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

[tivoboy]

I have a buy in for 10 at 1030. Shoulda placed earlier, but something tells me this could still hit. I HOPE IT DOESN'T.
Debated a cheap call, chickened out when I saw the yield etc... TSLA gets a beating all the way into the EC I think.

“You get a car, and YOU get a car and …”

 

[canoemore]

I don't know anything about technical analysis, but just looking at the chart it seems like the price is chained to a line that intersects the 2-year trend line sometime in mid-February. The P/D beat looks like it was a minor inconvenience along the way for these delightful folks. That would put the price at ~950-ish at the intersection. I hope I'm just being stupid. Any thoughts from people much more knowledgeable than me?

 

[Drax7]

That's actually flawed logic for a couple reasons.

A) - The growth in revenue/deliveries and profits are not the same. Tesla is growing earnings exponentially faster than revenue. There's still more operating margin to realize as both Fremont and Shanghai continue their expansion. Then consider the fact that Tesla is riding a long cost curve down in components combined with larger economies of scale, will mean more expansion to come in gross margin. When you're projecting out 2-3 years, gross margins and operating margins can drastically change the outcome of valuation and P/E metrics

b) - In 2024, Tesla will likely do more like 3.2-3.5 million deliveries. Then combine the odds that Energy scale as well as higher ASP vehicles such as the Cybtruck and Semi, which all of which will drive revenue higher than extrapolating Q4's revenue out annually for 2024.

So summary, you're being very conservative

I am very aware of the economy of scale points.
I kept it simplistic just to illustrate how cheaply tesla is priced
in the 1000 dollar range.

 

[navguy12]

There is no way the “Honda Odyssey owner” has ever driven a Tesla. It’s a troll dissing on Tesla and trying to add credibility by pretending to be a Tesla owner. It’s an old debating tactic

The comments sections on news sites, Reddit, seeking alpha, and YouTube are so often a cesspool of bias, lies, hatred, and idiocy that I make a conscious effort not to peek. But when I do, it makes me appreciate this forum even more, warts and all.

His description of the ”smart phone as key” issues sounded authentic to me. It took about a year before my TM3 operated in accordance with manufacturer specifications regarding the whole pairing the phone to the car.

 

[Causalien]

I've just started helping my parents w/ options for income since Q4 of last year. There's risk a lot of risk and time involved and while it can be lucrative, I've questioned whether I want to risk my parents savings on being wiped out by extreme volatility that goes against us. My personal account is 100% long TSLA stock, so the general not advice on the options thread is to no risk what you're not afraid to lose. Nothing wrong with staying long in stock.

ya I wouldn't put retirement fund on options

 

[thesmokingman]

ya I wouldn't put retirement fund on options

This, you don't play that type of risk unless you can afford to lose it.

 

[tivoboy]

ya I wouldn't put retirement fund on options

but I would strategically sell covered calls in those accounts.. pick what you are okay with parting with as a percentage of the overall managed portfolio assets, since its tax advantaged, if they get called you can just re=buy if you like with the available funds. pick and chose what event horizon you are targeting, earnings, fed announcements, etc.. with a decent CC strategy you should be able to easily boost overall portfolio performance by 4-6% a year nominal just by selling against ~20% of the portfolio and targeting 60-90 days periods.. so less work, LESS overall return but a nice way to measurably bump return

 

[Gigapress]

back of the envelope exercise

On 300,000 plus deliveries this quarter tesla generates about $3 billion profit.

On 3 million yearly deliveries in 2024 that should equate with $30 billion profit,
assuming all else remains constant. (This number does not include fsd )

30 billion profits implies a forward p/e in the low 30s.
(Apples p/e is currently about 30ish.)

It's even better than that because of economies of scale.

Operating expenses have been around $1.7 Billion per quarter. Gross profit will be around $5 B in Q4 FY '21. So Opex is eating up 34% of the gross profit today.

If we conservatively hold average selling price and gross margin constant at $55k and 31% or so, that's $51 B in gross profit on 3 million cars.

Even if OpEx has blown up by 2024 to $3 billion per quarter, that's $12 B per year. 12/51= 23%, down from 34%, for a total EBIT of $39 B.

If OpEx is, more realistically, $10 B per year in 2024, that's 20% and EBIT of $42 B.

But they'll still be furiously growing. Just by growing this same production $55k ASP cars at 31% margin each, through to 5 million vehicles in 2025, this same math yields around $70 B in profit. That's $30B of earnings growth IN ONE YEAR.

 

[Accident]

Someone ring the bell please.

 

[hoang51]

At this point more the sub $1000 level

I have now moved my 1030 level of weak - med support to no support, and moved my first support level down to 1010. Not a big diff for your BO though, but that 1010 is also pretty weak, then my next level shows 970 (at which point I’D start to accumulate with 100-200 repurchase saving 200-300 for lower 9XX levels.

Wished I saw this clearer before buying some at slightly above $1050 on average. I was hoping for a higher bounce today to unload some and rebuy, but the stock never went past $1080. I'm holding out to buy more when it bottoms out, looking at around $900-$940ish before it tries to reverse before earnings.

 

[Nocturnal]

From Bloomberg "Number of stocks down more than 50% from highs is at a record level." 40% of NASDAQ stocks! I think this might be overdone.

Number of Nasdaq Stocks Down 50% or More Is Almost at a Record

A near-record number of tech stocks have plunged by some 50% in an echo of the dot-com crash.

www.bloomberg.com

 

[CyberDutchie]

I get it, higher interest rates means higher cost of borrowing so lower future profits especially for cash-strapped startups. Luckily Tesla is swimming in cash with very little debt obligations. I feel bad for the likes of Lucid.

Wait, what???

LCID up 8% while TSLA down 5% today, yeah, that makes sense NOT.

 

[Gigapress]

ya I wouldn't put retirement fund on options

That's what I'm doing because I don't trigger capital gains tax in my retirement accounts, so for basic share HODLing that's in my brokerage account and all options activity in in tax sheltered accounts.

 

[M|S|M MYP]

20 more at $1015....all dry powder used up.

 

[StarFoxisDown!]

Which is so weird after blow out reports. Oh well, let them play with fire. Earnings will most likely cause a gamma squeeze again, not to mention Elon has like 2B sitting around. He could easily burn the shorts just to toy with them with a 100M buy in for the memes.

The entire year of 2021 was all about Wall St ignoring Tesla's actual earnings so I guess we shouldn't be that surprised. Someone posted after this that it seems like Wall St is intent on TSLA sticking to it's 2 year trend line. As irrational as it is, I could see it. We've seen lack volume all throughout 2021, even when data/numbers came out that has big impacts on Tesla's future valuation. I guess most of the buying volume is just unwilling to use their brain to calculate actual earnings and instead, feel that they should be able to buy into TSLA at a lower price.

Something's going to have to give though ........Tesla is improving earnings a rapid pace that greatly outpaces the 2 year trend line. If TSLA sticks to it's 2 year trend line and Tesla does EPS of $15 like we all think they will for 2022, it would mean TSLA's Forward P/E would drop into extreme value by Q3/Q4 of this year. And then there's nowhere for the stock to go but up. It would have to go up at that point %-wise as the same amount that earnings increase, quarter after quarter.....which we all know Tesla has a clear runway of about 12-16 straight quarters of earnings expansion, some of those quarters are going to be very rapid earnings growth.

Wall St loves volatility and I can't see them making TSLA THAT predictable. Hedges funds love riding TSLA volatility up and down. MM's love the spread of options due to that volatility. Hard for me to see them losing their bread n butter because they hold the stock down too much and for too long which creates non-stop upward pressure due to Tesla's execution.

.......Maybe they're just dumb enough to actually not believe Tesla will post earnings of $15 even though the math is staring them in the face.

 

[saniflash]

We like to joke about it but you guys do understand that Elon probably doesn’t want the stock price to increase as quickly as y’all do, right? It just makes it harder/less rewarding for employees to get in, with the upside being shareholders get to giggle at their net worth? I mean which side of that equation do you think Elon falls on?

So yes, there’s a lot Elon could do to support or even pump the stock price, but he won’t, beyond what Tesla needs to reveal as it makes progress on the mission. Unless the shorts get really out of control and need a taming and/or the market undervalues Tesla to an insulting degree.

I recommend everyone check out @farzyness latest video, where he walks through the employee stock purchase plan in practical terms. The most important takeaway which is often lost on a lot of shareholders (we tend to focus on the engineering talent and innovation) is that the bulk of Tesla’s workforce is relatively lower wage…and what makes Tesla unique is that the lower wage folks get a share of Tesla’s success (as they should). This is vitally important and likely to be Elon’s only concern with respect to the share price, and as Farzad points out, will be the main driver of splits moving forward.

1000% agree and I believe this aspect is hugely underappreciated in the TSLA investor community. Every time the share price got ahead of itself, Elon brought it down through various means. He definitely does not want it to take off big time for the reasons laid out in this post, plus the fact that too high a stock price reduces the focus of the employees since it becomes the #1 talking point at every corner. not good for culture.

His interest is likely more in a low stock price (but not too low to demotivate employees) than a high one.

 

[navguy12]

I rather like the new UI (ducks). Seems like a lot of inputs are now context sensitive and don’t clutter up the driving display when not needed (e.g., Homelink, Bluetooth, sentry, profiles, WiFi).

I miss the ability to have a daily trip odometer always showing. The missing LTE symbol is problematic because I routinely drive in an area where that service is sketchy at best. The sentry mode icon used to prompt me to shut it off when visiting the inlaws. I wish we could have the option of having some of those back…and like back in V8, have the est %SOC at nav system destination always showing next to active ETA.

 

[lafrisbee]

I don't like being an ant. This stock Market thing is not hard to understand. It is impossible. Whether $1200 or $1000 I can't see anyone understanding or explaining the facts of the company proving the stock price is an honest price.
TSLA must be a dairy cow... no calf, just giving milk.

 

[tivoboy]

I miss the ability to have a daily trip odometer always showing. The missing LTE symbol is problematic because I routinely drive in an area where that service is sketchy at best. The sentry mode icon used to prompt me to shut it off when visiting the inlaws. I wish we could have the option of having some of those back…and like back in V8, have the est %SOC at nav system destination always showing next to active ETA.

I miss the trip cards and the easy access to tire pressure card. In the past, voice command would get you quickly to the tire pressure card but I’m not sure if it’s there in V11, I haven’t installed it yet since I’ve been traveling and I KNOW it’s going to take some learning for the SO.

 

[Cape Coddess]

That's it.. I'm jumping back in. A one lot buy ladder from $950 to $880. If they hit fine, if they don't fine.