TSLA Market Action: 2018 Investor Roundtable

[Off Shore]

well, he didn't say completely divest, so hopefully he will keep posting.

But I think it is a fair criticism of the company: Tesla makes a great product and Musk has demonstrated his ability to guide the company to making at scale and profit. Even deliveries appear to be improving (at least in terms of scaling up, not sure how they are tracking in terms of absolute numbers of delivery problems). But the communications seems to be an area that they just don't get.

Other than Musk appears to be moderating his social media postings (a small victory) the company still seems to be in the "we're a small startup where all of our customers love us and are desperate to get our product so we can coast on this communications thing" mind set. Whether its the absolute lack of clarity on order status (c'mon, that should be a simple, cheap and easy fix) or non-responsiveness to inquiries or lackluster PR. I get that they are busy and doing a lot of things. That's fine and dandy, but they aren't going to scale sales up with how they've been doing things.

@neroden's always been something of a curmudgeon about Tesla (I don't know if he's old enough to be a grumpy old man, in any case that's my brief) but as Tesla continues to fail to get its paper act together his complaints take on more and more resonance. I'm less frustrated than he is (perhaps because I've found enough good podcasts to distract from the USB issues) but I can see his point, for sure.

 

[anthonyj]

Based on shooting star formation, or something else?

Today wasn’t really a shooting star. I’m just taking some profits with my play money. It gives me a lot of peace of mind

 

[EVNow]

I'm less frustrated than he is (perhaps because I've found enough good podcasts to distract from the USB issues) but I can see his point, for sure.

OT : I've not really found a good car for USB. You have to always arrange and rearrange and go through the hoops to make it work. I can see why someone would be frustrated and I can also see why nobody fixes it. The % of drivers using USB is probably small and is a dying format.

I just wish Tesla can let us use Google Play. Then we wouldn't need USB and it would be "future proof".

 

[Unpilot]

Regarding trolls and paid hacks. Please dont feed them...the last one was pretty easy to spot yet some here kept feeding it.

If a new member or a care bear has a legitimate concern sure...but exploding cars and other nonsense needs to be ignored quick.

Unless you like that kind of stuff

 

[Off Shore]

I wonder if it's the shorts who pay her or the oil industry - maybe they're one-and-the-same.

No, but the venn diagrams overlap a lot.

 

[Carl Raymond]

Gave your comment top rating for this paragraph.

Most of them loose money and did again today but I guess they don't care. I believe there is a lot of available money thrown in from the oil & gas industry to try to hinder Tesla getting too dominant and grow too fast. Every day counts for them and is worth more than they loose. There are enough not that smart shorts and bears in the market which are mislead by some smart large shorts with

I know it borders on tinfoil hat conspiracy, but fits other observations:
- troll farms, we've all seen them in operation
- sponsoring of climate change denialist groups, spreading disinformation
- shorts otherwise inexplicable willingness to take likely losing positions

The greater exposure the hand of oil in these shenanigans gets, the more likely they are to wind up operations and pretend it never happened.

 

[SpaceCash]

I know it borders on tinfoil hat conspiracy...

No. This is very, very real. It's exactly as dastardly as it looks. In the past when I was just playing with stinky pinky penny weed stocks, I once got super lucky and turned 8 grand into 96 grand over a few days. The ensuing shenanigans were extensive. The shorts in this situation harassed me by phone calls at 3am speaking through voice distorters, threatening me. They doxxed me on investor boards (that's why I doxxed myself here multiple times, just to pre-empt them), they reported me to my command (I was still enlisted Navy) as an arms dealer (lmao) and they reported me to the SEC (20 or so SEC employees viewed my Linkedin profile over the span of a couple weeks). And the punchline? They won. The SEC suspended the stock and I never really took profits and lost out.

They're not gonna get me again

 

[homer214]

Ignored my first troll today and didn’t feed a single one of them. Felt good.

Even better: about to drive away in my strikingly beautiful new M3 as I write this.

Delivery experience has been solid. I’ve never seen anything like it. Dozens of customers waiting for their beautiful new cars.

Ignore the trolls. Drive on...

 

[Artful Dodger]

OT

I interpreted what The Dodger was implying was that if posters here are responding to the trash, we’ll be too distracted to make our million dollar share purchases to counteract the attack.

Aha, close!

More to the point, Trolls are here for a reason. Trolls STAY here because its working. For example, today:

Yes, Audie deleted so many posts that an entire page went empty.

Let's cut off their paychecks. Don't Feed the Trolls.

Cheers!

 

[humbaba]

More good news:

White House adviser expects China's tariffs on U.S. autos to fall to zero | Reuters

White House Economic Adviser Larry Kudlow on Monday said that China could immediately slash its vehicle tariffs, as the country enters a 90-day truce in the current trade war with the United States to negotiate a trade deal, as he reiterated China’s pledge to begin lifting barriers immediately. (...)

Please note the wording of this:

"could include China reducing its 40 percent tariffs on U.S.-produced vehicles"
“We expect those tariffs to fall to zero,” he said in reference to the auto tariffs.

Going from "could" "reduce" to "expect" "fall to zero" is a leap if I ever saw one. In that article there wasn't even agreement when the 90-day negotiating window started (Dec 1 or Jan 1).

Given what both sides have said all I take from it is both sides have agreed to suspend imposing new tariffs as they negotiate, with an expectation that those negotiations will result in a reduction of tariffs and other trade impediments.

But expectations can always be dashed. Which is particularly easy when there is no actual agreement for specific actions. It's fine to believe that there is good faith on the part of the US (or China), but this is rather like the infamous, "funding secured" tweet. There was every evidence of a good faith belief that funding was available, and here there is likely a good faith belief that negotiations will be productive. But the negotiations are not a foregone conclusion: if they were then there wouldn't be any negotiations and we would already have an agreement.

This is just an armistice, that's all. Hopefully it is the first step to ending the trade war, but at the moment we do not have that.

 

[Brian121]

Please note the wording of this:



Going from "could" "reduce" to "expect" "fall to zero" is a leap if I ever saw one. In that article there wasn't even agreement when the 90-day negotiating window started (Dec 1 or Jan 1).

Given what both sides have said all I take from it is both sides have agreed to suspend imposing new tariffs as they negotiate, with an expectation that those negotiations will result in a reduction of tariffs and other trade impediments.

But expectations can always be dashed. Which is particularly easy when there is no actual agreement for specific actions. It's fine to believe that there is good faith on the part of the US (or China), but this is rather like the infamous, "funding secured" tweet. There was every evidence of a good faith belief that funding was available, and here there is likely a good faith belief that negotiations will be productive. But the negotiations are not a foregone conclusion: if they were then there wouldn't be any negotiations and we would already have an agreement.

This is just an armistice, that's all. Hopefully it is the first step to ending the trade war, but at the moment we do not have that.

I am still optimistic that there is something going to happen with regard to the Auto tariff.

My take is that in the White House press briefing there is mentioning that Chine will import unspecified amount of Agriculture, Energy and Industrial products. And since US had mentioning the Auto multiple times, both before and after the meeting. I think Auto will be included.

Then, if the Tariff is still at 40%, how does this work? Can Chinese government force their citizen to buy those car at a artificially high price? Obviously not. They have to lower the tariff for the transaction to go through.

Of course if the negotiation failed and after 90 day we raise our tariff from 10% back to 25%, the Chinese obviously has every right to raise the Auto tariff from whatever level, like 0 (I wish) back to 40% (I wish not) as a retaliation.

 

[Artful Dodger]

White House adviser expects China's tariffs on U.S. autos to fall to zero | Reuters

Yeah, I wouldn't read too much into this. Larry Kudlow is looking for a cheap, fast win for the WH (fast'n'loose with the truth). He doesn't speak for the Chinese.

Another source today preportedly from China says Auto tariffs will be removed on July 1st, 2019.

 

[Carl Raymond]

Ignore the trolls. Drive on...

Let's cut off their paychecks. Don't Feed the Trolls.

Two quite different suggestions. Agree we should not reply to trolls and instead hit 'disagree'. Do not agree we should use an automated ignore function.

There are two ways to read every comment:
- from the personal point of view "Is this helpful, informative etc to me?" or
- "Is this helpful, informative etc to members of the public who come here seeking expert opinion".

There are three ways to measure success for this thread:
- TSLA stock value rises
- Tesla the company thrives
- The mission of Tesla, the advent of sustainable transport and energy is achieved

In both of these lists, it's the latter that matters most.

Focussing on the mission helps Tesla and TSLA just as much as focussing on Tesla or TSLA. Focussing on the mission requires reading comments from both perspectives - one's own, and that of new readers. If we hide the comments of trolls to ourselves and fail to 'disagree' with them, they sit there visible to other less informed readers who may be swayed.

 

[M3Rider]

There are three ways to measure success for this thread:
- TSLA stock value rises

I'd say this thread was successful today

 

[MP3Mike]

Another source today preportedly from China says Auto tariffs will be removed on July 1st, 2019.

Can you link to that? The only one I saw was an article from May, talking about July, 2018. (Recycled old news.)

 

[Curt Renz]

Regarding trolls and paid hacks. Please dont feed them...the last one was pretty easy to spot yet some here kept feeding it.

If a new member or a care bear has a legitimate concern sure...but exploding cars and other nonsense needs to be ignored quick.

Unless you like that kind of stuff

The new troll came and went so fast with his thirty laughable posts that I didn't have time to put him on ignore. Folks here know that electric cars are far safer than ICE cars run by continuous small explosions that every day turn into big fatal ones.

 

[neroden]

That's not what the article implies.
It states current 40% rate, then says "those tariffs will fall to zero".

Yeah, but this is verbal emissions from a Trump advisor, so it's about as trustworthy as any other incoherent ranting on a street corner. Could be entirely false.

When we get an announcement from China we'll know what we're dealing with.

 

[Unpilot]

Two quite different suggestions. Agree we should not reply to trolls and instead hit 'disagree'. Do not agree we should use an automated ignore function.

There are two ways to read every comment:
- from the personal point of view "Is this helpful, informative etc to me?" or
- "Is this helpful, informative etc to members of the public who come here seeking expert opinion".

There are three ways to measure success for this thread:
- TSLA stock value rises
- Tesla the company thrives
- The mission of Tesla, the advent of sustainable transport and energy is achieved

In both of these lists, it's the latter that matters most.

Focussing on the mission helps Tesla and TSLA just as much as focussing on Tesla or TSLA. Focussing on the mission requires reading comments from both perspectives - one's own, and that of new readers. If we hide the comments of trolls to ourselves and fail to 'disagree' with them, they sit there visible to other less informed readers who may be swayed.

I mostly agree...but there are some trolls that stink up the place so bad you have to ignore them.

Like the supreme court says...you know them when you see them.

 

[printf42]

专家:对美下调进口车关税正在商讨 车市跌势难改观
Chinese government has not finalized the timetable to reduce auto tariffs yet, but “according to people familiar with the matter”, we can expect a detailed plan before end of the year. It’s likely the rate would come back to the level befor retaliation(15%).
The news didn’t mention plan to drop it to zero.

 

[neroden]

OT

OT : I've not really found a good car for USB. You have to always arrange and rearrange and go through the hoops to make it work. I can see why someone would be frustrated and I can also see why nobody fixes it. The % of drivers using USB is probably small and is a dying format.

I just wish Tesla can let us use Google Play. Then we wouldn't need USB and it would be "future proof".

Android Auto + AptX would work. It's been requested. Request has been ignored.