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

[M|S|M MYP]

Too bad you couldn't trade on the Berlin exchange... it was over 1920 USD there when I went to bed, that must have been why I slept so well (no comments BlackS... I know you've been waiting all morning).

Although i am thinking to myself right now....'i woke up for this??'

 

[MartinAustin]

Can't believe my ears... Wilfred Frost on CNBC asks Larry Kudlow "Elon Musk has made so much extra wealth recently, would you consider a capital gains tax to address the difference between the haves and the have nots?"

(I'm as leftie as they come, let's get that out of the way. All about redistributing wealth under normal circumstances, but not Elon's, not after we just had the joint-record-hottest day ever recorded.)

However, since CNBC are bereft of any way to attack Tesla's performance as a company, they are trying to get Elon's 20% share of TSLA to become an issue. There's no way Elon can pay anything to reduce that wealth, he would have to sell stock in some company if that craziness were to become law. Which could be the hopes for shorts that are still around. CNBC repeatedly mentions Elon Musk's wealth these days and talks about what "position in the table" he is in, as if this is something Elon is focusing on. (LOL could not be further from the truth) Are they trying to badmouth billionaires and somehow cause that to become a problem for Elon?

This isn't Headline News or USA Today. CNBC should KNOW MORE about the stock market business, and personal wealth, than anyone. It's their business. They should already know that Elon takes zero salary from Tesla and TSLA would fall if Elon tried to turn his stockholdings into money. So the calculation of "stockholding X today's stock price" doesn't even work, since the price falls as you sell it. Elon has said many times he has no plans to sell TSLA any time soon. And finally... Elon has done nothing personally to make TSLA go up... except his work at Tesla. TSLA has been climbing because stock investors are buying it. Other people. They are all increasing their wealth. Why are CNBC focusing on Elon Musk? 80% of Tesla is owned by other people and they are also getting very wealthy.

 

[Singuy]

TSLA went down -2.0% while the QQQ (NASDAQ-100) went down 0.6% over the same 20 minutes:

View attachment 578342
That's what 'manipulation' means. The fact that its done is plain sight doesn't change the meaning or the word.

Now, Marketwatch publishing a headling the 'TSLA about to go down' 10 min before the report comes out from the Fed Meeting? That's not 'manipulation'. That's a Securities violation. One which will never be prosecuted, since US lawmakers make money on their prior knowledge. Not the same as 'manipulation' though:

ma·nip·u·la·tion
/məˌnipyəˈlāSHən/

noun: manipulation; plural noun: manipulations

1. the action of manipulating something in a skillful manner.
   "the format allows fast picture manipulation"
2. the action of manipulating someone in a clever or unscrupulous way.
   "there was no deliberate manipulation of visitors' emotions"

These MMs are all of skillful, clever, and unsrcupulous. Sometimes manipulation is just manipulation. Its how they make money, similar to the hunting strategy of ambush predators.

EDIT:

For comparison, here's a chart comparing APPL (Apple, Inc.) to the QQQ over the same time period: (notice that the 'macros' actually moved slightly more than did AAPL shares)

View attachment 578357
I hope that after TSLA is a well-established component of the S&P 500 it transforms into a stable stock that resists the vagaries of daily tide cycles, instead of being battered about like a dinghy on a stormy coast.

Cheers!

Welp, they certainly manipulated their way to 1900. So I say keep on manipulating.

 

[Motor Mouth]

Can't believe my ears... Wilfred Frost on CNBC asks Larry Kudlow "Elon Musk has made so much extra wealth recently, would you consider a capital gains tax to address the difference between the haves and the have nots?"

LOL - I doubt Larry Kudlow is receptive to "tax the rich" arguments - regardless of where they come from.

 

[Open Interest]

Can't believe my ears... Wilfred Frost on CNBC asks Larry Kudlow "Elon Musk has made so much extra wealth recently, would you consider a capital gains tax to address the difference between the haves and the have nots?"

(I'm as leftie as they come, let's get that out of the way. All about redistributing wealth under normal circumstances, but not Elon's, not after we just had the joint-record-hottest day ever recorded.)

However, since CNBC are bereft of any way to attack Tesla's performance as a company, they are trying to get Elon's 20% share of TSLA to become an issue. There's no way Elon can pay anything to reduce that wealth, he would have to sell stock in some company if that craziness were to become law. Which could be the hopes for shorts that are still around. CNBC repeatedly mentions Elon Musk's wealth these days and talks about what "position in the table" he is in, as if this is something Elon is focusing on. (LOL could not be further from the truth) Are they trying to badmouth billionaires and somehow cause that to become a problem for Elon?

This isn't Headline News or USA Today. CNBC should KNOW MORE about the stock market business, and personal wealth, than anyone. It's their business. They should already know that Elon takes zero salary from Tesla and TSLA would fall if Elon tried to turn his stockholdings into money. So the calculation of "stockholding X today's stock price" doesn't even work, since the price falls as you sell it. Elon has said many times he has no plans to sell TSLA any time soon. And finally... Elon has done nothing personally to make TSLA go up... except his work at Tesla. TSLA has been climbing because stock investors are buying it. Other people. They are all increasing their wealth. Why are CNBC focusing on Elon Musk? 80% of Tesla is owned by other people and they are also getting very wealthy.

What was Kudlow’s response?

 

[heltok]

Munro talks about Tesla:

He seems pretty bullish on Tesla saying they are years ahead and has no doubt that Tesla will be first to reach LVL5(FSD).

 

[smorgasbord]

It's a false dichotomy. Returning the money that is rightfully yours to the Federal coffers is not any more moral than spending it or investing it. The returned money doesn't go to poor people - it goes to rich people - the same people who will be responsible for paying this debt off - namely, you and me. It's OUR money.

I don't even take all the tax deductions I'm entitled to because it's not worth it to me to spend the time necessary. This is an easy way to get some back while following all the rules.

If you want to give back, I think it's best to do that directly to worthy charities. My accountant once told me a story about a client that instructed him to not do anything that might trigger an audit since he didn't want the hassle and was willing to pay for that. Well, he got audited one year anyway. Came through clean of course, but since then his instructions were to take every last dime of deduction.

Can I just vent a little of my frustration with the Bay Area here?

First we have Covid so everyone is more or less stuck out home.

Then for the past days straight it's been reaching about 100 degrees here on the Peninsula (south of SF, north of San Jose). This area is known for having relatively mild weather historically, so much so that most of houses built mid-century have absolutely shitake for insulation and no AC. There's not even space in walls / ceilings to add AC - people either add it onto their roofs (very ugly) or during a full renovation.

But usually most people in this area don't even have it because the hot days were never that hot and too few inbetween. Now it's getting more frequent. And PG&E can't even handle the electrical demand so they are shutting off people's power again.

This is in arguably the most expensive market (outside of Manhattan) in the U.S.

Then Saturday night there was a totally freakish thunderstorm that came in (it wasn't even anywhere on forecast Saturday) and the lightening struck 2000 times in the Santa Cruz mountains, starting a whole bunch of fires.

Now that smoke is covering most of the Bay Area (trapped in by mountains) and the air quality is horrific.

So here we are, it's too effing hot with no central AC. Can't hang out outside. And portable / wall unit ACs will just pump in more of this trash air. Oh and the power might go out again.

The connection to Tesla is of course global warming, poor grid stability, and heck even not good enough options of AC systems / filtration.

Even the Bay Area needs Tesla.

Just a note that the WeatherBug app correctly predicted the lightning storms more than 24 hours in advance. Did not predict the fires, though. Last Sunday I bicycled through Pescadero and Butano Park, which is now hit hard, so it appears the fires were somehow not detected right away and grew over the following couple of days until they were. Scary.

I live in the SC mountains. We're all packed up and ready to evac. Last night we saw evac orders for areas closer and closer to us, but stopped a few miles short of us. Hard to tell where the actual blazes are (this appears to be the best map: https://maps.nwcg.gov/sa/#/?/?/37.1561/-122.1555/12 )

 

[Tes La Ferrari]

Can you still get Bioweapon Defense Mode? When I go to configure I don't see that option (although it looks like they all come with "HEPA" air filtration).

Yup - same thing, now comes standard, @StealthP3D

Tesla now offers it as a retrofit on X & facelift S.

They pull out the trunk liner to do it and it's a pretty sizeable filter. Some people just go and install the filter themselves but they don't get the software update that gives them the Bioweapon Defence button on the MCU to automatically control fan speed etc.


IMHO this is a feature that doesn't get enough play, as Tesla is the only car company I know of that offers this level of filtration.

A guy I know traded out of his Bentley into an S after I showed him this feature in mine. He didn't really care about the other benefits of the S (pre-purchase ) - but was sooo impressed with this. He uses it all the time, and now during the COVID era it would have even more interest if more people knew about it.

 

[Dan Detweiler]

Which tree is it that you bought?

A lot of them actually. Here's a hint...the big white dead one in the middle of the little clearing is exactly where our living room is going to sit.

TSLA enables the little wins in our lives. And these days, the little wins are everything.

Dan

 

[Buckminster]

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1296169273434542080
I'm thinking stacked PCBs in a mineral oil filled lazy river.

 

[UncaNed]

Actually, she has taken it upon her to fight desinformation and lies on Twitter, so the frequency and depth of information of her tweets these days are fenomenal.. More so I think then her posts here, because here she would be preaching to the choir.. On Twitter it's mostly morons and teslaq'rs that she's replying to.. These guys really deserve the whipping they're getting from her..

For example:
https://twitter.com/enn_nafnlaus/status/1295317060877266945?s=21
"1/Recently, there's been another surge of "Elon Musk is Trying to Kill Public Transit" on Twitter (thanks, @doctorow!). Pointing out that Musk *literally runs a public transit company* (@boringcompany) just brings us to the "volumes are too low, so it can't work" line.

Pop quiz:
1) Station A has 720-person subway every 180 seconds. Station B has 20-person capsules, loaded in parallel, leave every 5 seconds. Which has more capacity?

2) Station A has 3x the capacity of Station B - but passengers on trains from A average going to two intermediary...
... stations before reaching their destination (3 total), while passengers in capsules at Station B go directly to their destinations. Which has more capacity?

3) City A spends $1B on stations and connecting lines at $1B each. City B spends $1B on 1/10th capacity stations and...
connecting lines at $100M each. Which gets more capacity?

ANSWERS:

1) They're the same
2) They're the same
3) They're bloody the same

Getting the picture? Public is not about "how many people you can fit onto a train at once"; it's about how much money you have to spend...
... per unit passenger capacity (we'll set aside all issues of comfort and convenience for now). Which means that *you cannot eliminate departure rates, how direct routes are, and construction costs from the picture*; they're an integral part.

So how what about Boring Company?
First off, Boring Company is Personal Rapid Transit:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_…

While this is normally focused on for comfort and convenience, it's also about capacity: everyone goes directly to their destination; nobody heads in the wrong direction.
Secondly, it's focused on *radical* cost reductions for tunneling, particular to its design elements.

First off, the tunnels are *small*. Tunneling costs are roughly proportional to the diameter squared, so this matters a *lot*.

Secondly, the tunnels are EV-only, *including...
... in the boring stage***. There are *never* any oxygen-gulping diesel exhaust-belching devices in the tunnel - even mining equipment. This allows them to avoid having to build expensive high-capacity exhaust ventilation systems, and focus only on humans and fire suppression.
Third, the average TBM spends the vast majority of its time stationary - for disc swapping, for casing (and then relocating its thrust structure to the end of the new casing, and a while host of other things). TBC is redesigning TBMs to have near-100% uptime.
Fourth, another huge cost beyond exhaust is laying the extremely high power cabling for the TBMs. TBC is focused on using hot-swapped battery packs (e.g. charged outside the tunnel), entirely eliminating this cost.
Fifth, traditional tunneling has *massive* personnel costs. TBC is focused heavily on automating nearly everything - even the navigation of the TBMs (regardless of changes in strata). This will leave costs overwhelmingly as capital.
Sixth, TBC plans to *mass produce its standardized TBMs in a factory setting* - thus heavily slashing the capital costs.

Seventh, TBC is even focused on nearly eliminating the costs to start and stop new tunnels. While normally one has to dig deep pits and lower the TBM in, ...
TBC's latest design involves angled cradle - carried and set down by a semi truck, with the TBM in it - allowing the TBM to start boring straight from it, diving, then resurfacing at the exit (porpoising), straight onto an exit cradle.
In terms of system designs, while subways are bottlenecked by having small numbers of large lines and a linear flow pattern, TBC's Loop is structured like a highway, with onramps, offramps, lanes of different speeds, etc. The accel / decel of one vehicle does not slow others.
And, of course, having many routes allows for far more direct travel, with numerous smaller stations, far closer to the desired start and end point of the journey.

Is TBC "there" already? Of course not; it takes years to decades to radically transform any given type of...
... technology. But the simple fact is that there's been very little innovation in tunnel boring in the past decades, as there's been very little competition. I encourage anyone to read the scientific literature on the topic - the answer to any questions on "how fast could one...
do X, Y, and Z?" is always along the lines of, "Probably far faster than we do so today, but we really don't know how fast, because nobody has tried.

Well, guess what. Somebody is now.

Like *all* technologies, you start out small and simple. TBC started with Godot, a...
... bog-standard TBM. They've been steadily modifying it to test new technologies; what's now boring in Vegas is "Godot+", a heavily modified version. Their most advanced one (Prufrock) just started testing in the desert outside Adelanto. This from-scratch TBM will be the...
... prototype for mass-production of future TBMs at TBC. In much the same way, Vegas is a small, low-capacity, simplified testbed for what will eventually become a full-fledged Loop system.

Want to be dubious about TBC's prospects? By all means, go right ahead!
But what's concern-trolling BS is pretending that because you don't believe it, TBC *isn't actually working on public mass transit*. That absolutely ***IS*** their goal, and they're working to revolutionize it.

So by all means, be dubious, but don't spread BS."

Your "subways" "Capsules" "trains" and my vision of ordinary Teslas driving through tunnels at high speeds got me thinking of the inherent inefficiency of any large heavy carriage just for people to ride in.

There ought to be a way to minimize the carraige in a bit more Futurama-ish manner.

 

[dakh]

MarketWatch: It's over!
TSLA: What? Over? Did you say 'over'? Nothing is over until we decide it is!

View attachment 578314

If I remember right, this was timed for the morning dip. Pretty obvious "paid advertising".

 

[StealthP3D]

LOL - I doubt Larry Kudlow is receptive to "tax the rich" arguments - regardless of where they come from.

Larry Kudlow, age 73 years, net worth ~25M, said his wife, an artist (painter), applied for a loan from the Federal Paycheck Protection Program and had a really easy time getting the money.

 

[Knightowl]

Can't believe my ears... Wilfred Frost on CNBC asks Larry Kudlow "Elon Musk has made so much extra wealth recently, would you consider a capital gains tax to address the difference between the haves and the have nots?"

(I'm as leftie as they come, let's get that out of the way. All about redistributing wealth under normal circumstances, but not Elon's, not after we just had the joint-record-hottest day ever recorded.)

However, since CNBC are bereft of any way to attack Tesla's performance as a company, they are trying to get Elon's 20% share of TSLA to become an issue. There's no way Elon can pay anything to reduce that wealth, he would have to sell stock in some company if that craziness were to become law. Which could be the hopes for shorts that are still around. CNBC repeatedly mentions Elon Musk's wealth these days and talks about what "position in the table" he is in, as if this is something Elon is focusing on. (LOL could not be further from the truth) Are they trying to badmouth billionaires and somehow cause that to become a problem for Elon?

This isn't Headline News or USA Today. CNBC should KNOW MORE about the stock market business, and personal wealth, than anyone. It's their business. They should already know that Elon takes zero salary from Tesla and TSLA would fall if Elon tried to turn his stockholdings into money. So the calculation of "stockholding X today's stock price" doesn't even work, since the price falls as you sell it. Elon has said many times he has no plans to sell TSLA any time soon. And finally... Elon has done nothing personally to make TSLA go up... except his work at Tesla. TSLA has been climbing because stock investors are buying it. Other people. They are all increasing their wealth. Why are CNBC focusing on Elon Musk? 80% of Tesla is owned by other people and they are also getting very wealthy.

Atlas Shrugged will become reality then.

 

[wipster]

A lot of them actually. Here's a hint...the big white dead one in the middle of the little clearing is exactly where our living room is going to sit.

TSLA enables the little wins in our lives. And these days, the little wins are everything.

Dan

Great to hear from you Dan! Glad things are going well and let's keep winning, little by little, bit by bit!

 

[graphilwar]

You know we Asians just do it once to have a kid right? And if the kid doesn't become a doctor, then maybe we go for a second round.

Dad is that you

Singuy mentioned it in this thread that boring company is already 10x faster now than their first model:


In time I believe they will be able to lay down a network of tunnels that will exponentially increase the throughput of vehicular traffic within and between cities. a 1.5 hr commute from the valley area of Los Angeles to downtown LA could be reduced to 10 min. This is achievable only with FSD enabled Tesla vehicles.

Once this is achieved the bottom line for Tesla in my mind is simple: purchasing a Tesla is the only option for commuters. In fact I believe this will open up areas of real estate development that previously were "too far" from city centers. This will bridge the gap between affordable housing and job sites.

Another area I see this affecting Tesla is it will result in not just a high capacity Tesla vehicle to transport 8+ passengers, but a semi variant that will fit in the tunnels. At up to 150mph and convoy-capable Tesla logistics will be the name of the game to move products all around the world.

Off topic: Boring company initially mentioned skates would be used, but later they said Tesla's with additional attachments installed would be used. Now it seems FSD Tesla's will be able to handle the tunnels unaided by additional attachments.

Throughout this people threw their arms up in the air and with the constant changes they saw this as proof the concept would fail. I laughed to myself because this is Boring company simply doing what Elon does best: innovate and fail forward.

Tl;Dr: boring company will further drive demand for Tesla vehicles and unlock a high capacity vehicle and a tunnel-capable semi variant for logistics transportation.

Actually, she has taken it upon her to fight desinformation and lies on Twitter, so the frequency and depth of information of her tweets these days are fenomenal.. More so I think then her posts here, because here she would be preaching to the choir.. On Twitter it's mostly morons and teslaq'rs that she's replying to.. These guys really deserve the whipping they're getting from her..

For example:
https://twitter.com/enn_nafnlaus/status/1295317060877266945?s=21
"1/Recently, there's been another surge of "Elon Musk is Trying to Kill Public Transit" on Twitter (thanks, @doctorow!). Pointing out that Musk *literally runs a public transit company* (@boringcompany) just brings us to the "volumes are too low, so it can't work" line.

Pop quiz:
1) Station A has 720-person subway every 180 seconds. Station B has 20-person capsules, loaded in parallel, leave every 5 seconds. Which has more capacity?

2) Station A has 3x the capacity of Station B - but passengers on trains from A average going to two intermediary...
... stations before reaching their destination (3 total), while passengers in capsules at Station B go directly to their destinations. Which has more capacity?

3) City A spends $1B on stations and connecting lines at $1B each. City B spends $1B on 1/10th capacity stations and...
connecting lines at $100M each. Which gets more capacity?

ANSWERS:

1) They're the same
2) They're the same
3) They're bloody the same

Getting the picture? Public is not about "how many people you can fit onto a train at once"; it's about how much money you have to spend...
... per unit passenger capacity (we'll set aside all issues of comfort and convenience for now). Which means that *you cannot eliminate departure rates, how direct routes are, and construction costs from the picture*; they're an integral part.

So how what about Boring Company?
First off, Boring Company is Personal Rapid Transit:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_…

While this is normally focused on for comfort and convenience, it's also about capacity: everyone goes directly to their destination; nobody heads in the wrong direction.
Secondly, it's focused on *radical* cost reductions for tunneling, particular to its design elements.

First off, the tunnels are *small*. Tunneling costs are roughly proportional to the diameter squared, so this matters a *lot*.

Secondly, the tunnels are EV-only, *including...
... in the boring stage***. There are *never* any oxygen-gulping diesel exhaust-belching devices in the tunnel - even mining equipment. This allows them to avoid having to build expensive high-capacity exhaust ventilation systems, and focus only on humans and fire suppression.
Third, the average TBM spends the vast majority of its time stationary - for disc swapping, for casing (and then relocating its thrust structure to the end of the new casing, and a while host of other things). TBC is redesigning TBMs to have near-100% uptime.
Fourth, another huge cost beyond exhaust is laying the extremely high power cabling for the TBMs. TBC is focused on using hot-swapped battery packs (e.g. charged outside the tunnel), entirely eliminating this cost.
Fifth, traditional tunneling has *massive* personnel costs. TBC is focused heavily on automating nearly everything - even the navigation of the TBMs (regardless of changes in strata). This will leave costs overwhelmingly as capital.
Sixth, TBC plans to *mass produce its standardized TBMs in a factory setting* - thus heavily slashing the capital costs.

Seventh, TBC is even focused on nearly eliminating the costs to start and stop new tunnels. While normally one has to dig deep pits and lower the TBM in, ...
TBC's latest design involves angled cradle - carried and set down by a semi truck, with the TBM in it - allowing the TBM to start boring straight from it, diving, then resurfacing at the exit (porpoising), straight onto an exit cradle.
In terms of system designs, while subways are bottlenecked by having small numbers of large lines and a linear flow pattern, TBC's Loop is structured like a highway, with onramps, offramps, lanes of different speeds, etc. The accel / decel of one vehicle does not slow others.
And, of course, having many routes allows for far more direct travel, with numerous smaller stations, far closer to the desired start and end point of the journey.

Is TBC "there" already? Of course not; it takes years to decades to radically transform any given type of...
... technology. But the simple fact is that there's been very little innovation in tunnel boring in the past decades, as there's been very little competition. I encourage anyone to read the scientific literature on the topic - the answer to any questions on "how fast could one...
do X, Y, and Z?" is always along the lines of, "Probably far faster than we do so today, but we really don't know how fast, because nobody has tried.

Well, guess what. Somebody is now.

Like *all* technologies, you start out small and simple. TBC started with Godot, a...
... bog-standard TBM. They've been steadily modifying it to test new technologies; what's now boring in Vegas is "Godot+", a heavily modified version. Their most advanced one (Prufrock) just started testing in the desert outside Adelanto. This from-scratch TBM will be the...
... prototype for mass-production of future TBMs at TBC. In much the same way, Vegas is a small, low-capacity, simplified testbed for what will eventually become a full-fledged Loop system.

Want to be dubious about TBC's prospects? By all means, go right ahead!
But what's concern-trolling BS is pretending that because you don't believe it, TBC *isn't actually working on public mass transit*. That absolutely ***IS*** their goal, and they're working to revolutionize it.

So by all means, be dubious, but don't spread BS."

Thanks for this excellent post.

I had been curious about Boring Company, and had been internally speculating about how it is strategically adjacent to Tesla (and technically all EVs...but really just Tesla, ha!) given how the tunnels are designed to be safe for EV use...and really, to be honest, autonomous EVs which I think Tesla will win the race for.

I already love the fact that EVs have that decal in California that allow for HOV lane access. A Boring Company gunnel would be the ultimate cheat code to beat LA/Orange County traffic.

At that point it would be a super no-brainer to get a Tesla, if it gives you the option to travel on surface and sub-surface roads.

 

[Tim S]

So, yeah... As I mentioned yesterday, any calls with "weird" post-splitterino strikes could be tricky to trade. To this effect I've been trying to roll my 4x 16/10 c1820's (becomes $364) to something "normal". Given that I don't have a "roll" feature at my broker, this was a matter of trying to time a sell at a local top and rebuy soon afterwards.

Managed to offload those c1820's around $1908, then had trouble with the internet connection (rural France) and missed the next dip to buy back in on $1800, SP kept rising. Then the Fed came to my rescue and sorted it out for me, so now I have 4x 16/10 c1800's for the same premium

Now to do the same with my single 16/10 c1380 - bit of a pain doing this, TBH, and the last thing I want is to be in cash overnight, who knows what may happen after-hours...

Now she's bouncing pretty good, $1897 close anyone?

I thought about closing this one, but then I realized it will be in high demand after the split

 

[StealthP3D]

Great to hear from you Dan! Glad things are going well and let's keep winning, little by little, bit by bit!

I'm confused. My brokerage account says it's down by -0.05%. And the typeface is colored black.

What's up with that?

 

[UncaNed]

Yes - it's a standard option now.

It's a WHAT???

 

[ggr]

Tesla's entire purpose is to improve the environment and humanity's situation. I suggest a 'Yes' vote even if it does end up costing us a little bit of money.

Tesla already puts out a sustainability report every year, which includes much of what this vote would ask for. My belief is that the matter is presented by people who are proxies for the oil/auto industries, in order to hurt Tesla. I can't prove it but I do believe it. I voted NO.