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

[betstarship]

Yee hawwwwwww

 

[unk45]

When Tesla gets investment grade, then I presume a lot of institutions and funds would be required to purchase, that should dampen volatility. Volatility has been pretty easy to predict on a daily and hourly basis for the past many years.

Less required than permitted. However, the vast majority of institutional investors with that kind of policy restriction are investors primarily in debt rather than equity. Further there is quite a large part of those subject to the 'prudent person rule' fka 'prudent man rule'.

Even that has large loopholes, often in a 'so-called' exempt pool, typically allowing non-comforting assets limited to a septic percentage, often 10%.

There have been cases in which an exempt pool investment grew quickly to dominate the parent. One of those, Capital Holding, then 6th largest insurance company in the US, spun off the insurance companies and became Providian, which itself came to a sad end when the new owners failed to manage well so was sold to Washington Mutual which itself then failed and was taken over by JPMorganChase. If anybody wants to know why Tesla will succeed where others fail, check out this history.

The previous paragraph may seem off-topic. It isn't. It is a very illustrative reason why Tesla will not have serious problems in the current disarray while several major OEM's will be bailed out or fail.

Disclosure: A former CEO of the early iteration of Providian is the person who introduced me to PayPal and Elon. I never met Peter Thiel, nor have I met Elon, despite numerous coincidences during those years.

Understanding that the 2008 financial system debacle happened just as Elon was in peak risk with SpaceX and Tesla and that some major triggers unfolded in San Francisco. he was very, very conscious of the risks.

He was also there in 1998 when Bank of America failed and forced to accept takeover by Nations Bank to avoid official failure. That happened just as Elon sold Zip2 and was setting off to x.com. His deal nearly collapsed over that, and he obviously learned the crucial lessons.

We are right now in the throes of similar times of failures and near-failures, catastrophes threatened. With Germany having similar stresses as it did with the near-failure of Deutsche Bank, Tesla Berlin is in a very challenging time. Global disarray is quite analogous to the 1989-2009 decades of successive failures.

We all are very fortunate that Elon has managed so very, very conservatively from a financial perspective. When thinking about why some of us are such avid HODLers and avoid derivatives, just check out Bear, Stearns, Merril Lynch, Bank of America NT&SA, plus General Motors, Chrysler and so on.

In a couple of days we'll see TSLA quarterly sales and the P&L a while later. Regardless of 'The Street' we should all rejoice that our investment are in the safest hands they could be.

Everything we talk about with Optimus, FSD (later today), and all the manufacturing innovation all happened with the most conservative financial management.

Shares of Douglas Adams who gave a name for our investment future, "Infinite Improbability Drive".

 

[AudubonB]

Shares of Douglas Adams who gave a name for our investment future, "Infinite Improbability Drive".

I think that is what we’ll be naming our next Tesla.

 

[WattsHappening]

FYI from Reuters. Side note, is there value to posting things that might also be on Twitter? I figure not everyone has the time or interest to be there, but I also try to only share the most relevant things across platforms as many use both.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1575868928730898432

Exclusive: Tesla output forecast shows jump in Q4, growth through 2023 -sources

Tesla plans to push global production of its top-selling Model Y and Model 3 electric vehicles sharply higher in the fourth quarter and build on that growth in 2023 as newer factories in Austin and Berlin ramp production, internal plans reviewed by Reuters show.

www.reuters.com

I think there is value in linking pertinent Twitter posts.

Not everyone here is on Twitter. And even those of us who check Twitter can easily miss something important. I welcome posts like this more than some of the off-topic posts that I have to wallow through.

 

[MartinAustin]

"It is great to see smoke coming from the chimneys"

 

[BriansTesla]

The reason this trend is about to be disrupted is that until very recently in the grand scheme of things, our technological capabilities have been insufficient in AI, actuators, cameras and batteries to make a truly useful human simulacrum. Tesla asserts that they have the necessary capabilities in all these areas to make the first successful humanoid robot design. Hopefully we will find out tomorrow how true this is.


The reason to make the bot in humanoid form is the generic capabilities and backward compatibility mainly. Instead of being able to do a single task optimally, like a combine harvester, a humanoid bot could perform a wide variety of tasks suboptimally. If there's a lot of wheat to be harvested in a field, then use the combine instead of a bunch of bots with scythes. If there's a few tomatoes to harvest from the garden, spaghetti sauce to prepare, noodles to boil, counters to wipe, floors to sweep, and dirty dishes to load into the dishwasher, then having specialized machines for each of these would be extremely inefficient compared to having one robot that can do all of these tasks, albeit in a less-than-ideal fashion. A humanoid form with advanced AI can, in principle, be a one-for-one substitution for a wide variety of tasks.

Advantages of AGI in humanoid form:

• Geometrically fits in all spaces designed for a human to fit
• Can move around on pathways and stairs humans can navigate due to similar shape and bipedal leg-based design
• Hands with fingers and thumbs allow for incredibly diverse possible object manipulation action space, allowing bot to potentially perform thousands of different little tasks in a day that each require different movements just as a human can
• Hands and average human-level strength allow use of existing hand tools like drills, wrenches and nailguns, as well as a gigantic variety of other objects designed to be manipulated by hands, such as doorknobs, cooking utensils, handles, pill bottles, buttons, control knobs, shoelaces, and so on
• Torso core design allows for cavity to place batteries, inference computer and other innards, and centralizes mass to minimize rotational inertia while also minimizing the amount of mass moving back and forth during walking
• Two legs is the minimum number of limbs physically required to balance and walk smoothly on a variety of surfaces; three or more legs would be redundant hardware as long as the control software is good enough to dynamically keep the robot balanced
• Two arms is the minimum number of free limbs physically required to establish a stable grip on large objects and to counteract the torque produced by the legs while walking in order to maintain balance; three or more arms would be redundant most of the time
• Anthropomorphic form is more friendly and familiar so people will like and trust the AI more, but not so close to the Uncanny Valley that it spooks people, and this helps with integration of bots into human society

View attachment 858398
(Source)


One first principle reason why an anthropomorphic form is probably the optimal architecture for a general-purpose robot is that the biological evolutionary process resulted in many different species with intelligence, but resulted in only a single genus, Homo, with advanced general intelligence and abstract logical reasoning abilities. It's also suspicious that all of.the rest of our simian cousins (chimps, bonobos, gorillas, orangutans, etc.) are unusually smart compared to the rest of the Animal Kingdom. Why did all these semi-bipedal apes with opposable thumbs get so smart instead of birds, or snakes, fish, tigers, sharks, wolves, dinosaurs, or any of the other species in the mind-boggling biodiversity produced by this planet over the eons? The general trend since life began has been gradually increasing complexity and intelligence adaptations, so why did the development of intelligence go so much faster and further with our species and our ape cousins? And why does the anthropological record show that once early Homo ancestors developed a bit of unusual intelligence, there was seemingly a runaway snowball effect where past that tipping point intelligence rapidly developed en route to the advent of Homo sapiens?

In biology most of the time, form follows function such that a species' anatomy indicates a lot about the species' behavior. Even if you had never seen a bird before, you might be able to deduce from looking at its body that the creature is one that flies. The peculiarity of our intelligence amongst all the living things on Earth suggests that intelligence may be maximally useful in the human physical form. Maybe this was purely random coincidence, but that seems unlikely because intelligence costs extra in energy and nutrient demands of the brain, so it has to present a reproduction advantage greater than these costs. In the case of our ancestors, it was worth it. The intelligence enabled us to team up in sophisticated ways, develop tools, trick animals, build better shelters, make clothes to stay warm without our own fur, fend off even the most fearsome of predators, and take down huge animals like the wooly mammoth. Many of these uses of general intelligence required hands and upright posture.

Designs inspired by biology often aren't optimal because the evolutionary algorithm can get stuck in local maxima. This is why no animals have wheels, despite the clear advantages for speed and energy efficiency. A frail, obese, 65-year-old human driving a Model S Plaid can leave any cheetah in the dust in a race. However, in many cases the design yielded by biology is pretty close to optimal and I think it's clear why the smartest species on the planet is shaped as we are. Our form is basically the bare minimum fewest-parts design for generic object manipulation and mobility. For instance, nothing has demonstrated better general grip capabilities than human hands. In rare cases some humans have less or more than five digits per hand, yet this never caught on as the genetically most common type of hand, suggesting that four fingers and a thumb is optimal. Might as well make a robot with hands that are at least attempting to mimic this.

This is why I believe that aliens might look very much like us. At least those from a planet similar to ours............Elon?

 

[Krugerrand]

That’s what happen when your CEO torpedoes the stock constantly and employees get impatient/annoyed because of it

(I eagerly await all the disagrees . Yes the overall market is down and Yes Elon did plenty of damage on his own)

Employees have been able to choose cash instead of stock for years. This isn’t new nor news.

 

[M|S|M MYP]

Yee hawwwwwww

Have we not learned to say anything???

 

[TheTalkingMule]

Less required than permitted. However, the vast majority of institutional investors with that kind of policy restriction are investors primarily in debt rather than equity. Further there is quite a large part of those subject to the 'prudent person rule' fka 'prudent man rule'.

Does any of that really play into this? Fact of the matter is, 43.61% of TSLA is held by institutional investors. Other players are at:

AAPL 58.67%
MSFT 70.45%
GOOG 63%
CVX 71.2%
NVDA 63.61%

TSLA will quite obviously need to start moving closer to those percentages over the next 6 months as absurd earnings evolve and growth continues.

Tesla has scaled, risk has been spread to production around the globe, and earnings are pouring in. We've moved into a new phase and the institutional world is gonna be forced to come along, regardless of the primary reasoning.

We are right now in the throes of similar times of failures and near-failures, catastrophes threatened. With Germany having similar stresses as it did with the near-failure of Deutsche Bank, Tesla Berlin is in a very challenging time. Global disarray is quite analogous to the 1989-2009 decades of successive failures.

I was around for all that mess. Today is nothing like that.

Banks if anything have too much money. Household debt is fine. Corporate debt is fine.

We got plenty of problems, but the stimulative and deflationary nature of our current global gameplan says nothing but good times to me. We're building out an entire global energy infrastructure.

I'm sure we'll screw something up, but we ain't there yet.

 

[insaneoctane]

FYI from Reuters. Side note, is there value to posting things that might also be on Twitter? I figure not everyone has the time or interest to be there, but I also try to only share the most relevant things across platforms as many use both.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1575868928730898432

Exclusive: Tesla output forecast shows jump in Q4, growth through 2023 -sources

Tesla plans to push global production of its top-selling Model Y and Model 3 electric vehicles sharply higher in the fourth quarter and build on that growth in 2023 as newer factories in Austin and Berlin ramp production, internal plans reviewed by Reuters show.

www.reuters.com

Why are we/they talking about Q4 when Q3 isn't completed? Distraction? I think we need to give Q3 it's proper day...Tesla has worked hard enough to have earned that, no?

 

[Drumheller]

Why are we/they talking about Q4 when Q3 isn't completed? Distraction? I think we need to give Q3 it's proper day...Tesla has worked hard enough to have earned that, no?

To set expectations high so easier to push for a "missed expectations" in Q4. We've had plenty of examples of Reuters being garbage, but now it's different because we like the numbers?

 

[The Accountant]

FYI from Reuters. Side note, is there value to posting things that might also be on Twitter? I figure not everyone has the time or interest to be there, but I also try to only share the most relevant things across platforms as many use both.

Exclusive: Tesla output forecast shows jump in Q4, growth through 2023 -sources

Tesla plans to push global production of its top-selling Model Y and Model 3 electric vehicles sharply higher in the fourth quarter and build on that growth in 2023 as newer factories in Austin and Berlin ramp production, internal plans reviewed by Reuters show.

www.reuters.com

The Reuters article references @Troy Q3 estimate. I have now seen Troy's estimates quoted in a few articles and in at least 2 analysts' notes.
This may be a reason why consensus estimates are closer to Troy's number this quarter than we have seen in the past. Analyst may have realized it is easier to use Troy's number than to do the work themselves. Going forward, this may be the trend: consensus in line with Troy's number.

 

[hobbes]

Exclusive: Tesla output forecast shows jump in Q4, growth through 2023 -sources

Tesla plans to push global production of its top-selling Model Y and Model 3 electric vehicles sharply higher in the fourth quarter and build on that growth in 2023 as newer factories in Austin and Berlin ramp production, internal plans reviewed by Reuters show.

www.reuters.com

@Troy

EDIT: Late to the party, @Nocturnal was quicker - leaving this just to tag Troy who is mentioned (see post below)

 

[M|S|M MYP]

The Reuters article references @Troy Q3 estimate. I have now seen Troy's estimates quoted in a few articles and in at least 2 analysts' notes.
This may be a reason why consensus estimates are closer to Troy's number this quarter than we have seen in the past. Analyst may have realized it is easier to use Troy's number than to do the work themselves. Going forward, this may be the trend: consensus in line with Troy's number.

I really hope these 'analyst's' do not succumb to making a significant donation to Troy's patreon (hint, hint) to have him manipulate his estimates to the high side so Tesla misses, not saying that these high-integrity individuals would do something like that, but.....

 

[Skryll]

Does any of that really play into this? Fact of the matter is, 43.61% of TSLA is held by institutional investors. Other players are at:

AAPL 58.67%
MSFT 70.45%
[...]

TSLA will quite obviously need to start moving closer to those percentages over the next 6 months as absurd earnings evolve and growth continues.

Tesla has scaled, risk has been spread to production around the globe, and earnings are pouring in. We've moved into a new phase and the institutional world is gonna be forced to come along, regardless of the primary reasoning.

Yes, but does Tesla have enough different car colors?

Matters to moody investors...

 

[elasalle]

The Reuters article references @Troy Q3 estimate. I have now seen Troy's estimates quoted in a few articles and in at least 2 analysts' notes.
This may be a reason why consensus estimates are closer to Troy's number this quarter than we have seen in the past. Analyst may have realized it is easier to use Troy's number than to do the work themselves. Going forward, this may be the trend: consensus in line with Troy's number.

too much power
if Troy s wrong, everyone is wrong and we have a beat

 

[Gigapress]

Why are we/they talking about Q4 when Q3 isn't completed? Distraction? I think we need to give Q3 it's proper day...Tesla has worked hard enough to have earned that, no?

If Tesla really is targeting 495k 3&Y produced in Q4 then that’s very important information especially for those of us holding irresponsible amounts of Jan ‘23 and Mar ‘23 call options. My model currently has 470k 3&Y in Q4 and that’s on the high side of retail analyst expectations. For comparison, James Stephenson projects 458k total production in Q4 including S&X and @The Accountant has total Q4 deliveries at 458k (though I don’t know the production estimate).

Also, if Tesla is actually on pace for that run rate so soon, it can only mean that chip constraints really are alleviating and battery supply is there, which bodes well for future growth rate.

 

[jkirkwood001]

Bear with me here, but I'm starting to think that the entire stock market is based on nothing but feelings and hopes vs being based on things like earnings. Stay tuned for my next talk, "Water, it makes things wet."

I've always said the performance of any stock is based on fairly equal factors of:

• 1⁄3 financial performance (i.e. its numbers)
• 1⁄3 macro and industry influences (e.g. war, environmental catastrophe, interest rates, pandemic)
• 1⁄3 emotion ("I told all my friends this stock can't lose!!", FOMO, "I refuse to buy stock in companies that make or process firearms / tobacco / fossil fuels")

Each is worth less than half the influences, and none trumps any other. Numbers alone won't guarantee a rising SP*, nor can a bad global economy hold down an exceptional company. And of course, like Vegas, people will buy (and sell) what they feel they should!

* Hey, whoa there MM conspiracy theorists! TSLA is the 6th most valuable company in the world while being only 117th highest in earnings and 151st in revenue! Without assuming future performance, that's a pretty positive SP.

 

[ammulder]

Check me on these numbers:

• Last year total production: about 930,000
• Q1-Q3 this year total production: about 930,000

(That's assuming about 366,000 for Q3)

If accurate, then to achieve 50% growth Tesla needs Q4 to be 50% of Q1-Q3, or about 465,000

 

[elasalle]

How about 367500 deliveries for the Q? Final number