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

[Dutchie]

Just talked to my sales advisor at local Tesla store. He told me that he bought a Model X. Not surprisingly with all the stock employees get as renumeration. I think the whole unionizing thing has been silenced also when employees look at their latest share portfolio.

 

[dc_h]

Just found this via reddit, looks like Moss Landing MegaPack site is 70-80% done. Wonder if they might finish this before the end of the year which might give some extra revenue for Q4... Originally was supposed to come online in 2021.

I think it’s due to be done end of Q1 or Q2.

 

[LTC_RRR]

If taxes on unrealized gains ever becomes a thing, we are all so hosed...

You're not too far off - think "wealth tax"!

 

[bkp_duke]

Doing my part for Q4 delivery numbers. FIL just pulled the trigger on a 2021 MS LR+. Going to pick it up this afternoon.

 

[dc_h]

Agree with this. A pile of cash as large as $100 million earns a pretty penny, and it was pointed out earlier it is significantly large enough that they may have determined they wanted to wait for Q1 '21 before releasing it. As a subcontractor in construction, I was too familiar with clients holding their payments back an extra 30 days, either to earn interest or to avoid paying it on a loan (interest isn't charged until funds are withdrawn from the loan). On big projects, it's worth it to the client to receive a little stink eye for the gain.

If that puts Tesla over 20 billion in the bank, I’d hold the cash too. I probably would anyhow, cash flow is king.

 

[Mich]

Just talked to my sales advisor at local Tesla store. He told me that he bought a Model X. Not surprisingly with all the stock employees get as renumeration. I think the whole unionizing thing has been silenced also when employees look at their latest share portfolio.

Is there a place where I can find information on how much stock which type of employee gets? I just have no idea how much a sales rep or a body shop worker gets.

 

[hobbes]

First parts of IDRA Giga Casting machine delivered to GF Berlin:

https://twitter.com/tobilindh/status/1340692132412178433

 

[StealthP3D]

You live in Phuket? I visited once, and not sure I'd get any sleep let alone sleep in on the inclusion event. Would love to join you. Beaches are very nice too. Maybe if I run away someday...

Can't you just say, here I come?

 

[bkp_duke]

Is there a place where I can find information on how much stock which type of employee gets? I just have no idea how much a sales rep or a body shop worker gets.

Stock options and compensation are considered confidential information between the employee and employer. You will not find this published anywhere, and very likely will not find any employees that will give you this info either.

 

[generalenthu]

We might even run up into the $700's from here. I wouldn't bet on it but it's definitely not an outside probability.

Agree it's easy to beat benchmark by buying below 695, FOMO if it starts going above for the active managers. Greed and fear playing in our favor and historical patterns indicate the same with several large inclusions continuing to run after inclusion.

Looking near term, it looks like SPY has not updated it's holdings indicating the changes on 12/18, which is highly unusual, because state street apparently updates pretty much right after close. Interesting implications there.

And of course there is the assumption that trading at the cross and after hours is just about enough to fulfill index demand. So they have no more left to buy.

This makes a huge assumption that none of the active managers acquired shares at the cross to remain benchmark neutral. That's very unlikely to be the case.

For those following the back and forth between fact checking and Gary on twitter, I am again leaning towards FC being right that the index funds and closet indexers are not done buying.

Anyways, the drama / action never ends.

 

[Silent Ludicrosy]

Agree it's easy to beat benchmark by buying below 695, FOMO if it starts going above for the active managers. Greed and fear playing in our favor and historical patterns indicate the same with several large inclusions continuing to run after inclusion.

Looking near term, it looks like SPY has not updated it's holdings indicating the changes on 12/18, which is highly unusual, because state street apparently updates pretty much right after close. Interesting implications there.

And of course there is the assumption that trading at the cross and after hours is just about enough to fulfill index demand. So they have no more left to buy.

This makes a huge assumption that none of the active managers acquired shares at the cross to remain benchmark neutral. That's very unlikely to be the case.

For those following the back and forth between fact checking and Gary on twitter, I am again leaning towards FC being right that the index funds and closet indexers are not done buying.

Anyways, the drama / action never ends.

Over the past week, SPY had been updating holdings data about 12 hours after market close. Maybe they don’t update on the weekend?

 

[Prunesquallor]

You're not too far off - think "wealth tax"!

Unrealized gains tax is a real thing inside some congresscritters' heads. From MarketWatch:

This plan to force the wealthy to pay yearly capital gains taxes won’t solve the real problem
Taxes on capital gains in the U.S. are currently collected only when gains are booked through sales or other realization events. This limitation has been criticized by liberal politicians such as Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, for allowing wealthy taxpayers to "pay what they want, when they want and sometimes nothing at all."

For tradable assets, the Wyden proposal would impose a “pay-as-you-go” tax on unrealized capital gains, at the same rate (37% to 40% ) as ordinary income, presumably at the end of the calendar year.

 

[LiveLong&Profit]

That analysis is so far off the mark I'm flabbergasted anyone would suggest it!

Elon is probably the person that decided it would play to their advantage not to pay it! While we don't know enough to ascertain exactly what happened here, I have enough sense to know that things are not always as straightforward as they appear and dealing with government agencies is a learned art and often counter-intuitive.

Look how well he handled the Alameda County shut down orders! This played very strongly to Tesla's weakest demographic, right-wing conservatives, at a time when their auto production was expanding rapidly with the Shanghai production coming on-line replacing North American production. Not only did he get the plant up and running in record time while simultaneously showng right-wing conservatives what he was made of, the local Health Department had to slink off with their tail between their legs. It was sheer brilliance.

The astonishing success of Tesla would simply not be possible if Elon didn't have a knack for placing very talented and dedicated people under him. And common sense tells us that a $100 million dollar security deposit would certainly be run by Elon before being paid. So to suggest it wasn't paid because his deputies are "not the sharpest knives in the drawer" is to say your analysis doesn't make any sense and won't be trusted by anyone with a lick of good sense. This has "Elon" written all over it.

Agree.
Tesla is doing so much, so well, so fast. Sprinkle in a few errors here and there - that makes them more relatable.
Less envied - less feared - less hated.

 

[ZeApelido]

This is an interesting comment. I have a friend who does wealth management as his job. Last 2 weeks he has lashed out on me for comments that I’ve made that I really don’t think I was out of line. I tell others what happened and they think he has over reacted. I’ve thought about dropping him as a friend before because of his temper. The issue is he is part of my friend group and we all hangout together. I’m definitely going to limit my interaction with him. He knows I’ve done well with Tesla and I wonder if something subconscious going on there.

Sorry for the kind of off topic.

What is a "friend"?

 

[Runarbt]

The opening price on January 2nd., 2020, was $84.90, so we're exiting the "terrible" year of 2020 with ~8x that.

I can't possibly imagine how much more "epic" 2021 could be, but I'm sure looking forward to it!

Oh, 2021 will be better. ;-) Way better.

At least the fundamentals:

4 factories up and running, with casting machines, structral battery packs, FSD, first robotaxies maybe.. a few new factories announced? Roadrunner demo factory surpassing the first Gigafactory in production? Semi og Cybertruck on the road... And so on.

 

[Etna]

Weekends are so boring, I cannot stand it anymore.

At least I managed to get some work done today.

 

[Highway2Heel]

It appears a deal has been struck...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2020/12/20/stimulus-congress/

 

[Gabos]

For those following the back and forth between fact checking and Gary on twitter, I am again leaning towards FC being right that the index funds and closet indexers are not done buying.

Anyways, the drama / action never ends.

I've been thinking about it a lot over the weekend and think the index funds are actually mostly done with buying.
The reason is that the reported closing cross volume is 69M shares (paired volume was 60M a second before the close, which could be used instead for not a huge difference in outcome; I think @saniflash posted a video of the closing cross earlier) and the AH volume was around 47M shares with many large orders (as @Artful Dodger pointed out in a screenshot yesterday I believe).

That gives us 107-116M shares, indexers needed around 113M (pes Rob Mauer).
Sure, some of the volume is probably just noise, but I think most of it went to the index funds.

Also, if there are 10-20M more shares needed, given the AH price action and the way SP reacted to the closing cross demand, they will probably be purchased through the opening cross without moving the needle too much.

I'm afraid FC might let him/herself a bit loose this time imposing own wishes into thought process.

I'd love to see the price spike higher myself and hope I'm really wrong, but not counting on it.
Would be great to see someone report on the opening cross Monday, livestream would be best

 

[traxila]

Tax selling season may change into tax buying season just after the new year... many called shares will likely be purchased early next year as LT investors make tax based decisions... ITM Tesla calls like this...

ITM Tesla Calls like this?

 

[Mike Smith]

I need to point out an important incorrect claim from (the usually accurate) Fact Checking on twitter. In these two tweets he claims that active S&P trackers can beat the index by buying TSLA anywhere below $695.

https://twitter.com/truth_tesla/status/1340623860652240897
https://twitter.com/truth_tesla/status/1340624440934211584

'I.e. at the end of 2020 I expect active funds to gladly (buy) up any TSLA dip or correction offered by shorts: $695 is the entry price of passive index funds, buying up to 1.67% TSLA below this price instantly improves the performance of active funds compared to passive funds.
For example, if active funds buy at ~$680 instead of $695 that's an instant 2 basis points improvement compared to the benchmark already.'

This is incorrect. They would beat the S&P only if they buy TSLA at a discount relative to the S&P itself, not relative to $695.

Let's say for simplicity that the active fund in question is currently mirrored perfectly to the S&P, just without TSLA. If they buy TSLA at $680 (down 2% from $695), but the S&P is also down 2%, they haven't beaten the S&P at all since they had to sell an equal portion of all their other holdings on that 2% decline in order to buy the TSLA shares.