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

[WattsHappening]

The joy's of not reading the forum for a few days haha. Here we go!

Great to know!

Will keep up with it on background, thanks dl003.

Perhaps this is a situation where complacency breeds comfort, but I consider Tesla as a safe investment at this point. Even if we go into recession and the P/E gets compressed, eventually we'll come out of it.

My preferred exit point is around $3000/share. I think based on your reply, I'll simply continue to hold and forget about covered calls until $3000/share is closer to reality, so if I ended up getting called on the shares, I wouldn't care so much.

Great idea. I like this.

See @JSML reply above. I think I will try this once we get closer to my exit strategy, in the event I'd be called it wouldn't be the end of the world. In the meantime I can do less risky covered calls in some other, cheaper stock.

To be honest my main purpose for the covered calls was to simply pay off my $8000 remaining bill on a garage I built, and the remaining $27,000 on my Model 3. Even if it took a year or two years using covered calls on my 1500 shares I'd consider that a massive win. But based on my replies to others I suspect it's probably wise to wait until I get closer to my end-game goal of $3000/share, so if I end up having to sell, no big deal.

Thanks @jerry33, I feel less alone now haha. Not many people to talk to in my same position, and this rabbit hole of options discovery has had me terrified and feeling alone.


Thanks for reaffirming the majority of advice I've received thus far. I will take this advice, and not risk/gamble with my 1500 shares until I get closer to my exit position around $3000/share on my 1500 stocks.

Yeah I've been pretty disciplined. Not selling my 1500 shares for 5 years, and the purpose of the options game was to pay off small annoying bills such as the last of a $8000 garage loan and the rest of my Model 3. Didn't really want to go nuts taking massive gambles. But even my limited strategy is a gamble in it's own right so likely will simply hold off until I get closer to my exit position of $3000/share before taking any new risk.

Thanks all. Here's to a new week in $TSLA.

Sounds like you have a plan.

One other consideration I haven’t seen mentioned. We are months away from a significant stock split. 5 for 1 or 10 for 1, you are going to have a lot more shares upon which you can write covered calls. It will be much easier to ease into this after the split. Writing a $600 call for 100 shares when you own 7,500 shares is going to leave you less exposed.

 

[Ohmster]

Additional tailwinds…..

Giant Pension Bought Tesla, Pfizer, and Starbucks Stock. It Sold Nike.

STRS Ohio increased investments in EV maker Tesla, vaccine giant Pfizer, and cafe chain Starbucks, and cut holdings in apparel maker Nike in the first quarter.

www.barrons.com

 

[new_sneakers]

On my radar this week

• FSD Beta 10.12, due this coming week, said by Elon to be a big one, with improvements in heavy traffic and tricky left turns
• Shanghai production re-ramp
• Transporting Shanghai cars to Europe, and Australia/NZ by quarter’s end, or if “the wave” will go away
• Made-in-Berlin-Brandenburg deliveries and the 2170 packs that enable this
• Made-in-Austin deliveries
• Analyst notes following the 10Q release

Under the radar

• 4680 production progress
• Announcements following from US federal government talks with Elon and other carmakers, relating to charging plans or standards
• Lithium mining “help” for the industry, as alluded to by Elon on the Q1 call
• Moody’s upgrading Tesla’s debt, now that the 10Q has been released (to be clear, I don’t expect this)

 

[Skryll]

I think it's way too early to tell how good Cybertruck will be and how it compares to Rivian. It has been so long since it was unveiled that it's hard to tell what the final product is really going to be. The specs have changed and we don't really know the price.

I expect it to be an incredible, ground-breaking vehicle. But we really don't know. Elon was saying that they were working to get the costs down. Who knows what tradeoffs will need to be made?

Rivian is collecting expertise in off roading, and they have lots to learn still. I wonder if Tesla will have a titanium shield on the bottom that is more solid than what Underneath the Rivian after some off road scrapes shows ?

 

[thesmokingman]

Additional tailwinds…..

Giant Pension Bought Tesla, Pfizer, and Starbucks Stock. It Sold Nike.

STRS Ohio increased investments in EV maker Tesla, vaccine giant Pfizer, and cafe chain Starbucks, and cut holdings in apparel maker Nike in the first quarter.

www.barrons.com

Great timing by the pension. They got in while its low, the gestation of the current affairs, and before the major ramp of the two new giga factories.

 

[CyberDutchie]

I have an old 2014 Model S, which had a fairly recent door-handle replacement, when it got the Model X style hardware which does the auto-open when you approach the car with fob in pocket. So I have lived with the old manual system for years and recently experiencing this wonder automation, and I can tell you I HATE it with a passion!
It annoys me every day when it opens the door when I just walk by the car in the garage with NO intention to get into the car.
A few times it opened the door in a parking lot when I stepped back closer to the car after walking away resulting in the door remaining open (not just unlocked) while I went into a store and only noticed the open door when I returned. It turned me into paranoid, I have to double and triple check that the door is closed when I leave the car behind in public place and it forces me to avoid walking close to my car in the garage if I do not want to drive it -- or make sure to take my fob out of my pocket if I need to do something in the garage. It is far more of a bother than a convenience!

I’ve had my X for over 6 years and the self presenting doors are my single most appreciated feature. It senses my intention when I move toward the driver side, opening the door for me at the exact right time and with the exact amount of space.

It learns from the owner’s habits and behavior. Could it be it senses your resistance to this new technology and is just toying with you?

 

[CyberDutchie]

It was done by Tesla mobile/ranger service under extended warranty, because my original door handle was broken, could not open it. Not sure why they replaced it with the upgraded system, perhaps they had part shortage for the original version.

Obviously this is a total fabricated story, a Model S door retrofitted with Model X automatic door hardware (and software)? Haha, got to do better than this to fool anyone here, lol

 

[jeewee3000]

Just caught up with this thread and I would like to add one very basic tip about selling covered calls against shares: now is not the time. (at least for novices)

For lower risk and greater returns, one should only sell calls against shares:
- when the stock price is high;
- and when implied volatility (IV) is high.

This gets you way more bang for your buck. In layman's terms: sell a call on an uptrend, as close to ATH as possible, when volume has picked up greatly.

Nowadays we have neither high SP nor high IV, so IMO a terrible timing for selling long dated calls.

Also the CC-talk disregards a lot of the nuance in options trading that can be the difference between choosing a fitting or a suicidal options strategy at any given time. Option strategies are like tools on your belt and each tool is best used for a certain situation. So please don't take blind advice from anyone in this regard and get a feel for what's out there first before diving into the pool. It can indeed be helpful to paper trade or trade options on a more stable stock with a low stock price to dip your toes in to the pool, since there is huge difference in reading/talking about options versus actually having skin in the game and seeing position valuations fluctuate in ways you don't understand at first. Only those in the other thread that have been at it for at least a year develop a general intuition regarding options pricing and know better than most what to look for when making decisions.

I'll end the options talk after this post and can refer to the options selling thread for those interested, but since this thread has more traffic by veterans and novices alike, I wanted to make the above comments for those few smelling "free money" (which doesn't exist BTW, as @saniflash pointed out correctly. Higher returns always means you are taking on more risk. If you can't see the risk you haven't looked close enough and you should rethink what you are doing.).

Be safe out there. Enough fellow TMCers have been financially injured by losing sight of the main rule in options that is taped to some of our monitors: DON'T BE GREEDY!

Good luck to all, HODLers and traders alike.
(And yes, traders shouldn't complain when things go Texas Institute up, but that holds true for the HODLers as well on down days.)

 

[ThisStockGood]

Gary Black on this mornings 10-K/A filing:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1521072388733083649

 

[Usain]

That’s a hindsight comment. Nobody outside Tesla had any idea how close to bankruptcy they were during Model 3 ramp.

Elon is claiming that the SEC knew. He says the SEC was holding a gun to his baby's head. So if the SEC knew, surely there were others who had an idea that Tesla might not make it.

The original poster said Tesla was the least risky investment he ever had. I don't know when he started investing in Tesla. But if it was during the Model 3 ramp, then knowingly or not, he was taking a big risk.

If he's talking about Tesla today, then I agree. The risk is quite low.

 

[Singuy]

Gary Black on this mornings 10-K/A filing:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1521072388733083649

Wtf is a delay when no one knows when it will be in the first place? We know exact the same information about the stock split last Friday vs today...just that there will be one sometime in the future....

The only thing that is delayed is some sort of announcement today.

 

[mongo]

Wtf is a delay when no one knows when it will be in the first place? We know exact the same information about the stock split last Friday vs today...just that there will be one sometime in the future....

The only thing that is delayed is some sort of announcement today.

The earliest it could happen has been pushed back.
1. Set shareholder meeting date
2. Meeting and vote on more shares
3. Split (assuming 2 is successful)
Yeah, if they weren't planning the split till next year, it doesn't delay it. However, given they pre-announced that they were going to ask for shares to do a split, it's probably sooner, in which case this is likely a delay.

 

[chiller]

AFAIK Delaware law requires a shareholders meeting every 13 months, so it should be in November at the latest.

 

[2daMoon]

Maybe it is a 3D chess move? Those who would be negatively affected relax and keep doing what they do, then the AGM (stock vote/split date) is announced sooner than they will now be expecting.

Nah, they would never try to mislead the MMs, Shortzes, etc. would they?

 

[Singuy]

The earliest it could happen has been pushed back.
1. Set shareholder meeting date
2. Meeting and vote on more shares
3. Split (assuming 2 is successful)
Yeah, if they weren't planning the split till next year, it doesn't delay it. However, given they pre-announced that they were going to ask for shares to do a split, it's probably sooner, in which case this is likely a delay.

Was the earliest it could happen today?

 

[elasalle]

Tesla Giga Shanghai has resumed over 80% production

Tesla Giga Shanghai has resumed over 80% production along with several other companies, according to Chinese official Zhang Hongtao — the chief engineer of the Shanghai Economics and Information Technology Commission. China created a “whitelist” to support companies resuming production and...

www.teslarati.com

 

[Chenkers]

Gary Black on this mornings 10-K/A filing:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1521072388733083649

There was a big dip in pre-market after this came out, down as low as -2%.

I see this as shorts having a go to push the stock down in the absence of any news combined with this delay. There's also the Bloomberg piece claiming that a share price below $837 would prevent Elon collateralising his $12.5B margin loan for twitter. That kind of article just gives shorts a reason to make mischief.

My expectation would be that the 2022 proxy statement would update the amount of Elon's shares pledged and possibly show the previous pledge/margin loan had been removed after his 10% share sale. If this is the case then there's plenty of shares available to pledge for the twitter loan and they wouldn't be able to force the share price low enough to make a difference. Anyway I'll be glad to see the proxy statement finally released so that this issue along with the split information can send the shorts running for cover.

Edit: Todays 10-K/A filing actually shows Elon has 92.3M shares pledged on 12/31/20 (up from 88.3M). So for now the mischief continues. Hopefully Elon's recent share sales allows a restructure of these pledges so it can remove a potential overhang on the stock.

 

[mongo]

Was the earliest it could happen today?

??
1: meeting announcement
2: meeting/ vote
3: split

There is a fixed minimum timing between 1 and 2.
3 can only occur after 2.
Shifting 1 moves the earliest 3 can happen.
Today was the inital deadline for 1 to occur.
So 3 has been shifted from the (latest of the) earliest it could happen, but not necessarily from the planned date.

Tesla stuck in SEC guidance limbo...

 

[Singuy]

??
1: meeting announcement
2: meeting/ vote
3: split

There is a fixed minimum timing between 1 and 2.
3 can only occur after 2.
Shifting 1 moves the earliest 3 can happen.
Today was the inital deadline for 1 to occur.
So 3 has been shifted from the (latest of the) earliest it could happen, but not necessarily from the planned date.

Tesla stuck in SEC guidance limbo...

A delay is a shift of date later than an announced date, which didn't happen. The delay only happened in inpatient shareholder's head.

 

[The Accountant]

Can you make any assessment of what the ROI is on these “corporate debt instruments “, and how that compares to overnights? As you surely are aware, the overnight market is the most straightforward - and secure - way to park cash, with the security being offset by low yield. However, if Tesla or anyone else might need the cash instantly, there is nothing more liquid than overnights.

When I saw the investment in Corp Debt Instruments, I assumed that these were corporate bonds which would have some risk as rates increase.
Is it possible that they are investing in Corporate Commercial Paper with 2 to 4 weeks of duration? Tesla does not provide any disclosure on these investments. Perhaps they will disclose more information in future filings if the invested amount increases.

By the way, some of their cash is invested in Money Market products.

Tesla is really funny with their money . . . .they invest like my 30 year old son (bitcoin) and like my 91 year old dad (money market accounts)