TSLA Market Action: 2018 Investor Roundtable

[ZsoZso]

This probably futile, but...

How are longs any different? If I buy a share of Apple tomorrow and go long, my bid will have some microscopic effect on the share price (or "opinion"), I will have contributed nothing of value to the Company, and I will absolutely be trying to make money off the labor of others. Aren't we all really playing the same game? How can I be good when I'm long, and evil when I'm short?

Being long is actually investing. Shorting and option trading is more akin to gambling. You are not actually investing in any company.

 

[Singer3000]

He might not be in the speaking mood. I'm down too, prob. $150k(I don't check lately) of life savings and I don't play options, just went in "private" all the way... This is on paper so far, not realized, so being in TT007 shoes must feel terrible.

I guess our lesson is that Elon does not consider anybody LONG, unless you're in for 10+ years, so in his opinion what he says today only affects short term; and anybody who's trading short term, especially options are not his supporters, but simple speculators. Therefore, they are dispensable. I think he doesn't realize that many of us do both - have long term investments we're not planning to touch any time soon, but also short term play money that we considered relatively safe from folding (with company doing progressively better) and being available to pull out if needed... when the play money quickly disappears due to odd tweets, the confidence level is also shaken.

Some of us on here have employers that require quite a bit of tedious bureaucracy before buying or selling individual shares in a personal capacity. Mostly this is an irritant but it does mean you only make investment decisions based upon long term fundamentals, as it's too much of a hassle to go through often. By slowing you down for a few days on both the way in and way out, it also squeezes the emotion out of any decision and forces you to sleep on it a couple of times. At the take-private, there's a good chance I'd have done something similar to you were I not subject to these rules. Maybe there's a lesson for us all in there somewhere.

 

[phil0909]

Shorts are to finance as attack ads are to politics.

No. Political attack ads are wildly successful; that's why they're so widely used.

Shorting stocks is not generally successful - the vast majority of market profits are on the long side. Or so I've heard.

 

[phil0909]

Being long is actually investing. Shorting and option trading is more akin to gambling. You are not actually investing in any company.

It's all investing. And investing is gambling. Not akin, it is literally gambling. Generally it's legal gambling, but gambling nonetheless. You should not pretend to greater virtue than shorts, just because you happen to have chosen the other side of the wager.

OK, I'll stop now. Worn out topic, and (mostly) off topic with respect to current market action.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Here are a few more thoughts further to my prev. post:

• I estimate Elon could borrow approx. $13.6B* against his shares in SpaceX
• Elon needs about 51M more shares of TSLA to own a controlling interest
• At $267/share, $13.6B buys about 51M shares

That's for "private citizen Elon" buying equity in a public Tesla. Also note that Elon's TSLA shares would be worth $500B given a market cap of $1T in about 10 years. That's approx. $200B more than his CEO compensation package currently in place.

Over to you.

* PV calculated at link above assumes the following:

• $6B revenue over 4 years with100 confirmed launch orders @ $60M each
  
• Elon owns 54% of SpaceX common shares
• 0.25 of above rev/yr since Revenue is spread over 4 years
  
• Max borrowing limit of 70% against share value is common for brokerages

 

[oneday]

maybe, but regs allow for brokers or insts or whatever to do whatever they want with customers shares that are purchased with credit/margin.
unless the holders shares are fully paid, of course.

Are pension funds actually buying with margin? I’d expect not.

 

[SpaceCash]

Let's hope he is not investing 30 years of his parent's savings or a trust fund they left him that took 30 years to build.

I actually thought 007 was buying shares which took a drumming on Friday but fully recovered and then some on Monday.

He's a f***ing doctor. Shut up dude

 

[Nikxice]

This isn't the first time that Elon has put a spotlight on an acronym. All the recent SEC press might have contributed to his disdain. How Elon Musk Declared War On Acronyms - OfficeChai
Looks like a drop for TSLA at Friday's open, but I don't foresee a RUD.

 

[Artful Dodger]

If he starts electrocuting elephants like Edison, or the modern day equivalent, then hopefully

hold up there Tex. Wasn't it VW gassing the lab rats to prove diesel smoke is good for you? /s

 

[Krugerrand]

It's not clear that Tesla's new 80 ton SchulerPress for Model 3 is operating at capacity. If there is unused capacity, all Tesla would need to begin stamping Model Y body parts is the new dies for the changed components. Obviously with the Y being based on the 3, there will be some common body components.

Cheers!

It doesn’t work that way. They’ll have different die sets for all body panels for the Y. Which is mainly what Tesla makes - body panels. They also stamp battery casings last I saw reported. Those would likely be the same if both vehicles are on the same platform. And as I mentioned to nerodan - it’s a year for new die sets from start to finish at run rate. Even under heavy whipping.

They also won’t have press capacity on that new press line for all the Y body panels. They might be able to make some of the panels on their other press lines but I wouldn’t bet on it. Not if they manage to gear up to 10k/wk of the 3, while still doing Model S and X body panels. I believe they’d need another press line.

And fyi, it’s not an 80 ton press, none of them are 80 ton. And there are 5 in that line. You couldn’t make a license plate on an 80 ton press. You’re looking at at least 2500 ton and quite likely even more.

 

[AWDtsla]

It's all investing. And investing is gambling. Not akin, it is literally gambling. Generally it's legal gambling, but gambling nonetheless. You should not pretend to greater virtue than shorts, just because you happen to have chosen the other side of the wager.

OK, I'll stop now. Worn out topic, and (mostly) off topic with respect to current market action.

Only in that your next breathe is a gamble.

You own a piece of the company as a long. If the company does well, so do you. This in general means the creation of wealth for humanity, of which you get a share. On the other hand speculating through short positions and options is zero-sum game where someone must lose for you to profit.

 

[ZsoZso]

It's all investing. And investing is gambling. Not akin, it is literally gambling. Generally it's legal gambling, but gambling nonetheless. You should not pretend to greater virtue than shorts, just because you happen to have chosen the other side of the wager.

OK, I'll stop now. Worn out topic, and (mostly) off topic with respect to current market action.

You are wrong. There are 3 types of players on the stock market:

1. Investors: buy shares and hold them for long term
2. Gamblers: try to make money via trading
there are different ways to achieve this:
a) shorting a stock
b) trading options
c) frequently buying and selling shares, aka day-trading
3. Market manipulators: actively trying to change the stock price via buying/selling/shorting
(this requires large amount of money, so not typical for "retail investors")

There can be bearish and bullish players in both category 2 and 3 with regards to any specific stock, but neither of them are actual Long investors in the strict sense of the word.
Sometimes the bullish gamblers and market manipulators are also called Longs, but that is not a correct naming.
You are projecting your own self values by not even acknowledging the existence of category 1, the real investors.

 

[Alphacrux]

Here are a few more thoughts further to my prev. post:

• I estimate Elon could borrow approx. $13.6B* against his shares in SpaceX
• Elon needs about 51M more shares of TSLA to own a controlling interest
• At $267/share, $13.6B buys about 51M shares

That's for "private citizen Elon" buying equity in a public Tesla. Also note that Elon's TSLA shares would be worth $500B given a market cap of $1T in about 10 years. That's approx. $200B more than his CEO compensation package currently in place.

Over to you.

* PV calculated at link above assumes the following:

• $6B revenue over 4 years with100 confirmed launch orders @ $60M each
  
• Elon owns 54% of SpaceX common shares
• 0.25 of above rev/yr since Revenue is spread over 4 years
  
• Max borrowing limit of 70% against share value is common for brokerages

That’s almost 5x the average daily volume. How could 51m shares be accumulated without a significant increase in price?

 

[SpaceCash]

That’s almost 5x the average daily volume. How could 51m shares be accumulated without a significant increase in price?

Exactly.

 

[phil0909]

That’s almost 5x the average daily volume. How could 51m shares be accumulated without a significant increase in price?

Hmmmmm. What could Elon do, to hold the stock price down? That's a real head-scratcher right there. If only there were a way...

Perhaps Twitter could be used somehow...

 

[jhm]

A few weeks ago while on vacation, I had the worst stomach pain ever. It was very intense and nothing seemed to help. We even considered going to the emergency room. We called first and learned that they probably just send us home with a bottle of magnesium citrate to get the party started. So after midnight my wife heads out to Walmart. It was closed. But in the mean time, I settled down and started to sleep. So I just slept the rest of the night.

I had a point here, what was it?

Oh, yeah, this too will pass.

 

[beachbum77]

Hmmmmm. What could Elon do, to hold the stock price down? That's a real head-scratcher right there.

Perhaps Twitter could be used somehow...

Would not work. Each purchase he made would have to be reported on Form 4's. We could all see what he was doing and it would drive up the price instantly.

 

[SpaceCash]

Would not work. Each purchase he made would have to be reported on Form 4's. We could all see what he was doing and it would drive up the price instantly.

You missed the joke. And the boat.

SKRRRRRRRRT

 

[CuriousSunbird]

Actually can someone make an explanation? The scam Elon is alluding to went over my head. Not 100% sure what he is talking about.

His issue seems to be that index funds lend out the shares they own in order to make stock lending fees.

 

[CuriousSunbird]

Spit balling:
People invest in a small index fund
Index fund turns around and lends out the shares
Index fund pockets the interest
Meanwhile, the returns on the stock are poor due to the shorting, but it's the stock price itself that is low, so the index fund looks clean.

Seems illogical. Over the long-term shorts can't make a stock go down because we have to buy it back. All that we can do is smooth out some peaks and try to assess the fundamental value.