TSLA Market Action: 2018 Investor Roundtable

[PaulusdB]

i found the dan neil article on WSJ site. still there.
First Test Drive of the Tesla Model 3 Performance: A Thrilling, Modern Marvel

Yes, it's available.
Just not to everybody.

 

[SW2Fiddler]

Naive question from a frustrated fan and investor.

It seem to be the general consensus that the Q2 report will be easily spun into more doom and gloom by the shorts. So...I assume it is relatively certain that the FUD will continue to run thick and fast at least until October when the Q3 report hopefully shows undeniable positive news. (Not that that will make a difference to the shorts.) That's a long time for the stock to tank.

I really hate this crap.

Dan

I hate this crap too.
What's the question though?

 

[Tslynk67]

There is only one solution for TSLA: go private.
I expect it to happen in this decade.

Nah - Tesla are going to be making humungous profits, the stock price will be through the roof, he'll be able to do what he wants without privatising.

It's just now we have to suffer a bit.

 

[gtrplyr1]

1) They are working on getting test drives in place. How quickly they do that is a balancing act because every test drive car is a car not going to the customer (edit: until later...).

2) Couldn't agree with you more on the tax credit. They should be using all channels possible to make it clear that time is EXTREMELY limited to order and still get the full tax credit. They have majorly dropped the ball here. Hopefully they have at least put some signs & materials in their stores explaining the urgency on that front. (Edit: They don't have any mention of it on their landing page. I think this is a mistake)

At production rates of 500+ per day we are talking a few hours to make sure each Tesla location has 2 cars, it's really a drop in the bucket for the revenue it will generate. I'd have one at busy locations just out there offering rides to people .... In Southern CA we have spots like the Americana in Glendale and 3rd St. Promenade which both feature Tesla stores, each location is a popular destination for shopping/eating/hanging out with literally thousands of visitors per day ... park on on the street and offer rides!

Even if you are not selling to those people you are countering all the BS posted on the internet ..... people read that crap on Yahoo and as we all know the negative articles generate the most clicks. I think nothing beats people actually touching/riding/experiencing the Model3. For those that have been to a Tesla store and watched people drool over the cars .... you get what I'm talking about. I think some of my drool is on those cars!

Cheers to the longs .....

 

[Driver Dave]

Why in the world is the stock going down? What is happening?

Now that Model 3 is heading towards being very successful, Tesla parts guy went back to suppliers and saying, ok, time to decrease charges based on the long term volume we are going to see. aka, doing his job like all companies do with their suppliers.

WSJ somehow acquires this internal not public memo and spins it into the sky is falling.

Thus the stock falls.

Again.

Only to rebound probably tomorrow on some news on how Model 3s are kicking ass and will kick more ass as the year goes on.

I'm long for 10 years, so these battles mean little to me.

But geez, the combination of shorts paying for internal docs, "analysts" writing projections based on nonsense, and media profiting from crazy tesla headline clicks really make for a wild rollercoaster of a stock price.

Luckily the reality is Tesla is here to stay, the products are amazing, the customers love it... all with no marketing.

But all that negative coverage... GEEZ!

 

[lklundin]

Elon wants the model 3 to be a car for the masses, well then promote what the masses care about. Does anyone know what 0-60 in a Toyota Camry is like ? NO because no one who buys one cares.

Agreed.

Along those lines, I think an AWD variant with reduction gears like the AWD Model S, that extend rather than shorten the range (at the expense of less gain in acceleration) would see even more interest.

The PAWD and its insane/ludicrous upgrade could then be all about acceleration, for that smaller market that likes to humiliate ICE muscle cars (to the great amusement of probably all BEV enthusiasts).

 

[WarpedOne]

I do not believe any more all the disrupted industries will give up the low hanging frut of media attacks and analyst downgrades.

They would be stupid to do so.

I also do not belive all the morons will stop beimg stupid and stop taking cash for thw trolling.

They are not that stupid.

On the other hand it is much easier to go private pre-squeeze that post squeeze.

I do not care if you like the idea or not.
Please explain why would all of the abave stop doing what they are doing.

Don't tell me you still believe they believe in tels bankruptcy. They do not and this is why they fight this hard. Profits will only increase the pressure. MaxQ is still far ahead.

 

[Mokuzai]

park on on the street and offer rides!

Or sign up with Uber/Lyft and give people a pleasant surprise when you pick them up. I did Lyft for a bit with my S and was able to debunk plenty of myths.

 

[neroden]

The simpler explanation is that electronic markets move quickly.

Uh, no. I'm specifically referring to bid/asks in thinly traded stocks where they sat for, I am not kidding, hours, before being front-run.

Sale of order flow exists solely to provide information used for front-running. Why do you think anyone would pay for order flow? Normally you'd *charge* for order flow.

You are overestimating your impact. How are you sure that the price didn’t move because there was a rise in the s&p 500? The probability that something else in the market caused a repricing is highly likely,

No, it's not.

after all there only three possible directions for the price to go, up, down, or nowhere. Your anecdote is mostly boogeyman thinking. You clearly have TSLA position, how did you accumulate that if HFTs were constantly front running you?

Being front-run in a stock with big spreads and high volatility doesn't prevent my order from getting filled, it just means I might get a slightly worse deal.

The front-running has a small effect compared to ordinary volatility when you have high real volume and high volatility. It doesn't amount to much in stocks like TSLA. It does in low-volume stocks where I really noticed it.

Most brokerages sell retail flow to places like citadel where they internally match your order.

Or front-run me themselves, or resell the data for front-running. :sigh:

Generally, they want to match your orders at the nbbo, it is the equivalent of being at the front of the order queue.

You just said they're front-running, if you read what you wrote. :sigh:

Most retail flow is profitable for traders, we would generally never attempt to avoid your orders in particular. We mostly attempt to avoid getting run over by large institutional flow.

 

[Tslynk67]

I think once enough cars get out there that the products will speak for themselves - people won't listen to the BS any more. If the financials are good, they that avenue of constant attack will end. It will take a hug amount of pressure off Musk. I mean WTF must that poor guy be going through right now, it's absolutely incessant. To be fair, he's done well not to blow his top more often.

In other news, did y'all see this? Very cool! Tesla owners take over Silverstone to give ‘10,000 test rides’ to showcase electric vehicles

 

[madodel]

About the one WSJ positive article/review by Dan Neal, who got bashed for it so much that he deleted his Twitter account:
WSJ now made sure that that one article is no longer available for the open public.
Its attached. Could anyone who has more influence than me make it available for the public again?

You should not post copyrighted material here. It is still freely available using the link in Elon's twitter post about it. First Test Drive of the Tesla Model 3 Performance: A Thrilling, Modern Marvel

 

[neroden]

The refund would show as income in the quarter returned. Tesla could return it later by paying slightly higher prices.

The report could also be negative spin on a simple request for lower parts prices. After the bizarre NYP article anything seems possible.

The Tim Higgens WSJ article is dishonest misinterpretation of a pretty standard request. I described it in the "Fact or Fiction" thread.

 

[Dan Detweiler]

I hate this crap too.
What's the question though?

Ha! Sorry, you're right. I got so caught up in my own despair I forgot to ask the question. LOL! The question was if people thought that this trend would continue it's downward spiral through Q3 or beyond or if there was some sort of hidden rainbow in the wings that would help the stock recover more in the short term.

HeHeHe...sorry 'bout that.

Dan

 

[gringotuanis]

You are right that the FUD will continue, hammering the stock down probably to the mid/low 200’s. Then on undeniable good news it will reverse to end up somewhere in the 300’s. A new ATH will take about a year from now. The next major lift into the 400’s probably not until 2020.

Anybody’s guess, but that’s mine for now, based on what I’m seeing how the market reacts to the FUD.

Edit: additional observation: it’s going the way Morgan Stanley predicted a while ago in their note “where will the stock go from here”. Adam Jonas stated in March for second half of this year, it will go either up to $400 or down to $200. He believed down to $200 more likely and it seems that’s where we are heading.

I disagree with this as Tesla went from $248? Per share in like February/March to up over $376 per share in about 2 weeks. I think the Adam Jonas statement of $400 end of this year is accurate (I'm a long bull so I don't think $200). But 2020 for $400 is too long... though you may still see dips to buy around $400 in 2020. Just my 2 cents.

 

[neroden]

This is all based on one supposed memo that a single supplier, the part they supposedly supply is not known, shown to the WSJ. I'm thinking their is a lot of manipulation going on here specifically to drive down the SP tomorrow morning.

I think this manipulation is intended to spook other suppliers. The goal is to disrupt Tesla's supply chain.

The people trying to destroy Tesla tried to cause a "bank run". But Tesla has enough financing. They tried to spread lies: lying about fires, lying about how clean electric cars are, etc. This failed to slow down the flood of demand. Their next attempt is to sabotage the supply chain.

Unfortunately the simplest explanation at this point is an actual conspiracy to attempt to prevent Tesla from surviving.

As for negotiating with the suppliers for a reduction in future pricing based on the highly probable success of the M3, that I can believe. I spent a large part of my career in procurement and that's an industry accepted and expected way for all to share in Tesla's future success. That part sounds plausible. This memo from a single supplier? Something stinks about that.

 

[neroden]

One thing to add is that while generally your company does not want to be known as a bad customer.... anything you can pull to get savings is a win.... it’s just a matter of weighing the long term relationship with the supplier vs the desire to get more TVC (total value creation). Seems like Tesla has leverage with this supplier. In fact I would be more worried if Tesla didn’t try this at all.

I've now seen literally dozens of comments from people in manufacturing (at Electrek and elsewhere) saying exactly what you said.

 

[neroden]

Honestly without seeing the memo it's all speculation but a title of "Tesla negotiates with suppliers" is more straight forward but less interesting.

I worked for a company that did that with Cisco because some stuff we bought didn't "mesh network" like advertised and they eventually admitted it 2 years into the project. Or with Motorola because the batteries were failing early and bulging. And those aren't exactly small companies.

My guess is a part didn't perform as was expected or required more rework than suspected as that's when you start talking about rebates. Whoop de do...

I've actually done that on contracts for stuff for me personally -- if the contractor delivered late or it wasn't up to snuff, I asked for a rebate. Usually got it.

 

[madodel]

I think once enough cars get out there that the products will speak for themselves - people won't listen to the BS any more. If the financials are good, they that avenue of constant attack will end. It will take a hug amount of pressure off Musk. I mean WTF must that poor guy be going through right now, it's absolutely incessant. To be fair, he's done well not to blow his top more often.

Hopefully you are correct but I have seen AAPL have record breaking quarters that no other corporation in the world could dream of matching and the SP went down because they didn't sell as many phones as some dingaling wanted to see. Once TSLA is consistently improving financials they will move onto even more insane FUD. This is very much about an agenda to destroy the company and they won't give up until whoever is funding this is bankrupted or at least moved onto doing something else destructive.

In other news, did y'all see this? Very cool! Tesla owners take over Silverstone to give ‘10,000 test rides’ to showcase electric vehicles

Fantastic idea.

 

[neroden]

What you described is possible but business units that perform such execution are not known as HFT. It is also not generally called front-running, and is known as internalization or execution. One major player who would do what you describe is Citadel, a hedge fund, which has many business units, including a HFT unit. As far as I know they are not breaking laws and separate internalization from HFT. Agency execution business units pay for client flow and would internally match the orders as you described, avoiding any fees as well. This is never seen by the lit markets. HFTs are the ones with the quotes in the lit markets you are describing as being front run. Notice that internalizers would also send adverse flow to the lit markets as well, further hurting HFTs.

The nuance is understanding that HFT is not all of electronic trading. Everyone trades electronically and there are many diverse participants.

Call it what you like, but in normal usage "high frequency trading" is anything where you get an advantage from having a faster connection to the markets, and the internalizers do.

 

[gringotuanis]

I do not believe any more all the disrupted industries will give up the low hanging frut of media attacks and analyst downgrades.

They would be stupid to do so.

I also do not belive all the morons will stop beimg stupid and stop taking cash for thw trolling.

They are not that stupid.

On the other hand it is much easier to go private pre-squeeze that post squeeze.

I do not care if you like the idea or not.
Please explain why would all of the abave stop doing what they are doing.

Don't tell me you still believe they believe in tels bankruptcy. They do not and this is why they fight this hard. Profits will only increase the pressure. MaxQ is still far ahead.

Problem is we don't know if they're profitable yet....sure margins might seem good...but until we see the labor costs, supply costs, it is hard to know how profitable Tesla will be. I'm a Tesla bull long term but Tesla still has alot to prove on costs/profits. You have to be able to make money and stop borrowing. How many ppl here borrow more each month than you make? The numbers always catch up to you. I have faith in Tesla long term but I want to see the money. Show me the money!