TSLA Market Action: 2018 Investor Roundtable

[humbaba]

With one exception: their shares. :-(
I realy don't get the lack of demand here. We're sub 300 again...

I *want* to buy more shares, I just don't have the financial means to do so.

Since the short interest doesn't seem to have changed significantly I don't think it is being depressed by shorting so it would seem that the downward trend represents day traders or longs without discipline.

Of course I could very well be wrong. I'm not a super smart or wealthy investor and my knowledge of the stock market is fairly superficial. (It is enough to discount the constant noise about tweets supposedly driving the stock price, but there's no arguing with people who seize on whatever correlation they want to -- as already evidenced in this thread so I won't go there other than to point out Dunning Kruger.)

 

[TheTalkingMule]

I don't think dropping to $290 is insane given the amount of work that's been put in to shove the narrative in the short's direction. We still have a little ways to go before major investors get back from their summer in the European countryside and roll up their sleeves to look at fundamentals.

$50-54B is a perfectly fair valuation for a company with clear intentions to dominate multiple trillion dollar markets, but has yet to post sustainable profits in an earnings report. Anything can shift valuation a bit until that happens, however I don't think the big players will be waiting for a report to make their move. At some point in September/October the real money will make their bets, whoever's on the wrong side will get smoked.

Tick tock, tick tock....

 

[winfield100]

08/30/2018 Buy Trade Details TSLA
TESLA INC
2 $299.4309

 

[Unpilot]

08/30/2018 Buy Trade Details TSLA
TESLA INC
2 $299.4309

Smart man...a little here ..a little there.

I dont see this sale lasting much longer.

Not an advise of course

 

[X Fan]

Very much disagree about the fit and finish being subpar on the X. We just bought an X this summer for my wife and she absolutely loves it. She drives about 40,000 miles annually for her job, so it is getting a serious workout. She came from an Acura MDX, so not a high luxury SUV but still a very good one. There is no contest between the 2 for her. She finds the fit and finish of the X to be excellent. She does NOT like the Falcon doors and would much prefer regular doors instead. We have the 6 seat version for the open feeling and wish the middle row would fold flat. We don't spend any time admiring the middle row from the side.

Agreed....my new X's fit and finish is no different than my wife's Porsche Macan (and she's had 3 major recalls) and BMW SUVs that we have owned. In fact, I'd say it's much better than my last X5. Previously, my Mercedes S and my wife's E class had numerous issues over our ownership period.

Re: P90's comment on functionality--no auto mfg. can ever make the entire buying public happy. Similar to viewing Art, one's disdain is another's love. The X is no different.....

For us (my wife and dog), the X is a perfect fit for both local and in particular our frequent trips between FL & NC......

 

[X Fan]

08/30/2018 Buy Trade Details TSLA
TESLA INC
2 $299.4309

Can't help myself....Tesla below $300 is a buying opportunity.

Just bought another 100 shares at $299.5012....

btw: anyone expect a bump in SP from probable new Roadster unveiling at Grand Basel? Tesla is bringing a ‘surprise’ car to Grand Basel’s selective ‘automotive masterpieces’ show

 

[P90D]

That would be pretty neat. I think it's beyond ludicrous that the stock is trading in this range just before the best financial results the company has ever shown, but I guess the big short-sellers have to unload their positions on retail muppets before the financial come out. :shrug:

If you have $290 as a bearish short-term, bullish long-term, sell some puts, short some stock and take in the theta and cost basis reduction till you want to go bullish (presumably the last few hours of the session before earnings.)
Is there data on institutional positions or shorts liquidating around earnings in the past?
https://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/tsla/ownership-summary
I guess you could compile raw data and plot it against earnings and see.
I think the efficient trade is to look a the expected move and sell premium twice as far from the strike during the session before earnings.
For example with $TSLA at $300, and earnings on Oct 30, Nov 260 puts are $17
Personally, I'm optimistic there will be a rally in $TSLA long before Oct 30th, but short term, the puts are there as a way to reduce cost basis and if price gets anywhere near $243 -- which is also it's recent low -- it's going to be a lot of sustained selling with a lot of shorts there wanting to take profits if there was another 20% (!) sell-off.
OK, I'm talking myself into it ... : )
bpr for 1 short put and 50 short stock ... hmmm ... ok, filled ... just another day holding on to the mast in a storm ...

 

[tivoboy]

Can't help myself....Tesla below $300 is a buying opportunity.

Just bought another 100 shares at $299.5012....

btw: anyone expect a bump in SP from probable new Roadster unveiling at Grand Basel? Tesla is bringing a ‘surprise’ car to Grand Basel’s selective ‘automotive masterpieces’ show

you mean ANOTHER new roadster, or the one already revealed and displayed frequently?

 

[P90D]

Agreed....my new X's fit and finish is no different than my wife's Porsche Macan (and she's had 3 major recalls) and BMW SUVs that we have owned. In fact, I'd say it's much better than my last X5. Previously, my Mercedes S and my wife's E class had numerous issues over our ownership period.

Re: P90's comment on functionality--no auto mfg. can ever make the entire buying public happy. Similar to viewing Art, one's disdain is another's love. The X is no different.....

For us (my wife and dog), the X is a perfect fit for both local and in particular our frequent trips between FL & NC......

Really? you're prepared to say the build quality of an X is the same as a Porsche ... c'mon ...

 

[Matias]

And how would that work at 3 in the morning on the factory floor when Elon feels like sending out a tweet? Every device he has access to would need to route all his communications to someone else to review before it goes out to the world. I just don't see a realistic practical solution.

If Elon doesn’t know his twitter password, he can’t tweet
Ok,I know this is ridiculous, but you could implement it that whay. He only can send twitter messages to his PR person, who knows the password.

 

[Rarity]

I think it's beyond ludicrous that the stock is trading in this range just before the best financial results the company has ever shown, but I guess the big short-sellers have to unload their positions on retail muppets before the financial come out. :shrug:

My hunch is that a strategic shareholder who isn't really focused on the financial results, such as the Saudi PIF, is exiting. Probably wanted Musk to build factories in the country and now that Musk has declined the deal, they no longer have any interest.

 

[Matias]

That would be pretty neat. I think it's beyond ludicrous that the stock is trading in this range just before the best financial results the company has ever shown, but I guess the big short-sellers have to unload their positions on retail muppets before the financial come out. :shrug:

Forgive me my ignorance, but wouldn’t short sellers unloading (=closing?) their positions cause the stock to rise?

 

[Causalien]

And how would that work at 3 in the morning on the factory floor when Elon feels like sending out a tweet? Every device he has access to would need to route all his communications to someone else to review before it goes out to the world. I just don't see a realistic practical solution.

This should work. Pay a personal assistant enough and they will be willing to sleep on the factory floor with elon at 3 am. Worst comes to worst hire 4 who alternates day night shifts and weekends. He is rich enough. It strikes me as weird that we haven't seen an attache that follows him around like that.

Heck, even lowly me has a part time assistant.

Or just wait for a day and bounce things off Kimbal. "am I being an asshole if I reply like this?" That's what brothers are for. My own brother had a few gaff like this when he first got into C level positions and I had to elbow him a bit on the abuse of power and the optics it present to normal ppl. You forget sometimes when you get to the top.

Elon is the prize in most conversation, most ppl won't mind waiting 24 hrs for a reply.

 

[Fact Checking]

And how would that work at 3 in the morning on the factory floor when Elon feels like sending out a tweet? Every device he has access to would need to route all his communications to someone else to review before it goes out to the world. I just don't see a realistic practical solution.

He should use his own Twitter client app, which would include the following functionality:

• 10-20 trusted confidants, across all timezones, would see his messages and just 1-2 of them would be enough to finalize the tweet.
• They could also re-route tweets to the @tesla Twitter handle where appropriate.
• He doesn't even have to know who those people are, and it's no big deal anyway
• Special rule: at least one woman needs to approve.

All of Elon's problematic tweets would have been filtered out with such an approach, I don't see them being forwarded by even one out of 20 reasonable people. (And yes, those problematic tweets were that bad, and yes, even people of Elon's caliber sometimes need serious talking to and have the occasional growing up to do. Elon's human like the rest of us.)

Note that this method still means:

• almost real-time messaging, as statistically there will always be someone who says "yeah that tweet is ok" within minutes
• there's no sycophant/gatekeeper danger: 10-20 people won't control his message, they'll just filter out that one super stupid tweet from 1,000 good tweets.
• the per confidant overhead is low: the ones who get it could be selected randomly, so on average there's one message per person every couple of days

And if Elon finds this humiliating then tough cookies: alternatively he could also do the growing up part and control his tweeting better.

 

[Fact Checking]

Twitter Tips For Billionaires | CleanTechnica

Thanks @ZachShahan, that list really needed to be written!

 

[tivoboy]

My hunch is that a strategic shareholder who isn't really focused on the financial results, such as the Saudi PIF, is exiting. Probably wanted Musk to build factories in the country and now that Musk has declined the deal, they no longer have any interest.

Frankly, I cannot imagine that building any sort of factory in saudia arabia was in any discussion with the PIF or rulership. Other than "sure, we'll take a look at it" from Musk.

 

[X Fan]

Really? you're prepared to say the build quality of an X is the same as a Porsche ... c'mon ...

Yup, sure am. I had top end Mercedes & BMW for years (between my wife and I we've had at least 6 BMW X5's, BMW 5's, Mercedes S & E) and my wife has had Porsche SUV's so we're not unfamiliar with the high-end German products. Their technology fails quite often.

With re: to Porsche: let's see in 2 years:
Passenger air bag, fuel leak, passenger seat mechanism recalls, two of which took over 1 year to remediate since parts were unavailable. Moreover, the electronics package failed and they had to replace. btw: I live in Naples a good part of the year and I interact with lots of Porsche owners who drink their kool aid (their fan boy population is very similar to Tesla). However, many of them have to visit Porsche of Naples during the winter for fixes....

So yeah, with no safety recalls nor major parts needed for both my Tesla X's I'd sure say our experience has been better than our Porsche interaction. With re: to Mercedes/BMW, I've experienced window failures, moon roof leaks, door latch issues, brake recalls.....and,

I'd add re: Range Rovers, driver ego aside. Yikes, they need a service tech attached to their trunk given the significant quality issues they have with their products.

 

[Joe F]

• fossil fuel seeded/amplified messaging: this might in fact get a bit milder as time goes on, because with global warming killing people even in the U.S. actual criminal prosecution of the fossil industry's crimes against humanity are a real future possibility. They'll try to reduce their future liability and instead ride the green wave. Fossil fuel interests will own much of the new tech, and they'll try to grow into the new markets.

Since this thread is mostly not about market action, I'll just drop this here.

l'll add one I think about all the time: As someone who went through the '70's with long gas lines, odd/even days where you couldn't even buy gas, rationing etc, how long before that returns? Anyone who recently went through similar conditions due to hurricanes will no doubt understand this better than most.

At the current consumption rate, I've read industry reports that there's less than 50 years worth of crude in the ground. As governments wake up to the reality that the fuel they need to support defense objectives, can anybody dispute their strategic reserves are not going to grow, or at least they'll curtail the massive waste of natural resources like fossil fuel. Current CAFE standards should explode, IMHO.

I think all here understand the inevitable is a reality others don't want to believe, however I feel it's going to be here sooner rather than later.

 

[Fact Checking]

My hunch is that a strategic shareholder who isn't really focused on the financial results, such as the Saudi PIF, is exiting.

That would be super dumb to do so shortly after building up the position. Much smarter to do during the Q3/Q4 market euphoria.

Probably wanted Musk to build factories in the country and now that Musk has declined the deal, they no longer have any interest.

I think the main sovereign fund that could realistically have insisted upon that is Norway.

To me the current selloff is just the effect of the bad sentiment caused by the NYT article and the dumb tweets: those got a lot of traction in the liberal media, mostly Tesla FUD free until now.

(Another possibility is some big trader trading on insider information about an upcoming negative event.)

 

[ZachShahan]

This should work. Pay a personal assistant enough and they will be willing to sleep on the factory floor with elon at 3 am. Worst comes to worst hire 4 who alternates day night shifts and weekends. He is rich enough. It strikes me as weird that we haven't seen an attache that follows him around like that.

Heck, even lowly me has a part time assistant.

Or just wait for a day and bounce things off Kimbal. "am I being an asshole if I reply like this?" That's what brothers are for. My own brother had a few gaff like this when he first got into C level positions and I had to elbow him a bit on the abuse of power and the optics it present to normal ppl. You forget sometimes when you get to the top.

Elon is the prize in most conversation, most ppl won't mind waiting 24 hrs for a reply.

Dude, I'd sleep on the factory floor with Elon for $5.
My wife might not be cool with it, but do what you gotta do. And it's Elon!