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

[MikeC]

Ralph Nader urges regulators to recall Tesla’s “manslaughtering” Full Self-Driving vehicles

Nader is the latest prominent voice to come after Tesla.

www.theverge.com

This is good example of stubborn resistance on the Left to shift from past understandings to recognize current realities.

To be fair, there are reasonable FSD drivers who 'don't get it' because they only see what FSD 'can't do', not the remarkable progress it is making in a very difficult task.

Regardless, there can be no question it is already saving lives and preventing injuries.

Nader has been an icon of the Left from when corporate greed regularly trumped consumer safety - now they can't catch up with a new kind of 'billionaire' and Tesla that have disrupted that old standard of thinking.

This thought calcification is a real problem across the globe

Let's not call him left-wing when he was responsible for delivering the 2000 election to Bush. In any case, I think it's safe to say he's irrelevant at this point. Don't forget about this gem from 2.5 years ago when TSLA was at...$113.91:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1220112504006811654

 

[Usain]

My whole life I thought Ralph Nader was a safety advocate. I think he's old and losing his sense of smell. He can't smell a con.

Former U.S. Presidential candidate calls for Tesla FSD to be abolished

Ralph Nader said, "NHTSA must use its safety recall authority to order that the FSD technology be removed in every Tesla."

www.teslarati.com

 

[lafrisbee]

Following TSLA has changed me... I read these Billions and trillions of dollars as "Some money" and "Some more money." I used to read them as a "whole lot of money," and a "BS amount of money."

 

[Matias]

Elon stated this last sale was for a contingency where the sale got forced AND investors backed out. This "article" mistakenly implies he'd need to run out and sell $22.4B in additional shares. That is clearly not the case.

You know the details of the twitter deal financing? Please tell!

 

[Words of HABIT]

View attachment 831474
Courtesy of Yahoo Finance

Back on July 22nd, YAHOO! Finance had shown Consensus EPS estimate of $3.08 fo Q3. Now (as shown below) it has been removed. Very odd as this also happened for a full week just before Q2 results, never seen this ommission from YAHOO! on any other stock reporting. Let's see what YAHOO! comes back at. My guess is they are now reading TMC (/s) and it will be a lot higher than $3.08.

 

[henchman24]

Of all people I think Gary has about the most levelheaded outlook on Elon's position with regards to selling shares. It pains me because he whines al the time and begs for things from Tesla all the time, but credit where credit is due.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1557388191681978370

 

[mongo]

Wow, Fred actually did some investigative journalism and called O'Dowd and contacted the test driver to gather the evidence to debunk the claim. Nice article, rare.

In summary: O'Dowd put the responsibility for the reporting of the test on the driver, and when Fred contacted the driver, he was not able to provide any photo of display showing FSD engaged, only a photo showing the Tesla agreement page text before allowing FSD to be engaged.

Tesla self-driving smear campaign releases 'test' that fails to realize FSD never engaged

A Tesla Full Self-Driving smear campaign started by a California billionaire running for Senate has a new attack ad based...

electrek.co

Fred did something...
His screen shot of FSD not active was from the ad, not the raw test footage. That footage all shows the blue path line and blue wheel icon. I'd rather if he asked cameraman and/or driver how many times they ran the test to end up with three (3) failures. Note, it specifically says three (3), not all.

 

[Accident]

Back on July 22nd, YAHOO! Finance had shown Consensus EPS estimate of $3.08 fo Q3. Now (as shown below) it has been removed. Very odd as this also happened for a full week just before Q2 results, never seen this ommission from YAHOO! on any other stock reporting. Let's see what YAHOO! comes back at. My guess is they are now reading TMC (/s) and it will be a lot higher than $3.08.

View attachment 839223

I think that just speaks more of the Yahoo platform than anything else. Looking at other stocks in my watchlist, V, SQ, ZM, RIVN, TDOC... don't have an estimate for next quarter.

 

[Stretch2727]

To me , seeing Elon selling stock is a good thing. Please remember that he has minimal income and finances his life with loans. By now this has to be a huge overhang on his financial situation. Personally, I don’t think he needs to control such a high percentage of the float to protect Tesla anymore, so moving to a more conservative financial position is prudent, both for him and for Tesla. Also, remember that he is restricted from disclosing sales other than by the legal channels proscribed. As for me, I will be happy to see him making more sales in the future to reduce his loan balances. As for all the furor, “ An asset is worth what you can sell it for on the day you absolutely have to sell it” Bernard Baruch.

If that is the case he really should put this on autopilot and sell the same number of shares every month/quarter.

Based on Elon's statements this is to buy Twitter. I think it going to cause overhang on TSLA stock until the deal is done or dissolved.

 

[Accident]

Current Q3 and Q4 EPS estimates:

 

[capster]

Today is an assumption of mine based off patterns of Elon selling before, fair.... But here's the thing... We've seen it play out over the past 9, 12, 18+ months this way. And we can actually see this in the fact that institutional ownership in Tesla keeps trending down despite numerous reasons it should be up. As a percentage of outstanding shares (that's outstanding, not total) Tesla has decreased in institutional ownership from 63.99% in June 2020 and 54.91% in December 2020 to 49.33% in June. On total shares the last required filings had it 41.98% and the estimated with the known sales and buys has it currently at 40.64% (with a net outflow of 800k shares recently). The number of holders has dropped from nearly 2700 to under 2300 now (EDIT: read this one wrong it is about 2500, a little more... 2300 buyers in the last 12 months). In Q2, the inflow was 2.1b, but the outflow was 2.4b.

There is a lot data out there that institutional ownership in Tesla is dropping.

Institutions are inherently anti-transformational in more than one way. Bureaucratic thinking has a way of seeping into peoples’ minds in institutions, no doubt including fund managers. Even the ‘disruptive’ companies initially funded by venture capitalists, with which they may have been previously familiar, are tempests in teacups compared to the energy transformation.

Even if they grasp the 0-or-1 nature of the transformation, they will split the difference and call it 0.5 when pressed to value the shares of a company like Tesla. If the shares are a tick above their handicapping, they may stay away.

Which is to say, we truly are in uncharted waters and many whose job it is to chart the way for their clients are out of their depth.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

You know the details of the twitter deal financing? Please tell!

I know what Elon tweeted.

 

[Nocturnal]

Fred did something...
His screen shot of FSD not active was from the ad, not the raw test footage. That footage all shows the blue path line and blue wheel icon. I'd rather if he asked cameraman and/or driver how many times they ran the test to end up with three (3) failures. Note, it specifically says three (3), not all.

Dowd couldn't offer proof when asked. For all we know they recorded that raw footage later on and edited it in.

Even the "raw" footage shows error messages which might very well have been "accelerator pressed, won't brake".

 

[capster]

Ralph Nader urges regulators to recall Tesla’s “manslaughtering” Full Self-Driving vehicles

Nader is the latest prominent voice to come after Tesla.

www.theverge.com

This is good example of stubborn resistance on the Left to shift from past understandings to recognize current realities.

To be fair, there are reasonable FSD drivers who 'don't get it' because they only see what FSD 'can't do', not the remarkable progress it is making in a very difficult task.

Regardless, there can be no question it is already saving lives and preventing injuries.

Nader has been an icon of the Left from when corporate greed regularly trumped consumer safety - now they can't catch up with a new kind of 'billionaire' or recognize that Tesla has disrupted that old standard of thinking.

This thought calcification is a real problem across the globe

Oh goody, shorts have trotted out Nader. Now, we just need Bob Lutz.

 

[Ogre]

Don't these funds just create more synthetic shares?

Sort of.

I suspect they are creating a leveraged position the same way many of us do, by buying calls. It’s not the same but you can fairly easily achieve a 2:1 leveraged position just by buying LEAPs. You can see the attached snap from my portfolio. I get a little under 2:1 leverage on my calls.

If they want to more closely simulate the share price, I suspect they might run shorter expiration dates.

In a way these are synthetic shares. Options volume definitely pushes the SP like a leaf on the wind at times.

 

[betstarship]

Awesome amount of spending to, finally, be putting into decarbonization. So bullish over the next decade on TSLA just for this alone. The government is about to start helping efforts!

https://twitter.com/x/status/1557393942429188096

 

[mongo]

Dowd couldn't offer proof when asked. For all we know they recorded that raw footage later on and edited it in.

Even the "raw" footage shows error messages which might very well have been "accelerator pressed, won't brake".

Assuming the camera person didn't put themself out there as regards perjury, the raw interior shots are from the same test runs as the exterior.
The 'test' has a lot of issues, but not activating FSD may not be one of them.

 

[Ogre]

Turning out to be a good one! Thanks to everyone at Tesla and TMC for working so hard to keep me fully TSLA vested.

Let's Go!

View attachment 839213

Went sailing yesterday and it was very similar to the past 6 months of TSLA investing. Inconsistent tail winds, deep troughs, and I ended up soaking wet.

 

[StealthP3D]

Honestly, investors should prepare for more of this. These FSD nefarious attack vectors will continue. Enemies of Tesla will continue to search for exploits as FSD progresses. It's hard to know if they will find legitimate edge cases or just FUD...but more of this is coming in our future for sure.

Nefarious attack vectors? That seems like a pretty serious name for an attack that was the equivalent of a teen daughter throwing an empty filtered water bottle at her mom from 12 feet away.

Hint: It landed at mom's feet.

 

[Beltsbear]

A quick look at the prospectus shows that they target 150% returns using leveraged products. I imagine they hold a mix of shares and options and they manage the options delta during the day.

View attachment 839212

In other words, you sold real TSLA shares in the open market pushing the price down, then bought something that is not TSLA shares and are now holding it. That new synthetic share may push the price up some, or it may not.