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

[Unpilot]

Pre-Market again decoupled from macro's.
Let's see if it continues past 160. I feel that is where we close today.

 

[elasalle]

He just has to sleep at Tesla instead of Twitter. Thats the only requirement.

I don’t think he will ever have to sleep in Tesla factory floor
He already did that when it was really required. Sacrifice acknowledged

 

[Krugerrand]

When has Tesla been merely just a year late? Roadster? CT? Semi? FSD? Solar roof?

I realize the intent of your question so I’ll ask a question that counters that intent. You know, to make sure we’re being fair in our judgment.

When was Tesla a year early with a product? Model 3?

 

[nativewolf]

The cutback in solar payments in CA means Tesla needs to make more powerwalls. The commission itself basically said that.


If Ford, or anyone else, were making real margins on their EVs they would be shouting it from the rooftops vs burying it amongst their ICE profits.

Every oem has been battery constrained among other things. They have caps on production and can’t actually scale yet. That said the ford lightning is an awesome truck and they pushed out a huge price increase and still have strong order book. I think they can get to ev profits on that one. 2026 they can really crank them out I think. I am hopeful, we need to see some OEMs make profitable Eva or the transition fails.

 

[Krugerrand]

They trick themselves into thinking somehow their hands are more diamond than us and their understanding of the market is more profound but it seems the only thing they have is a lack of recognition for social contracts (pump & dump is perfectly fine), plus a need to express imaginary masculinity (disagreeing with Elon means you are weak).

You do realize everyone can hear you, right? And that the above behavior doesn’t reflect any better on you as the behavior you’re claiming others are showing and representing, right? And that nobody has ever made any of the (parentheses) claims, right?

I understand you’re upset and in disagreement with others. To show your behavior is better than the behavior of those others, I don’t know, maybe act better?

 

[JRP3]

Currently I don’t see anything significant to change the narrative towards the positive in the next 2-3 months until Tesla delivers 4th Q deliveries

Q4 deliveries will be known in a few weeks not months.

 

[Krugerrand]

What's the net effect?

Explain it to me like I’m a wire-haired Dachshund.

 

[Krugerrand]

What would SP be without Elon selling on the open and MM taking advantage …. That’s the better question? For taxes and twits

Unknowable.

 

[Right_Said_Fred]

The thing I am trying to understand is what forces will be the strongest in the SP in the next 2 weeks: Breakdown of the SPY support levels and return of a macros bear trend or the fact TSLA is at ridiculous low prices from Elon selling and if buyers starts piling in at there ridiculously low price and if we hit a hard bottom in the 150s. Not clear to me yet.

Elon destroyed any potentiel TA of TSLA to it’s impossible to predict a trend.

When he sells at the top we have complaints about Elon breaking the uptrend. When he sells at the bottom we have complaints about Elon breaking support levels. Let’s face it, there is never a good time to sell that many shares.

And he can’t spread the sales over a longer time period as it would cause frontrunning, like it did when he sold to cover his $11 billion tax bill. With this year's sales at least he finishes before the mandatory forms come out. That minimizes the risk of frontrunning.

 

[2daMoon]

He just has to sleep at with Tesla instead of Twitter. Thats the only requirement.

FTFY

 

[JSML]

Just finished listening to the All-In podcast and I think Chamath said Elon had to sell because he got margin called. Not sure how accurate that info is. Just thought I put it here because I have not heard that before.

 

[hacer]

FWIW, today was only the Form 4 deadline for Monday's trades.
Historically, he's sold in blocks of three days and filed all simultaneously.
Plus, roundish share count.

No, three days are in the report

You seem to have missed the word "deadline" in @mongo 's message. As he pointed out in his 2nd sentence, this is typical of the past, file 3 days on the deadline for the first day. He's not saying it only includes Monday's trades. Mongo is saying "this fits his pattern" and it's ~22Million shares round number. I think his implication is that this "round" is done.

But I think there are more rounds coming in the near future. An earlier discussion suggested the absurd notion that only $3B was "high interest" debt for twitter. Yeah, $1B in yearly interest from a $3B loan is high interest all right - 33% ! There's no chance the rate is that high so no, the loan isn't just $3B. It's more like $14B so another 3 rounds of Elon selling like this could be in our near future.

 

[elasalle]

Just finished listening to the All-In podcast and I think Chamath said Elon had to sell because he got margin called. Not sure how accurate that info is. Just thought I put it here because I have not heard that before.

I had a business friend who told me his premium went up with interest rates, I asked whether the interest rate is locked like when buying houses. He told me it was different and for him rates change quarterly.

? So what kind of debt and terms does Elon have. Did he feel impact of recent changes to interest rates and his premiums/rates went up? When things are in the billions, thinks can add up quickly.

 

[Krugerrand]

Is it that hard to ship them to countries in need , I had seen that Switzerland had some cars and Norway none, is trucking 8 cars more than the 24k in discounts? Also, what do you make of the urgency to sell in this year vs carrying the vehicle over into 2023 and selling for the higher price? That's a significant discount. Curious.

Yes.

Here’s how this works. Tesla has specific orders for a specific country. They review the most popular model and combination of features for a country/region and then they make ‘extra’ because some people just don’t like to wait more than a second for anything or they can’t wait a second because the engine in their ICE car just blew up - we can call that inventory from this point forward.

Sometimes Tesla guesses wrong () and some of that inventory sits for, you know, an extra day or two or week.

It doesn’t make any financial or logistical sense to redirect the cars - that just burns money inefficiently and creates logistical stress, this latter Tesla doesn’t need as they continue to find creative ways to battle remnants of COVID (ie., shortage of trucks due to shortage of truck drivers). Much less expensive and stressful to offer a small discount

What we are seeing this very day is not a demand issue. (But if anyone wants to claim that, I’m more than happy to get richer). What we are seeing this very day is what’s called a blue light wave special.

Yes folks. Tesla is trying to reduce inventory/sell as many cars before year end as possible/incentivizing customers to not hold off purchasing for next year’s possible EV credits/encourage Christmas car buying to make happy marriages/et al

Let’s all fake it ‘til we make it and act like we’ve seen this before. K?

 

[SOULPEDL]

I think Chamath said Elon had to sell because he got margin called.

Anyone confirming this? Maybe a quote with some context? I find this hard to believe Elon bought on margin. Maybe Chamath threw it out as one possible reason someone sells?

 

[Snerruc]

Just finished listening to the All-In podcast and I think Chamath said Elon had to sell because he got margin called. Not sure how accurate that info is. Just thought I put it here because I have not heard that before.

As I posted yesterday, when you live off loans against value for 12 years, you have to unwind it eventually. Nothing unusual here. This is the same as anyone else in Mr Musk’s position. This is how Bezos funds Blue Origin. Anyone doing due diligence would include this in the process when evaluating a company.

 

[Krugerrand]

Useful video.

If true, the key part I got from the video was why China wait times were the lowest at 1-4 weeks compared to many months in Europe, North America & elsewhere.

For China produced cars (Model Y standard in October at time of recording, Model 3 for Europe), higher per-car net revenue in China than Europe or North America (after tax/incentives/shipping). No VAT in China, 19% in Germany (but also incentive), cheaper shipping, 10% import tax to EU.

Therefore his argument (if true in October & if still true now after price & other changes) is that Tesla should prioritise China sales, keeping waitlists short. China-made exports can wait. Complicating this now/future are exports from China to Thailand soon, Australia, New Zealand now plus Berlin exports to Asia (Taiwan, South Korea) might use ro-ro ships for return journey, reducing ship-lease costs. Overall though, if his assumptions are correct, we're going to see continually low wait times in China & associated media coverage. It's a narrative that won't go away until other markets have higher net prices than China.

Another point is that China deliveries are probably much less hassle than exports, paperwork, currency risk but especially availability to ships & risk of delays from bad weather, strikes, border problems. A couple of European countries have border guards on strike at the moment - UK & Spain from memory, although that may affect passengers more than goods.

Who knew supplying and selling cars world wide could be such a logistical juggling act?

 

[AudubonB]

Sometimes in my work I have to do some therapy. I just spent 3 days catching up with about a hundred of pages on this roundtable, 60 of which wouldn't be tolerated pre-2020 when I enjoyed dl003's contributions. I think lately dl003 is quite upset that Elon Musk blatantly violated Fibbonaci, broke all the floors and ceilings and other tenets of technical analysis. I don't think Elon cares about these. Let's please move on

Yes, that would have been much more appropriate a set of statements than my unAudiesque attempt at jocularity.

Fun fact: I read my post four times, trying to listen how it would be received.

Not fun fact: the tsunami of rancor presented by posts over the last months has overwhelmed this Moderator’s abilities. Do participants realize that with the partial exception* of the rare times I’m on holiday, I still read every post? (*When in vacation I’ve found myself skimming 25-30% of them).
In the years TSLA has performed superbly, I have to endure the froth of posters demonstrating how incredibly skillful they are. In the opposite years - and 2022 has indeed been the worst - I have to endure the sewage demonstrating how incredibly demonic everyone else is.
For the Moderator, the effective difference is that during the former, at least I usually haven’t to deal with invective.

/Mod ON: And now - zero more discussion in this thread regarding net metering. IF YOU FIND you’ve posted any kind of response to such prior to your reading this one, back up and delete it yourself, toot sweetest.

 

[traxila]

You seem to have missed the word "deadline" in @mongo 's message. As he pointed out in his 2nd sentence, this is typical of the past, file 3 days on the deadline for the first day. He's not saying it only includes Monday's trades. Mongo is saying "this fits his pattern" and it's ~22Million shares round number. I think his implication is that this "round" is done.

But I think there are more rounds coming in the near future. An earlier discussion suggested the absurd notion that only $3B was "high interest" debt for twitter. Yeah, $1B in yearly interest from a $3B loan is high interest all right - 33% ! There's no chance the rate is that high so no, the loan isn't just $3B. It's more like $14B so another 3 rounds of Elon selling like this could be in our near future.

I was thinking the same. The unknown here is whether EM is looking to pay off debt completely, or just wants to float the bird until it is cash flow positive on its own. He just cashed out enough to float it for two years or so. He has ruthlessly slashed costs there. Will he be able to increase revenues at the bird to where it is self sustaining?

If he is seriously intent on clearing all books of debt with the proceeds from TSLA sales, this will be a known on WS before we can figure it out and two digit stock price is a possibility.

EM is not above acting impulsively if he believes he Is correct in his assessments. One would think that it is a no brainer to float the bird for two years with his cash and allow it to increase revenues while simultaneously allowing Tesla to double its production and revenues which should equal to much higher TSLA prices which he could then hammer to raise funds much more easily and less painfully.

I am not smart enough to tell EM what to do. I do not know the details on all the moving parts, but for many reasons this is a tough time to be a TSLA investor. Uncertainty rules the situation for many reasons, and that is a stock buyers number one fear.

Of course, some people might label this an opportunity….

 

[Krugerrand]

The thing I am trying to understand is what forces will be the strongest in the SP in the next 2 weeks: Breakdown of the SPY support levels and return of a macros bear trend or the fact TSLA is at ridiculous low prices from Elon selling and if buyers starts piling in at there ridiculously low price and if we hit a hard bottom in the 150s. Not clear to me yet.

Elon destroyed any potentiel TA of TSLA to it’s impossible to predict a trend.

The best force is no force.

Look, we don’t know. And even if we did know, we don’t control any of it. We do a lot of mental gymnastics here, most of it scores a 3.60. FYI, that’s not a good score but we get a cookie anyway. Sometimes we stick the landing and get slapped in the belly with a wet fish.

It’s all just very fluid with a lot of tributaries; some feed into larger bodies of water that eventually reach the ocean and we win, and sometimes they feed a waterfall and down we go, and sometimes they dead end and nothing happens - we stagnate.

Yeah, I got a bit lost in the Zen for a minute. So, let me explain like you’re a Pomeranian: Stay!