TSLA Market Action: 2018 Investor Roundtable

[AudubonB]

MODERATOR:

Henceforth ALL posts regarding The Boring Company....even mine...go here:Boring Company

I'll port over the recent ones later today....perhaps even the totally unacceptable ones dripping with profanities and openly disparaging others.

Unless I simply incinerate them as ought to be done.

 

[avoigt]

5m5 minutes ago
Now Chinese News channels largely report Tesla China GF3 is in 1st stage of construction:

1. Assembly-line will ready 2H2019 for production
2. Ahead of schedule by 1yr
3. Save $3600 trans cost per
4. With local supply chains & labors, can lower 1/3 sales price.

Vincent on Twitter

 

[neroden]

OT

Has Mr Musk tunneled his way through all the regulations of the Subterranean Excavation Commission?

Ha.

In fact, Musk's first LA tunnel proposal was nixed due to residential complaints about going under their property, which is one of the dumbest and most ridiculous complaints about tunnels, but if Musk had done his homework, he would have expected it, because it's routine. He has not done his homework.

The most serious delays to tunnel digging are practically always dealing with existing underground utilities, marked and unmarked. There are various strategies to mitigate this, but it seems Musk wasn't even aware that this is a problem until very recently. He has not done his homework.

 

[ggr]

Mod: I extracted some of the Boring discussion, and moved it Boring Company financial discussion (Out of MA). I probably missed some intermediate posts though.

There is already a Boring Company thread, but it is cryptically stored over in the SpaceX sub-forum:
Boring Company

It seems time to have a thread here.
--ggr.

Edit: aplogies to Audie for perhaps working at cross purposes.

 

[Fact Checking]

Doesn't accrural accounting (which I'm pretty sure is how major corporations operate) imply that the money involved in a sale is recorded at the time of sale and not when the money is actually wired over? If that's so, then as long as the car was delivered before Jan 1, the accounts should reflect that transaction. Or am I wrong here? Would love someone with an actual background in this to weigh in.

That's true - but accrual accounting only affects the income sheet, i.e. how revenue and profits are calculated.

The argument @neroden raised and which I replied to originally was about cash flow - which is simply recorded whenever the funds flow and get cleared. Cash balance is what will determine how well Tesla is positioned to pay off their debt.

While @neroden is right that Q4 ends on a bank holliday, the difference to Q3 is that both production and deliveries will likely be much slower at that point than at the end of Q3. I.e. much of the effective cash flow of Q4 will already have cleared by December 31. The $100m-$200m cash 'stuck' at the end of the Q3 probably won't be a factor at the end of Q4 to nearly the same extent.

At least that's how I understand it.

 

[neroden]

Mod: I extracted some of the Boring discussion, and moved it Boring Company financial discussion (Out of MA). I probably missed some intermediate posts though.

There is already a Boring Company thread, but it is cryptically stored over in the SpaceX sub-forum:
Boring Company

It seems time to have a thread here.
--ggr.

Edit: aplogies to Audie for perhaps working at cross purposes.

Thanks. Would never have thought to look in SpaceX forum.

 

[Unpilot]

I think I figured out the SP movement....if Nasdaq goes up Tesla goes down...unless the opposite happens. Like now.

 

[anthonyj]

I think I figured out the SP movement....if Nasdaq goes up Tesla goes down...unless the opposite happens. Like now.

Tesla does whatever it wants. Hopefully this is just one massive bear trap. $46 drop is just nonsense

 

[KarenRei]

5m5 minutes ago
Now Chinese News channels largely report Tesla China GF3 is in 1st stage of construction:

1. Assembly-line will ready 2H2019 for production
2. Ahead of schedule by 1yr
3. Save $3600 trans cost per
4. With local supply chains & labors, can lower 1/3 sales price.

Vincent on Twitter

The "local supply chains" aspect is something I hadn't thought much about except with respect to battery cells. Tesla working with local OEMs to reproduce the hardware that US OEMs are producing in the US will be great for both schedule and margins.

I note that they say "assembly line", so we're just talking GA. That's more than doable. We'll see paint after that, and generally go in reverse production order.

 

[Pezpunk]

The "local supply chains" aspect is something I hadn't thought much about except with respect to battery cells. Tesla working with local OEMs to reproduce the hardware that US OEMs are producing in the US will be great for both schedule and margins.

this SOUNDS great on paper, but from people i know who have attempted to do this exact thing ... it is a nightmare. they have told me they would have been way ahead to just import the parts from the USA, as getting Chinese factories to reproduce the parts to spec at a usable quality level was incredibly time consuming and in the end a much more expensive route.

 

[KarenRei]

this SOUNDS great on paper, but from people i know who have attempted to do this exact thing ... it is a nightmare. they have told me they would have been way ahead to just import the parts from the USA, as getting Chinese factories to reproduce the parts to spec at a usable quality level was incredibly time consuming and in the end a much more expensive route.

And I'm sure that's what they'll do in the beginning until local production is ironed out - anything that current suppliers can produce in excess of US production needs (and global service needs) will surely be purchased and shipped to China, until Tesla is confident in their local supply chains, on a part-by-part basis. Tesla's current suppliers, of course, will not be left out in the cold because the exact same thing will then happen with GF4 in Europe.

 

[Krugerrand]

Say thank you to @Krugerrand

Not my fault technically. Last time I changed (and a couple others as well) it was brought to my attention someone didn’t get the memo. This time I simply announced my intentions and formally distributed the memo.

On top of that, I gave a TSLA SP short term market reason. If some people think chart analysis predicts stock movement then I’m allowed to think my avatar of choice does the same. And, ha!!!! So far, in this very moment, I’m winning.

 

[KarenRei]

Closing back in on NASDAQ (as of the time of writing, it's +0,98% vs. +1,04%)

ED: And there goes a big leap over NASDAQ! 1,38% vs. 1,05%!

ED2: Climbing relatively fast... was there news? Now over 1,5%.

 

[Johnny Ma]

Nearly 1.60% and my mood has greatly improved. Despite being $30 off from just a few sessions ago. I wish i could turn off the switch that controls my emotions.

 

[anthonyj]

Any guesses on director picks? Richard Branson + Larry Ellison would make even Chanos cover

 

[Nocturnal]

So you're going to let someone drive away with a car before you've received the money for it?

That's generally not how consumer transactions work. First you send the money, then you get the product.

It's also not sustainable. You're pulling those cars out of Q1 and into Q4, which just makes Q1 harder.

Yes, that is exactly how accrual accounting works. It doesn't matter if you don't physically have the cash, you have already earned it. The same thing happens on the expense side. You report the expense when it is recognized, not when you actually pay the invoice.

What is the accrual basis of accounting? | AccountingCoach

Under the accrual basis of accounting, revenues are reported on the income statement when they are earned. (Under the cash basis of accounting, revenues are reported on the income statement when the cash is received.) Under the accrual basis of accounting, expenses are matched with the related revenues and/or are reported when the expense occurs, not when the cash is paid. The result of accrual accounting is an income statement that better measures the profitability of a company during a specific time period.

 

[KarenRei]

Any guesses on director picks? Richard Branson + Larry Ellison would make even Chanos cover

I'm hoping for a nice pair of ficuses.

 

[Johnny Ma]

Any guesses on director picks? Richard Branson + Larry Ellison would make even Chanos cover

My only guess is that we will not be able to guess in advance. Did anyone here predict Denholm? If so, can we get that person to come back with their crystal ball?

 

[Cherry Wine]

My only guess is that we will not be able to guess in advance. Did anyone here predict Denholm? If so, can we get that person to come back with their crystal ball?

Why are we suddenly speculating about director picks? There isn't a deadline, correct?

 

[Johnny Ma]

Why are we suddenly speculating about director picks? There isn't a deadline, correct?

If I remember correctly, the search for two independent directors must begin before the 28th of December. I have a poor memory, so I could be wrong. I have the two independent directors on my list of items that may cause the SP to move.