TSLA Market Action: 2018 Investor Roundtable

[Fact Checking]

I'm not sure that this is correct. Have you double checked? Reports previously were saying the FTZ.

While I cannot be 100% certain, I believe the new Tesla Shanghai Gigafactory is going to be built in mainland China:

Shanghai Government Opens Arms To Tesla | CleanTechnica

Check the location of Nanhui New City: it's on the "tip" of Shanghai.

The Shanghai Free Trade Zone areas are distinct enclaves of about 120 square km total, covering only 2% of Shanghai which is 6.300+ square km large:

China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone | Hong Kong Means Business

The closest FTZ to the Gigafactory would be the Yangshan Bonded Port Area - but that's not Nanhui New City.

Caveats:

• The sources I'm relying on might be wrong
• Or the Shanghai government might be creating a new FTZ area for the Gigafactory

But I believe it's in China's interest to attract Tesla to the mainland, and it's in Tesla's interest as well: why pay 15% import duties on something that's built in China, for the Chinese domestic market?

Also, being on mainland China allows a bigger pool of workers to be utilized - apparently Nanhui New City is an area with several large campuses and a lot of students. Perfect place to grow in.

 

[Tslynk67]

Why are you giving her platform here? Why not just ignore or even block her?

I'm not giving her a platform, I'm just pointing out the totally unnecessary damage that Fred's article will now has caused.

I can't stand the woman.

 

[TSLA_Hopeful]

How are your nuts feeling? Or were you talking lugnuts?

Scary... you only need one nut in life though as Lance Armstrong has shown . I’m gonna save my right nut for when the squeeze happens and I can be sure of a Green Day. It’ll be our fat lady singing. Everyone better join in!

 

[bdy0627]

Normally love Fred, but don't get his math here. Let's say Tesla produces 75000 cars this Q (50K 3 + 25K S/X). That would be an average of 5,769 cars per week over 13 weeks per quarter. Given we've just had 8 weeks as of today, then we should have produced 46,154 cars. We are ahead at 47K.

Keep in mind, that the first week was shut down pretty much since we took a break, meaning our weekly production is higher. In addition, like every quarter, the production accelerates towards the end of the quarter. Tesla usually is behind at this point. If anything, this data point is GREAT news.

You're right and I don't understand why Fred emphasized they were behind at this point. Fred said Tesla has produced just under 30,000 model 3, apparently as of last week. This results in an average of 3,750. If they maintain that average, which seems very conservative, then they would produce another 18,750 by the end of the quarter, for a grand total of about 48,700. To meet guidance, they need to increase the average weekly rate just slightly. To get to 55k for the quarter, they will need to average about 5k per week over the last 5 weeks. That seems possible but perhaps doubtful at this point in time. I think overall this strongly suggests that the quarterly production will meet but probably not beat guidance, somewhere between 50-55k.

 

[wipster]

Scary... you only need one nut in life though as Lance Armstrong has shown . I’m gonna save my right nut for when the squeeze happens and I can be sure of a Green Day. It’ll be our fat lady singing. Everyone better join in!

Good on you mate!

 

[Fact Checking]

After watching this morning's action, I think the barrier has moved to $310:

• there was fierce volume triggered when TSLA touched $310 around 10:32 am
• double volume+ continued at 10:33 while SP recovered to $310.645
• volume ebbed to 1/3rd peak as SP passed $311 by 10:34
• The $310 line was successfully defended again between 10:36 - 10:40
• By 10:44 the $310 line was holding with low volume
• Since then, SP has risen and not retested the $310 level

I think we have our new floor.

Data source: NASDAQ

I'd agree tentatively, and now $315 appears to be the new $310 - remarkable!

 

[Tslynk67]

You're right and I don't understand why Fred emphasized they were behind at this point. Fred said Tesla has produced just under 30,000 model 3, apparently as of last week. This results in an average of 3,750. If they maintain that average, which seems very conservative, then they would produce another 18,750 by the end of the quarter, for a grand total of about 48,700. To meet guidance, they need to increase the average weekly rate just slightly. To get to 55k for the quarter, they will need to average about 5k per week over the last 5 weeks. That seems possible but perhaps doubtful at this point in time. I think overall this strongly suggests that the quarterly production will meet but probably not beat guidance, somewhere between 50-55k.

Honestly, it's essentially FUD, which is shocking.

 

[Foghat]

Elon believed he had the funding for it. Legally, it would have been prudent to use less certain language, but it's not clear that he crossed any line with his wording. We'll see what the SEC concludes.

I think it's fair to say that he made the privatization seem more certain than it really was. I don't know what kind of line that crosses either.

Twitter is accepted by SEC as information dissemination outlet for business information.

He utilized his 23million follower twitter account to communicated with investors about his thoughts on going private at $420. The “funding secured” was a continuation of this thought process, not separate from it.

Elon did not sell any stock after this tweet. He did not do this tweet for insiders to sell stock. This tweet was his and only his decision to communicate with all investors equally and to get their feedback on the thought. Again, It was an open communication on an desire to go private at $420 and the conditions were there with funding secured at $420 according to Elon’s estimations.

If the standard is the market price changed on a tweet, then all ceos tweeting anything business related would be in violation. Stock price change based on tweets as an SEC violation is a non argument and will not hold in any investigation.

If shorts are going to act on semantics, then the semantics resoundingly clear Elon. The entire tweet was a thought. An idea. He did not say Tesla is going private, he said he was thinking of going private. The next sentence was apart of that thought process. Funding secured was apart of his thought process in going private. It was not a statement of fact or misleading anyone to believe private was a done deal or actually happening. Again, semantics matter to shorts, and thankfully they aslo matter legally here.

It is provable beyond a reasonable doubt the market reacts to tweets a ceo makes. Over the 10 years of ceos tweeting is substantial evidence to this point. The short traders making daily trades on tweets is not grounds for and sec action on any Elon tweet given it is materially proven Elon did not sell shares because it.


It is highly manipulative of short traders and mainstream media outlets to continuously around the clock call Elon a fraud and recycle the same accusation articles over and over again.

This is actually where the SEC investigation ought to go, since this type of manipulation is not exclusive to Tesla but market wide.

 

[dgodfrey]

It’s going green today! I’ll bet my left nut!

Wish I could help you out here son but we're not talking about a kidney.

 

[TintDepot.com]

Buffet owns much of the electricity in the West. He really doesn’t like rooftop solar or energy storage.He’s already used his muscle in Nevada and has been behind the scenes changing regs on energy markets in anticipation of distributed solar/storage taking share.

Also, Tesla truck platooning is a developing threat to his massive rail holdings. I

He’s smart in that his public persona masks the behind the scenes shenanigans.

Elon has become a major emerging threat to buffets moat.

Utilities used to be the safe profit center for buffet types. But all that is rapidly changing. You can’t have a moat if all of us make money off our our roof top energy production plants.

You’re not hearing this in the news, but energy wars are happening under the public radar. Buffet would like to keep it this way too.

Wasn't Buffet behind the "anti rooftop" solar campaign in Nevada where they changed how much the local state utilities would pay roof top solar owners for their energy that went back to the grid? That ended up pushing Solar City out of the Nevada market where they closed down their Nevada call center.

 

[TradingInvest]

Worst case Tesla can be sold. Eventually shorts will understand this. They can't get much if they continue to stay short. It's a waste of their time, money, and energy.

To me the bottom line is, down side is limited, upside potential is big. As long as you don't use fancy leverage, keep adding shares should be a winning strategy.

 

[Tslynk67]

Now Chanos tweeting Electrek. I'm jolly well annoyed.

 

[Esme Es Mejor]

It’s going green today! I’ll bet my left nut!

If someone needs to push the stock price up,say, $5-6 in the next 15 minutes, how many shares would he need to buy? How many calls?

Asking for a friend...

 

[neroden]

I'm not convinced the Saudis would follow through. This report (and others I can quote if need be) suggests they got cold feet because Elon ignorantly put them in the spotlight - that's being unaware of cultural differences.

If Musk's cultural differences accidentally scared off the Saudis, I for one am glad.

 

[Foghat]

Wasn't Buffet behind the "anti rooftop" solar campaign in Nevada where they changed how much the local state utilities would pay roof top solar owners for their energy that went back to the grid? That ended up pushing Solar City out of the Nevada market where they closed down their Nevada call center.

It is also interesting that Buffet himself made statements against Nevada roof top solar on a mainstream media interview. Demonstrated how active and personally aware of the situation he was.

Again, buffet personally is keenly what is going on. This isn’t some underling making these moves. This is strategic level disruption.

Since the utility commission was lock step with buffet, I feel Elon decided to buy solarcity as a result. It was only a year before, the entire state political establishment was cutting ribbons on solarcity’s big operation center in Henderson, only to have the rug pulled when buffet said so. (Mind you buffet had common interest with Kochs here too)

 

[neroden]

Wasn't Buffet behind the "anti rooftop" solar campaign in Nevada where they changed how much the local state utilities would pay roof top solar owners for their energy that went back to the grid? That ended up pushing Solar City out of the Nevada market where they closed down their Nevada call center.

That was the laggard among the two utilities he owns. At the time the other utility was doing quite the opposite.

There was a rather quiet reorganization and NV Energy seems to be under the command of the guy running the other utility now...

 

[S3XY]

Scary... you only need one nut in life though as Lance Armstrong has shown . I’m gonna save my right nut for when the squeeze happens and I can be sure of a Green Day. It’ll be our fat lady singing. Everyone better join in!

Sure, but apparently you won't satisfy Sheryl Crow with only one.

 

[MXWing]

I see a recent history of articles like this from Electrek with clickbaity headlines. They often arrive at difficult moments too.

I complained to Fred about this and he said that he was only reporting what was "out there" anyway. I'm not sure I fully agree with this any more.

At the very least, make the headline better, it's the main thing that bots pick up on.

How does this make any sense at all?


A reliable source told Electrek Fred..

And Fred decided to disclose unauthorized information to the public that was not confirmed nor denied by the only source that could do so - Tesla, Inc.

Shameful heresy and behavior only a Mark Spiegel would do.

I can’t decide whether it’s maliciousness or incompetence at work here.

Interesting I get a disagree from @RobStark - highly appropriate for someone who knows all about screwing up their own house.

 

[ZachShahan]

Methinks Linette has issues with tenses. Someone should inform her that "missed" implies that Q3 has completed.

But yes, WTF Fred?

She also has problems with commas.

And logic.

And journalism.

 

[kelly]

I feel this is expectation reset.
Done nicely, gently, positive title while news is negative, probably work of the PR shop hired recently. Opposite of what we've been observing last few months. Good work.

The PR firm was hired by the special committee set up to consider the go-private proposal. According to this article, "an official working with Tesla" specifically pointed out (in response to the Charles Gasparino tweets) that Tesla did not hire the PR firm.