TSLA Market Action: 2018 Investor Roundtable

[KarenRei]

Ah, here's that ever-so-predictable FUD we were all waiting for from the 10-Q:

Tesla's 10-Q Reveals Q3 May Not Have Been Profitable, After All

A Closer Look At Tesla Q3 Margins

Tesla Can't Get Its Story Straight

 

[humbaba]

Ah, here's that FUD we were all waiting for from the 10-Q:

Tesla's 10-Q Reveals Q3 May Not Have Been Profitable, After All

A Closer Look At Tesla Q3 Margins

Tesla Can't Get Its Story Straight

yeah, but that's just seeking alpha. Oh, wait, they are a trusted source for news agencies. Sigh.

 

[Foghat]

I'll have to disagree with this. While the interview was firm, Kara Swisher simply asks tough questions and doesn't let the subjects get away with s..t. She's probably known Elon for over a decade at this point (probably even back to Paypal days) and interviewed him several times over the past decade. She's VERY well connected here in the valley and other silicon coasts, knows simply everyone and gets scoops directly from them and everyone else for that matter.

And recode is a significant operation in the space, so no worries that the participants in their conferences and podcasts are going anywhere.

I don’t doubt she’s connected, she’s just not connected to the buying market in my opinion.

As an investor in a company that seeks to *accelerate* the sustainable production and consumption of energy, the buying market is a far more important connection to me.

The more Elon connects to it directly, which he does very well when he can be himself uninterrupted, the more cars/storage/solar are sold and out there in the world.

He’s a great guest for any podcaster, might as well focus on the podcaster the buying audience connect with as well.

My advice to Elon: ur very good on camera. Only do on camera interviews if u can since we the audience connect very much to your earnestness and passion. Hard to really feel this reality with voice only sometimes, even those are great too!

 

[LordAstinus]

yeah, but that's just seeking alpha. Oh, wait, they are a trusted source for news agencies. Sigh.

Something seems to have changed: I'm of the opinion that 1 month ago, the same FUD would have caused the SP to tank. Whereas now it keeps testing the resistance -> Shorts covering + Institutional shareholders FOMO? Take a look here:

IBorrow Desk

The number of shares available for borrowing in IB is close to ATH...

 

[Alphacrux]

I liked the interview where Elon says he thinks they are on track for generalized full self driving next year. Of course, caveat is that that's on "Elon time".

 

[Sparky]

I think the upside on the non-car side of Tesla is far larger than many are thinking. Home solar, energy storage (for cities, businesses, people), a variety of tools and gadgets etc. Why wouldn't I be able to buy a Tesla lawnmower or home robot in 5 years? Self driving tech is applicable for hundreds of applications, batteries are in almost everything we own now.

I'm impressed at how well TSLA has fended off the usual downward spikes of late. It's put a damper on me adding to my shares with dips! Perhaps it's the exit of the deep pocket shorters? Kinda miss the dependable, coordinated FUD. Is that Stock(holm) syndrome?
I replied to above to add:
Lawnmowers, etc in 5 years...ok. But, the cool tech gift this year is a Model 3 with the latest AP V9!
I just drove about 350 miles with auto-Nav engaged, mostly freeway, and loved it. Of course it needs to be in "Mad Max" mode to work sensibly on long stretches of I-5's truck traffic . I'm thinking the timing of the new AP update and the David Pogue article is brilliant for the short term buzz since Pogue gets a lot of traffic this time of year by tech-gift-wanters.

 

[avoigt]

well, i'm sure that I'm not in the target market for the podcast. I did start to read the transcript, but her agenda-driven assault was so noxious I stopped. She had multiple axes to grind and wasn't going to listen to what he said. It took like three tries of Elon to get through to her at one point before she backed off on a point she was failing to make.

Waste of time.

Elon did a great job answering the questions. I was disappointed by her being very poorly informed and repeating the narrative again. She put him into dangerous terrain and asked him to walk around so it was not easy. Very pleased how he managed doing that and placed all the right and good hints we are looking for.

Really worth listening to and with some good new additional information.

Also I liked to hear and see him more relaxed, focussed and concentrated to the mission. The extensive stress phase of make or brake in September is over and I like him to be around a little bid longer and not burning the candle from both sides.....

 

[scaesare]

My God. He sounds like Trump. Like all the hype.

Except the last similar scenario was when he revealed a couple of years ago that a prototype semi already existed, and he had been driving it around in parking lots, and was uber cool with crazy torque...

And then he revealed it to the world and that's pretty much exactly what they built.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Damn, this like a prize fight where
TSLA is like Buster Douglas and
AAPL be like Buster Keaton.

 

[LordAstinus]

Elon did a great job answering the questions. I was disappointed by her being very poorly informed and repeating the narrative again. She put him into dangerous terrain and asked him to walk around so it was not easy. Very pleased how he managed doing that and placed all the right and good hints we are looking for.

Really worth listening to and with some good new additional information.

Also I liked to hear and see him more relaxed, focussed and concentrated to the mission. The extensive stress phase of make or brake in September is over and I like him to be around a little bid longer and not burning the candle from two sides.....

He's got way bigger chances of getting a positive outcome from podcasts/video interviews like this one, even if the interviewer is aggressive or biased, than with crude calls and citations, where no context is provided and they can make "sugar" up easily. So I'm happy if he keeps doing this and reaching wider audiences.

 

[Johan]

well, i'm sure that I'm not in the target market for the podcast. I did start to read the transcript, but her agenda-driven assault was so noxious I stopped. She had multiple axes to grind and wasn't going to listen to what he said. It took like three tries of Elon to get through to her at one point before she backed off on a point she was failing to make.

Waste of time.

I listened to it during a run. Joe Rogan having success I can understand 100% - he's enthusiastic, we'll red and just the right amount eccentric. But this woman, terrible interviewer, didn't give up trying to get the answer she was expecting. At one point Elon just laughed and said: I don't think you're hearing me.

 

[humbaba]

Elon did a great job answering the questions. I was disappointed by her being very poorly informed and repeating the narrative again. She put him into dangerous terrain and asked him to walk around so it was not easy. Very pleased how he managed doing that and placed all the right and good hints we are looking for.

Really worth listening to and with some good new additional information.

Also I liked to hear and see him more relaxed, focussed and concentrated to the mission. The extensive stress phase of make or brake in September is over and I like him to be around a little bid longer and not burning the candle from two sides.....

I can see your point about listening for Elon, but in general I only have time for text -- audio and video lacks information density and I don't (generally) have the time for it.

But point taken.

 

[shootformoon]

Elon did a great job answering the questions. I was disappointed by her being very poorly informed and repeating the narrative again. She put him into dangerous terrain and asked him to walk around so it was not easy. Very pleased how he managed doing that and placed all the right and good hints we are looking for.

Really worth listening to and with some good new additional information.

Also I liked to hear and see him more relaxed, focussed and concentrated to the mission. The extensive stress phase of make or brake in September is over and I like him to be around a little bid longer and not burning the candle from two sides.....

i think tsla needs a communication team dedicated to vet the questions thrown at elon in this kind of podcast. It will help controlling the narrative and not wasting too much elon's time.

 

[jimmy_d]

I liked the interview where Elon says he thinks they are on track for generalized full self driving next year. Of course, caveat is that that's on "Elon time".

You know, I think we’ll get to full self-driving next year. As a generalized solution, I think. But that’s a ... Like we’re on track to do that next year. ​

It's worth considering that "getting to FSD" might not be the same as "FSD shipping to customers". Having it working internally would let them know it's possible, but ironing out all the kinks so you can ship it could still take some time.

 

[Zhelko Dimic]

So why not just write strangles?

Too little time-value in strangles, or even opposite, it's negative value. And the only advantage is that less of my capital is tied into the trade, so I can write more contracts!? No thanks, I don't want to do that, that scares me.

I'm not sure if gains will come from time-value or from being right on direction, but this gives me some opportunity to have extra gains, and to wait out to close position for a long, long time. It's a very low maintenance strategy, I'm not looking for active positions, but long and lazy ones.

And if SP crashes to under $100, this additional position is 50% leverage on the account that is 12% of my money, so, not much difference... I would have enough cash to take at least half of assignment, if not 3/4, so I imagine I can weather transient effects. The real pain would be SP crash, not this little add-on.
I agree it's very aggressive to do this on your full position, sorry I didn't qualify that's not what I do.

 

[EngRyan]

You know, I think we’ll get to full self-driving next year. As a generalized solution, I think. But that’s a ... Like we’re on track to do that next year. ​

It's worth considering that "getting to FSD" might not be the same as "FSD shipping to customers". Having it working internally would let them know it's possible, but ironing out all the kinks so you can ship it could still take some time.

The NN prophet has spoken. haha, joking aside totally agree. Hope to see the coast to coast as a solid proof of concept in 2019. Even once it's rolled out to customers will definitely be a US thing first then North America and later Europe. Every time I visit Europe and see the streets in cities I shake my head and think, "yaaa, maybe you guys get FSD two years after North America does."

 

[KarenRei]

Chanos sounds like he's still short Tesla:

Login on Twitter

Good. I hope he follows this all the way to the end, throwing more good money after bad, until he's broke.

 

[BioSehnsucht]

That would be the leaked megapack. Looking forward to that Built into a shipping crate maybe?

This is classic Elon, BTW E.g.:



Love his snark

As soon as I saw the name "Megapack" leaked/rumored, my first thought was shipping crate sized powerpack. Rather than deploying several powerpacks and an inverter, and wiring them together and to the grid, they would be pre wired, self contained cooling and all, and they would simply wire the crate to the grid, and be done.

 

[Brando]

So many important reasons to NOT do parachute delivery:

• Tesla is NOT going to adopt any Soviet-era tech
  
• NATO countries use LAPES (Low-altitude Parachute Extraction System)
• LAPES kills air-crew at a fixed rate (see vid below)
  
• its now restricted to emergency/wartime operations due to high risk
• LAPSE implies air-cargo, when sea-lift is the way to move large tonnages
• Tanks/AFVs can survive a LAPES drop (acceptable combat losses)
  
• Civilian electronics/flammable lithium batteries will NOT survive a drop
  
• lithium electrolytes in that quantity would be a massive fire risk
• risks include total loss of the Aircraft and crew
  
• no civil Insurance Underwriter would EVER carry this policy

In summary: Sealift to ship megapacks, LAPES for when the Country is at war.

Make battery storage systems and STORE THEM IN A WAREHOUSE and wait for an emergency? really???

 

[Foghat]

I think Elon could really do some viral internet damage if he also did the hot sauce guy interview with all his kids around laughing at him in spicy pain try to pitch model 3 safety tech or how the Atari games working only in park, etc... endearing lovable, “dad joke” Elon in pain “like chewing glass into the abyss” but with hot sauce and a Brady Bunch of kids... pure gold!