TSLA Market Action: 2018 Investor Roundtable

[RobStark]

Whatever the number comes to, it's academic. Musk doesn't cash the checks. Tesla mentions this in each quarterly report filling. His only accepted compensation has been stock for years.

You were correcting someone stating a fact, that Elon makes a small base salary.

And emphatic that it was $0. And not $80k.

You were the one splitting hairs.

Whether Elon gives the base salary to charity or lets the checks live in some nether world on Tesla's balance sheet is splitting even finer hairs.

If he does let the checks live in Tesla financial purgatory it may come back to bite Tesla in the ass, for have employees work without pay. AFAIK this was only applicable for one year in which he made no income with stock. The years in which stock vest Tesla is not required to pay the small base salary.

 

[CuriousSunbird]

I did also say Elon gets his own section:

They could have pulled Elon out of the large chunk due to this redundancy, and then it was only J.B. which made Deepak and Franz jelly, so they dropped the sentence entirely.

Glad to see someone reads the whole document.

 

[Dan Detweiler]

For such a short time frame, I wouldn't invest in the stock market. But...if you did, and bought 100 shares (so a bit more than 20K at the current price) you could lower the downside risk a bit by selling an August call against those shares (thus a covered call) and bank some guaranteed earnings. Come August, you were going to sell the shares anyway, so even if they get called away (meaning you are forced to sell your 100 shares at the strike price) you still made some profit on both the shares and the call. If the shares drop below your purchase price you lost a bit less than if you didn't cover.

Great stuff. Thanks for the reply!

Dan

 

[aubreymcfato]

New VINs:
#Tesla registered 803 new #Model3 VINs. Highest VIN is 43755.
Source: Model 3 VINs on Twitter

 

[The Blue Owl]

Tesla is more like playing the ponies. Those who think they can read a Racing Form and gain an edge may or may not stay ahead of the house. In the end, it's all just gambling. Those who recognize it as gambling may win a little or lose a little, but not get wiped out.

It turns out there is enough information in horse racing that those who know how to extract it can systematically make money. While high volatility tests people’s emotions in a way similar to high stakes gambling, I’d say there is even less randomness in investing, in general. Maybe.

 

[generalenthu]

Yes, isn't it fun, and far more entertaining than a crap table where each roll is an independent event (but a wad can be depleted quickly if you don't understand probabilities and the corresponding odds offered.)

Tesla is more like playing the ponies. Those who think they can read a Racing Form and gain an edge may or may not stay ahead of the house. In the end, it's all just gambling. Those who recognize it as gambling may win a little or lose a little, but not get wiped out.

One thing I noticed when I used to occasionally visit a track was that day's Racing Form was updated to include races by the horses on that day's race-card since my last visit. I believed any horse's later performances were more relevant to handicapping its performance on that day than its earlier outings. May have been deceiving myself.

YMMV

Wow - craps and ponies, I am struggling to recollect a more inane analogy.

 

[Reciprocity]

One year Elon did not meet any of his compensation goals, none of his options vested, and he earned $0.

California regulators said no Dice, Tesla.

They forced Tesla to calculate how many hours Elon worked for Tesla and pay him minimum wage times hours worked. Plus overtime for working over 8hrs continuous or more than 12 hrs in a 24 hr period.

I guess that came out to $80k?

That's a really good use of Regulators time. Gotta love government bureaucracies.

 

[EinSV]

Yes, isn't it fun, and far more entertaining than a crap table where each roll is an independent event (but a wad can be depleted quickly if you don't understand probabilities and the corresponding odds offered.)

Tesla is more like playing the ponies. Those who think they can read a Racing Form and gain an edge may or may not stay ahead of the house. In the end, it's all just gambling. Those who recognize it as gambling may win a little or lose a little, but not get wiped out.

One thing I noticed when I used to occasionally visit a track was that day's Racing Form was updated to include races by the horses on that day's race-card since my last visit. I believed any horse's later performances were more relevant to handicapping its performance on that day than its earlier outings. May have been deceiving myself.

YMMV

What your gambling analogy fails to account for is that short-sellers have the odds heavily against them -- they are playing slot machines where the house has the odds stacked in its favor so the short sellers have to get extremely lucky to come out ahead.

On average the market increases about 10% per year, and those who are short are swimming against that very strong current. That is why short-biased hedge funds are one of the worst performing asset classes in existence, incurring heavy losses on a regular basis. I posted about this a while back Tracking short interest and it has only gotten worse since then.

And with Tesla on a path to continue to grow at over 50% per year for the foreseeable future and a pipeline stuffed with compelling products, IMO the odds are even more heavily stacked against the short sellers. I suppose this is why the Seeking Alpha crowd has created the quarterly ritual of fearmongering about plain vanilla earnings report disclosures of the type that every company has. If they were actually confident in their short positions, there would be no reason to have to stoop to these levels.

Short sellers are highly skilled at appearing confident and competent, while burning piles of cash (theirs or their investors) on a regular basis. I much prefer to be a buy and hold investor with the odds in my favor over time.

 

[mongo]

What your gambling analogy fails to account for is that short-sellers have the odds heavily against them -- they are playing slot machines where the house has the odds stacked in its favor so the short sellers have to get extremely lucky to come out ahead.

Yeah, the betting sheet does not look like this:
Win _______
Place _______
Show ______
Fatality ______

(cue Mortal Combat flashbacks)

 

[HG Wells]

Two weeks till "not a flamethrower" are delivered.
I believe that's when the stock goes up!

 

[anon]

Two weeks till "not a flamethrower" are delivered.

This was big news - to me, it suggests that Musk was definitely talking about the Q2 delivery report in early July as the catalyst for the short squeeze that he is predicting, or perhaps even leaked production numbers prior to that. He must be very confident!

 

[bdy0627]

This was big news - to me, it suggests that Musk was definitely talking about the Q2 delivery report in early July as the catalyst for the short squeeze that he is predicting, or perhaps even leaked production numbers prior to that. He must be very confident!

IMO, I wouldn't place too much emphasis on the timing between the 2. Elon's time predictions are often optimistic.

 

[Todd Burch]

I actually don't think he was being all that literal about correlating the squeeze to the delivery of flamethrowers. People (Electrek included) tend to take him far more literally than they should.

 

[bdy0627]

TSLA is trading very atypically this week.The lack of volatility over the past 4 trading days is really unusual. I doubt it will last much longer.

 

[Krugerrand]

One thing I noticed when I used to occasionally visit a track was that day's Racing Form was updated to include races by the horses on that day's race-card since my last visit. I believed any horse's later performances were more relevant to handicapping its performance on that day than its earlier outings. May have been deceiving myself.

YMMV

If you really believed that, or rather if you were being intellectually honest in the moment, then why are posting info from 2014, 2012 et al to support your today? The only information relevant to today is that which just happened in last week’s race not what happened 6 months ago. If in fact betting on Tesla is like a horse race.

 

[shrspeedblade]

I just picked up 4 more bets on Model 3 to win!

 

[Krugerrand]

It turns out there is enough information in horse racing that those who know how to extract it can systematically make money. While high volatility tests people’s emotions in a way similar to high stakes gambling, I’d say there is even less randomness in investing, in general. Maybe.

This is true. Go enough times, familiarize yourself with the horses and people involved, and fairly predictive patterns appear. If you really dig and research deep and pay attention, you can even get a real good feel for who the cheaters are and when it’s going to happen. Of course poo does happen now and again, and horses aren’t machines so are prone to having the occasional off day, but even drugs can’t hide a sick or lame one.

 

[Unpilot]

Why does the SP always seem to drop at the open?

 

[Krugerrand]

Why does the SP always seem to drop at the open?

Because conspiracy.

 

[bdy0627]

Why does the SP always seem to drop at the open?

The Nasdaq was down a bit at the open, and TSLA dropped with it. Now, shorts are hitting it.