What started you investing in Tesla (@Jackl1956 thread)

[roblab]

So you had an unfair advantage?
Do not think I am attacking you. let me explain.
I have a very difficult time with how unfair life is.

You really need to study your Bible a bit more, and not take the teachings of one church as your sole guide. God/Jesus/Holy Spirit is in your heart/mind/soul at all times, and you can talk to him/her any time. Reading the Bible is how you get answers.

Yes, life is unfair, because Satan was cast down to this earth from heaven. The universe looks on as he tries to prove that self is better than selflessness, and it seems he's lost that argument ages ago. The experiment is almost over, so hang in there . In the mean time, use the intelligence God gave you and drive electric, and let the Spirit in you guide you to do the right thing. The only requirement is that you love your neighbor as yourself, and Jesus will cover any mistakes you make if you ask.

This is the short version.

 

[CHGolferJim]

I’m loving this thread full of delightful stories from interesting people, and I’m thankful for you and all the folks in the investment threads. I finally realized last year that I had missed a lot of information and investment opportunity by not spending enough time on TMC, and have since prioritized reading here at least as much as the daily newspapers and podcasts that keep me generally informed.

Joined TMC in Jan. 2014 after buying a Prius for my daughter who was still in college. That purchase was a bit of a fluke as a neighbor was selling it when I started looking. As she gathered experience with her car, I had the simple idea that if a hybrid, why not fully electric, would it be practical enough? I yearned to get rid of gasoline stink and pollution. Then I wondered if I really wanted a car the size of an S, and if the Supercharger network in the Southeast would be sufficient to enable long trips. Purchased my first TSLA in Feb. ‘15 at $198 and my S70D in Nov. ‘15. Such a sweet car, still love it, and am really enjoying the transition from being an early adopter (in NC, at least) into seeing Teslas everywhere!

Until recently, I had looked at my TSLA investment as a part of my high-risk allocation. No more. Looks like a sure thing now, just a matter of whether it will go up 3x or 20x from here. So I’m shifting from a “no more than 10%” approach to a “let’s surf the wave”. I did this once before with my former employer, a major pharma company, that saw setbacks and advances during my time there, but which ultimately allowed me to retire at 43. I missed the boat with Apple, Google and Amazon by being too cautious about valuations, and am determined not to repeat that mistake!

 

[Xepa777]

It was 2013 when the stock price was at $50.

I was in my second year of working, still new after graduating college. I had always wanted to invest in my life but paper trading never did anything for me. I needed to know what real losses felt like to truly understand the ruthless nature of investing. I was conservative, especially with commissions back then.

I only invested in amounts of $4k - $7k in a given stock with money I built up over the course of 1.5 years in the work world. One of the companies I was really bullish on was some biotech. It had like 80%+ institutional holding, had great trial data results, and they were ramping up their sales/marketing force in anticipation of going to market. It de-risked biotech, or so I thought.

One day at work I saw that stock had gone down like 95%. I was absolutely floored, I lost $4000 just like that. In a single moment. I frenetically checked to see what was up and saw the FDA didn't approve the drug. Absolutely devastated me, I couldn't work that whole day. That same day I read that Tesla pre-announced it would have a profitable quarter. So I did the one thing you should never do in those emotional times, I threw my entire cash position of $12,000 into TSLA.

$TSLA was my rebound.

And what a hell of a rebound it was hahaha. I joined right before the rocket to $125. It was exhilarating, and I still attribute that investment decision to where I am today with my history of investing. All my salary basically gets auto deposited into Schwab now (I'm a hella frugal first generation student and have like $200/month total on a $170k salary job hahaha. Still use the 50% off coupons on Burger King/McDonalds and religiously use Instant Pot). I'm a big believer that if your first year of investing is a very positive one, it fundamentally changes how you view markets and makes it easier to stomach the down years instead of panic selling. I've never panic sold my Tesla, not even once.

I will say I got totally lucky. I knew how great electric cars were built with the battery pack structure changing things like center of gravity, safety, and storage space. But I never saw Tesla becoming this absolute monster.

However, I made the biggest mistake of my life.

I did my MBA at Wharton. Being surrounding by a bunch of PE and hedgefund people, I got really hammered home with the concept of diversification, risk management strategies, analyzing balance sheets. Then when Tesla crashed in 2019 to $200/share, I was like "this is the stupidest thing ever I really should buy more." But Tesla was already 35% of my portfolio, wayyyy more than everything else. I was like "what's the point of a $200,000 education if I'm going to ignore all the advice?" So I bought one share symbolically every time it went down a lot at $230, $210, and $190 to symbolize that if I didn't own any Tesla I would've entered at these points, had it not already been the biggest % of my portfolio (pre-drop Tesla was closer to like 50% of my portfolio).

Then Tesla started rocketing.

The realization hit me. I research Tesla more than every other stock in my portfolio combined. Largely because I'm big on TMC/Reddit/Seeking alpha/Youtube watching, there aren't many stocks with the same coverage as Tesla. And it was entertainment for me. And I believed in the mission, which is actually saving the world. It's a "recreational activity" being a Tesla investor. And with the realization of HOW MUCH research I put into Tesla, why shouldn't my investment weight reflect that? To me Tesla is safer than the S&P500 over the next 10 years. Its future is certain.

So between $250 - $500 I just dumped everything into Tesla, was straight up 90% of my portfolio. I thought it would hover around there the next 10 years of my life, but something changed that.

I became a SpaceX shareholder.

That private market investment required a lot of cash hahahaha. So now I'm split 50/35/15 between Tesla, SpaceX, and everything else (Square, Bitcoin/Ether, Trulieve, Green Thumb, Twist Biosciences, the CRISPR companies). It's been a hell of a journey, and I've made more mistakes along the way (holding onto my puts too long in March and not buying Tesla LEAPs, I just started options trading in February whoops lol). But it's been a great learning journey. And I hope to teach my future children about compound interest one day hahaha.

Here's to the future everyone. Cheers.

 

[vanzandtj]

I had been aware of Tesla for some time, but I only invested after my daughter brought to my attention the piece the artist Oatmeal wrote in praise of his Model S. <What it's like to own a Tesla Model S - A cartoonist's review of his magical space car - The Oatmeal>. "Intergalactic SpaceBoat of Light and Wonder". Eventually I bought a Model 3. I wouldn't use quite those words, but after a year it's still great fun to drive, and has given me no trouble. I'm a happy investor and owner.

 

[perwis]

To celebrate the latest ATH today @1835.54 (before the stock split) I want to tell you the story of my TSLA journey.

My first clear memory of Tesla is when one my favorite podcasters, John Siracusa, mentioned that he had driven a friends Model S and commented on the huge screen and the Apple-like experience of the car. It must have been around 2011 or so?

Around that time, I started following the news about Tesla and all my "Apple" spider sense was tingling. When Apple released the iPhone I immediately realized that the iPhone and Apple was going to be huge hit, and I have ever since regretted that I did not buy any Apple stocks.

I did not however invest in Tesla then, because I had never owned a stock in my life and I was busy with making a career. But I gradually became more and more convinced of the likelihood that Tesla was going on a similar trajectory as Apple, and I finally researched how I could buy US stocks from my home country (Sweden).

So, in 2015 I bought my first 6 shares of TSLA, @203.08. It felt like a significant moment for me. I bought these 6 stocks for my two sons, who they will get when they go to the University. The first 6 stocks have today almost 10x, and I expect them to do at least another 10x in ten years.

Since the first purchases in 2015 I have been buying all TSLA I can, not selling a single stock. I am 100% invested into TSLA (except for our family savings and house). I have become even more confident in the company's future and if I had more money to invest I would do that as well.

Cheers to all the longs!

 

[agastya]

It was sometime back in the summer of 2011. I was in the US for the first time for work, and while at the hotel for weeks on end - two shows kept it easy. GoT made me go buy some books to start reading again, but it was a show called Suits that brought my attention to Tesla.

There was an episode where in the main protagonist waxes lyrical about the OG Roadster. No shame, this was the life of a 24 year old, new to the country.

Bet ya no one's ever told you they got hooked on to Tesla because of a lawyer discussing a Tesla with a hedge fund manager, on a TV show

7 year later when I first invested in TSLA(6/18 after getting my Model 3) the objective was to pay for a Roadster 2 sometime in retirement, but never in my wildest dreams had I thought that it could probably fasten retirement too.

2 years later with the company going from strength to strength, building fun cars to drive, capturing the imagination of WallStreet and MainStreet, and helping people build true wealth - this train is probably just getting started.

Congratulations to all the bulls; what a hell of a ride some of you folks have had. I only wish I had found out this thread much earlier - reading from some of you folks have been a true learning.

 

[Tes La Ferrari]

We bought a few shares years ago based on it being an EV company worth watching. After autonomy day my interest ramped up, and we started buying in on a monthly dollar cost average basis. Continuing to move money from bonds to Tesla as the risk level of the company reduces. We plan to hold for a decade at least.

first time I drove one, was taking our Model Y home. Wish I had invested more earlier.

@Papafox And now you have that beautiful store on Kalakaua. Nice people there! Nice ambience

 

[jkirkwood001]

It was 2013 when the stock price was at $50.

I was in my second year of working, still new after graduating college. I had always wanted to invest in my life but paper trading never did anything for me. I needed to know what real losses felt like to truly understand the ruthless nature of investing. I was conservative, especially with commissions back then.

I only invested in amounts of $4k - $7k in a given stock with money I built up over the course of 1.5 years in the work world. One of the companies I was really bullish on was some biotech. It had like 80%+ institutional holding, had great trial data results, and they were ramping up their sales/marketing force in anticipation of going to market. It de-risked biotech, or so I thought.

One day at work I saw that stock had gone down like 95%. I was absolutely floored, I lost $4000 just like that. In a single moment. I frenetically checked to see what was up and saw the FDA didn't approve the drug. Absolutely devastated me, I couldn't work that whole day. That same day I read that Tesla pre-announced it would have a profitable quarter. So I did the one thing you should never do in those emotional times, I threw my entire cash position of $12,000 into TSLA.

$TSLA was my rebound.

And what a hell of a rebound it was hahaha. I joined right before the rocket to $125. It was exhilarating, and I still attribute that investment decision to where I am today with my history of investing. All my salary basically gets auto deposited into Schwab now (I'm a hella frugal first generation student and have like $200/month total on a $170k salary job hahaha. Still use the 50% off coupons on Burger King/McDonalds and religiously use Instant Pot). I'm a big believer that if your first year of investing is a very positive one, it fundamentally changes how you view markets and makes it easier to stomach the down years instead of panic selling. I've never panic sold my Tesla, not even once.

I will say I got totally lucky. I knew how great electric cars were built with the battery pack structure changing things like center of gravity, safety, and storage space. But I never saw Tesla becoming this absolute monster.

However, I made the biggest mistake of my life.

I did my MBA at Wharton. Being surrounding by a bunch of PE and hedgefund people, I got really hammered home with the concept of diversification, risk management strategies, analyzing balance sheets. Then when Tesla crashed in 2019 to $200/share, I was like "this is the stupidest thing ever I really should buy more." But Tesla was already 35% of my portfolio, wayyyy more than everything else. I was like "what's the point of a $200,000 education if I'm going to ignore all the advice?" So I bought one share symbolically every time it went down a lot at $230, $210, and $190 to symbolize that if I didn't own any Tesla I would've entered at these points, had it not already been the biggest % of my portfolio (pre-drop Tesla was closer to like 50% of my portfolio).

Then Tesla started rocketing.

The realization hit me. I research Tesla more than every other stock in my portfolio combined. Largely because I'm big on TMC/Reddit/Seeking alpha/Youtube watching, there aren't many stocks with the same coverage as Tesla. And it was entertainment for me. And I believed in the mission, which is actually saving the world. It's a "recreational activity" being a Tesla investor. And with the realization of HOW MUCH research I put into Tesla, why shouldn't my investment weight reflect that? To me Tesla is safer than the S&P500 over the next 10 years. Its future is certain.

So between $250 - $500 I just dumped everything into Tesla, was straight up 90% of my portfolio. I thought it would hover around there the next 10 years of my life, but something changed that.

I became a SpaceX shareholder.

That private market investment required a lot of cash hahahaha. So now I'm split 50/35/15 between Tesla, SpaceX, and everything else (Square, Bitcoin/Ether, Trulieve, Green Thumb, Twist Biosciences, the CRISPR companies). It's been a hell of a journey, and I've made more mistakes along the way (holding onto my puts too long in March and not buying Tesla LEAPs, I just started options trading in February whoops lol). But it's been a great learning journey. And I hope to teach my future children about compound interest one day hahaha.

Here's to the future everyone. Cheers.

Great story, @Xepa777 - thanks!

"I became a SpaceX shareholder". Um, how did you do that?? Please tell!

 

[wayno]

Back in the summer of 2011 I read an article about Elon Musk and the roadster and this new project they were coming out with. My brother and I drove two hours to Princeton, NJ where they had a preproduction prototype of the Model S on a static display at some golf course with a Roadster for the weekend. We didn't even get to sit in it, just look at it behind the ropes although we were allowed in the Roadster. Coming back form that day trip, I talked to my brother all about the stock and decided to give it a try. I had never invested in anything before outside of my company 401k.

As luck would have, it I had just left my job and was forced to roll my restrictive 401k mutual funds into an IRA where I could invest in whatever I chose. I started small with a few thousand dollars into some risky startup venture called Tesla, but it began to pay off. Into 2013 I got more interested in options and leverage on a small scale. Initially I lost a lot, but kept trying, until May 2013. Then you couldn't buy a bad call if you were bullish and it was like I won the lottery!

I took my winnings and continued to be uber bullish and a real Tesla Fanboi. Tesla traded sideways, and up and down for the next several years and I continued to increase my exposure until at one point I had basically all of my IRA money invested in Tesla, against my own judgement and future potential I held on long and strong, in and out of shares and leaps until last summer. In 2016 I waited in line at the local mall to put in a reservation on the yet to be unveiled Model 3. In 2018 I took delivery of my Model 3 and had never even seen one in person prior to the one I got in and drove home that day! Up through last summer though, my account balance was getting pretty low again, and I resigned myself that I would be working forever at that point. Then the past year happened and last month I actually decided to retire and quit my job at age 46! Everybody wanted to know if I would then sell all of my Tesla and diversify into something safer. I laughed, and then now Tesla is up more than 50% since I announced I retired. Life changing isn't even enough of a description. It was like hitting the lottery twice, only this time I was much more heavily invested and able to take advantage of it.

My dream now is to buy a Tesla Semi next year and convert it into a Super C RV with piles of solar all over the roof and a 30kW diesel generator on the back for the ultimate World Travelling Self Sufficient Electric Overland Expedition Vehicle to see the world with my wife and kids before they head off to college in 5-10 years.

 

[rahs]

In 2012 I saw an interview with Elon on 60 minutes. I knew a bit about Tesla but not very much. The next day I looked to see if Tesla had stock. When I watched the interview I thought to myself this guy's a genius and very passionate.

The next day I bought some shares. Still have 20 shares left that I bought for about $32.

Edit: These are shares in my personal account. I have other shares that I'm holding now which I bought in October last year (whole other story why) that are in an old IRA.

 

[philw1776]

Long time not fan of TSLA stock. Too risky. May 2019 as a long time fan of the cars I put a down payment on the Model Y. I also took the cash I had for a Model S and invested it in the stock at $237 figuring it had been up to $350ish months earlier and Model 3s were popular so I'd risk it figuring that if it went back to mid 300s I'd have my Y at half price. Also figured that if stock dropped 20%, I'd cancel the car order and sell the stock. I could buy Teslas for the whole family today.

 

[JimS]

@Papafox had nothing to do with me buying into TSLA, I stumbled into that pretty much on my own. I’ve read several of his posts, and understand about 40% of what he says. My favorite is #3132, (Papafox’s Daily TSLA Trading Charts), where he helps another forum participant understand how market manipulators work. I guess I could start reading that thread from the beginning to educate myself better on how this market works, but I decided to order his book about Hawaii’s airline industry, instead. In the meantime I’m going to keep up with his future postings and look up the terms and acronyms as I go along and keep a log of them. I was already well acquainted with “FUD,” (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt), from listening to Zac and Jesse on YouTube! “MM” stands for “market manipulation” and “FOMO” means “fear of missing out.” (I’m just getting started on this list!)

Okay, here’s my story: My wife and I frequently watched CNBC to see how our meager stock holdings were doing, (KO, PFE, QQQ and some I’m too embarrassed to mention). I had never heard of Tesla or Elon Musk, but TSLA had just made a major move from the 30’s into the 90’s and the buzz was that it was a cult stock with a horrible balance sheet. Jim Cramer kept saying he loved the car, but hated the stock. “You should never buy a stock just because you like the product.” (Oops, KO must have been a mistake!) A few days later they were interviewing an analyst and the question was posed about it being too late to get into TSLA since it had just tripled in a very short period of time. The analyst said that he didn’t necessarily agree. “If you think that electric cars are the future, then getting in now is still pretty close to getting in on the ground floor.” I made up my mind right then that I wanted in. Oops, SP, (share price, add to the list), is now over $100. Okay, I’ll just buy 100 shares now to get my feet wet and then another 200 when it dips back into the 60’s or 70’s like they are saying it will do on CNBC. Oops, it never did that.

My wife and I have occasionally gotten lucky on our stock picks, and we have been disciplined and sell half our shares if the stock doubles. We were on vacation with poor internet the first time TSLA crossed the $202 threshold, so we missed that opportunity. I think that’s when they announced the Model 3 and I was unable to put my name on that list until we returned home. (So I don’t have an early VIN, just one great, fun car!) I did sell half our shares the next time it went over the $202 threshold. (Discipline is not always such a good thing.)

Meanwhile, my wife had sold off some of her stock in her Roth IRA and decided to diversify our “Musk” holdings and bought some Solar City. Oops again, it tanked. When Solar City and Tesla merged, (we voted yes), she became a holder of 33 shares of TSLA. When TSLA shares started to slide I convinced her it would be a good time to round up her shares to 50. She bought 17 shares at $239. Oops, TSLA continued to slide.

Okay, TSLA went under $200. It’s time for me to make up for the error of selling half. I sold off my losers in my Roth IRA to have enough to buy 50 shares at $189. At this point we had a very balanced TSLA holding: 50 shares in our joint account, 50 shares in her Roth and 50 shares in my Roth.

Hold, hold, hold…don’t be tempted to sell…stay diversified…don’t sell off other holdings just to buy more TSLA.

Now to explain, (or rationalize), this next move, I need to go way back in my investment history. When the new VW Beetle came out, or more precisely when I first saw a new VW Beetle, I thought that car was going to sell like hotcakes. I decided to open a Roth IRA and I bought $2K worth of VW stock, (VLKAY at the time). This was before I knew Cramer’s advice not to buy a stock just because you like the product. Soon thereafter it split 10 for 1, I had 140 shares and it was appreciating nicely. Then some lawsuit was filed regarding a forced labor claim dating back to WWII, and although I was very much sympathetic to the claimants’ case, the SP, (share price, remember), suffered tremendously. I didn’t bail and just held on to the pittance that remained. Eventually, the value started to rise, finally to the point that I could recover my $2k by selling 40 shares, which I did. A while later I noticed that the SP had spiked to over $100. I had no idea why, but I figured it was too good to be true and I sold the next day for over $100, clearing over $12K on my $2K investment. Years later I researched and discovered the spike was due to a proposed merger and a short squeeze because there were insufficient floating shares for the shorts to buy to cover their positions. (@Papafox would be able to explain this much better than this I’m sure.) Anyway, the $100 SP did not hold up and I felt very fortunate I had gotten out when I did.

So earlier this year, when TSLA SP spiked up to $900 I suspected it was due to a short squeeze, but we took no action. When SP fell below $400 due to the pandemic I was kicking myself for not selling some at the $800 or $900 level. I can’t let that opportunity slip by again.

Well the next time it hit $900 it was zooming up so fast I didn’t even think of selling any. Then when it started to level off around $1,400 I convinced my wife that the prudent thing to do would be to take a little off the table. We each sold 10 shares from our Roth IRA’s, enough to fully recover all our costs in TSLA. Then it started climbing again, of course. On August 11 the SP dipped under $1,400 and I told my wife “see, I made the right decision!” (I got the stink eye.)

So now I intend to hold, hold, hold…don’t be tempted to sell…stay diversified…don’t sell off other holdings just to buy more TSLA. Wait, I have heard that somewhere before.

Disclosure: We are long TSLA…duh! We wish we were a lot longer…but we are not complaining!

Then this happened:

 

[ggr]

“MM” stands for “market manipulation”

Sometimes, yes, and sometimes it's the same entity, but really MM stands for "Market Maker". These are big companies, often affiliated with banks or brokers, whose entire job is to make sure that options exist so that they can be traded. If you look at all of the available options, you will see that there are lots that have 0 "open interest" and yet there are bids and ask prices listed. The market maker will serve up the option contract if you want to buy one. This is why they have the famous "Madoff Exemption", that allows them to sell uncovered calls.

we have been disciplined and sell half our shares if the stock doubles

I use this myself but only for relatively short term options (because one day their value might go to zero), and only to get my initial investment back. If you diligently apply this rule every time the price doubles, you linearize what is fundamentally an exponential process... you get back the number of times the price doubled instead of the product of the doublings.

 

[JimS]

MM stands for "Market Maker

Thanks for the correction. I just tried to find a way to edit and correct my post, (and give you credit of course), but that seems to be impossible to do. I'll definitely correct my "log of acronyms", and try to be more certain and careful on future posts.

 

[scottfe]

My introduction to Tesla came in 2007 watching Glenn Beck's show on CNN. I considered my $50k deposit for a Roadster shortly thereafter as a very risk "investment". Being an owner (of one of the first handful of Roadsters delivered in the PNW) allowed me to purchase TSLA at the IPO for $17. It was about 3 years later before the stock made a real positive move. It might be an exaggeration to suggest that the stock directly paid for two more Tesla vehicles, as I never actually sold stock to pay for those cars. But, I did gift TSLA stock directly to charity several times, which I recommend highly as it allows you not only to benefit the charity at the FULL stock value but avoid selling a very-low-basis stock and have to pay taxes on the gains to give an equivalent cash gift. Forbes actually ran an article about how our gift of TSLA stretched our charitable giving dollars in 2013:

Fighting Alzheimer's With A Gift Of Tesla Stock

 

[ggr]

Thanks for the correction. I just tried to find a way to edit and correct my post, (and give you credit of course), but that seems to be impossible to do. I'll definitely correct my "log of acronyms", and try to be more certain and careful on future posts.

Hey, it wasn't meant to be critical of you. I was just trying to be helpful. If they read your post, they'll probably read mine too, so no harm done.

 

[Bruinfan]

interesting reading, this thread is.

i thought tesla was like an unreachable luxury car. That's all I knew about it. I didn't even know it was EV. I didn't even know what EV was. So, i thought it was like a rolls royce, ridiculously expensive, only for gazillionaires.

Then, my friend bought on in 2015. They were well off. So it fit my narrative. I thought.. cool, but asked zero questions.

Then, Model 3 reveal. This made news. I learned about EV. I realized... hmmm, this is doable. But it's 2 years away., more since I was not an owner and the list was growing by the second.... wait and see.

Then, I saw an article on this crazy lease deal for Model S performance, $700/month. And I think that if i'm an owner, that gets me into a model 3 in less than 2 years. By the time I researched it, there were no more at that price. That's my intro to this forum btw.

But then I start doing fuzzy math and justifying a 60kwh model S... totally doable. I'm not a car guy, and I'd never spent more than $30k on a car. But the more I learned, the more I wanted to be in EV.

Test drive, wife convinced, Model S purchased Oct 2016.

Then, as I'm immersed in the Tesla world, I happened upon Tim Urban's bazillion word piece on elon musk, tesla, space x, neural link on waitbutwhy.com. I was fascinated. I was sold on Musk. I wanted to bet on him. Start monitoring the stock price, which was $180ish at end of 2016. I jumped in around Feb, when it was $215ish. First stock in my portfolio of mutual funds. Have 100 shares total. Anyways, betting on elon was what pushed me into TSLA.

 

[Buckminster]

And I hope to teach my future children about compound interest one day hahaha.

 

[[email protected]]

We test drove on 7/14/13 in Palo Alto, and were sold halfway through the drive. In addition to the driving qualities, there are the obvious anomalies that under pin any financial analysis: ICE engines waste 50-60 per cent of thermal energy whereas electric waste very, very little; ICE vehicles use friction-to-heat to brake whereas Tesla captures brake energy as regen; ICE vehicles are tied to fossil sources (or worse, ethanol!) whereas Tesla can be powered from the roof top. The maths are extremely favorable! MS 41448 turned out to be an awesome car: we drove it for a little over two years and 50K miles...We happily sold our 05 Boxster that was lovely to drive and awful to maintain. We have two rides: an 17 MS and an 16 MX that we both love. We bought our first shares at a little over 170...we sold all in the 340s...and then our present position is grotesquely overweight with a cost basis between 305-310. We are both defense lawyers, so probably more pessimistic and skeptical than most (justifiably in my view), but then there is this Tesla thing that is transparent, almost loving in its concern about all of us, and such fun. Most people are distracted by trivia, and invite the powerful to pander to and exploit that ignorance. On the other hand, Tesla ignores trivia, and has always focused on the greater good in a way that is unique in my lifetime. We are happily invested in a very full way in this strange, seductive, and obscenely profitable (to us) adventure...stay strong and long! We want to have all of you over to our island for drinks...when we buy it!! May the force be with you! J & L

 

[ReddykwRun]

Back in the summer of 2011 I read an article about Elon Musk and the roadster and this new project they were coming out with. My brother and I drove two hours to Princeton, NJ where they had a preproduction prototype of the Model S on a static display at some golf course with a Roadster for the weekend. We didn't even get to sit in it, just look at it behind the ropes although we were allowed in the Roadster. Coming back form that day trip, I talked to my brother all about the stock and decided to give it a try. I had never invested in anything before outside of my company 401k.

As luck would have, it I had just left my job and was forced to roll my restrictive 401k mutual funds into an IRA where I could invest in whatever I chose. I started small with a few thousand dollars into some risky startup venture called Tesla, but it began to pay off. Into 2013 I got more interested in options and leverage on a small scale. Initially I lost a lot, but kept trying, until May 2013. Then you couldn't buy a bad call if you were bullish and it was like I won the lottery!

I took my winnings and continued to be uber bullish and a real Tesla Fanboi. Tesla traded sideways, and up and down for the next several years and I continued to increase my exposure until at one point I had basically all of my IRA money invested in Tesla, against my own judgement and future potential I held on long and strong, in and out of shares and leaps until last summer. In 2016 I waited in line at the local mall to put in a reservation on the yet to be unveiled Model 3. In 2018 I took delivery of my Model 3 and had never even seen one in person prior to the one I got in and drove home that day! Up through last summer though, my account balance was getting pretty low again, and I resigned myself that I would be working forever at that point. Then the past year happened and last month I actually decided to retire and quit my job at age 46! Everybody wanted to know if I would then sell all of my Tesla and diversify into something safer. I laughed, and then now Tesla is up more than 50% since I announced I retired. Life changing isn't even enough of a description. It was like hitting the lottery twice, only this time I was much more heavily invested and able to take advantage of it.

My dream now is to buy a Tesla Semi next year and convert it into a Super C RV with piles of solar all over the roof and a 30kW diesel generator on the back for the ultimate World Travelling Self Sufficient Electric Overland Expedition Vehicle to see the world with my wife and kids before they head off to college in 5-10 years.

Take some time and read up on Tesla's and Generators and get back with me, please.