. It's manifested in such simple problems as service being unable to update my address (back in 2013) because that was the sales system, and it kept pushing the previous owner's address into the default page that service would get.

Marketing db that couldn't keep track of whether to send me invites to launch events (not sure I'd have gone, but as a signature Model X reservation holder, there were a couple of events over the years I'd have at least liked to get an invite).

I can't remember the recent issue somebody else ran into, but I commented along these lines, and let him know that at least he could be comforted by the idea that their basic db design problems change over the years.

They might not be easily the worst, but for a company of Tesla's scale, I've been left feeling like it's amateur hour on this front over the years.

I think the problem is that developers generally don't understand databases, and when they use them they try to recreate the jobs that the database can do in there code rather than using the database's built in abilities to cut out the code and speed the process. I recall several instances where the database was blamed for being slow because the developers' code made millions of calls to the database per minute instead of one query to obtain the results. The developers blamed the slowness on the database. Developers also tend to take the data stored in the database and then store it in their code. Of course, that data is now out of date, so they keep pestering the database for updates. It's really hard to find people who can combine code with databases.

 

[Cupidchild]

Yep. I had 495, 420 and 390 set up for 60 days. 495 hit last week.

perfect. Were you able to get out your previous position in the 600s?
I think if SPY/QQQ can bounce up more to either 50% fib retracement level this week, TSLA can push itself up towards 600-625.
I have few shares that I want to sell at that point and rebuy..
Rest I will just ride out..... I did catch TSLA at 371. But couldn't more than I wanted to b/c fund stuck at that time with some other stock.

 

[LJS22]

500 seems to be support last few days. Bounces pretty hard whenever it dips below.

I haven’t been too worried about TSLA because it felt like a bunch of long term investors were buying on the recent run up. There has to be an extreamly high number of shares that won’t sell for some time.

If this had happened one year ago we’d be having a different conversation. It’s likely Tesla wouldn’t have survived a pandemic in the spring of 2019. Sometimes you have to feel like things are meant to be.