While I don't have any illusions of converting anyone here to a
buy/hold, buy trading shares on dips into silly price levels strategy (nor am I making any prediction about the share price tomorrow, this week, month, ...), I will share a couple of possible near term vulnerabilities for those with time sensitive trades,
1) Tesla's latest blog out Sunday night is quite suggestive that we will see some articles trying to mislead via anecdotes about the safety at Tesla's factory and worker satisfaction/interest in unionizing,
We have received calls from multiple journalists at different publications, all around the same time, with similar allegations from seemingly similar sources about safety in the Tesla factory. Safety is an issue the UAW frequently raises in campaigns it runs against companies, and a topic its organizers have been promoting on social media about Tesla.
Some of the publications who have contacted us have rejected covering this “story” because they understand it is a misleading narrative based on anecdotes, not facts. However, there will likely be a few publications that choose to publish stories regardless, so we want to make sure the public also has the facts. Watch for these articles to downplay or ignore our actual 2017 safety data and to instead focus on a small number of complaints and anecdotes that are not representative of what is actually occurring in our factory of over 10,000 workers.
Creating the Safest Car Factory in the World
2) In an article on the economics of Tesla's Solar Roof by Consumer Reports I accessed through Yahoo, Tesla (and CR) and its Solar Roof were hammered, and, I do mean hammered, in the comments section for not including the cost of financing, or the opportunity cost of using tens of thousands of dollars to pay for a Solar Roof rather than investing those funds elsewhere, as well, to a lesser extent, as overstatements re the cost of asphalt roofs. I happen to think this is one of the very rare instances there are Tesla detractors with an intellectually honest criticism. The economics may or may not work out for any given homeowner, and, for some it's not strictly about economics, but, I find the broad emphatic statements last November that this will be cheaper than a traditional roof/cost of energy to have been overstatements. This is somewhat subjective, but, to me, Elon's presentation implied that the Solar Roof coming out this year would be definitively cheaper for the bulk of consumers. There's some vulnerability there, where there's more vulnerability, is Tesla not including the cost of financing in its calculator. Showing a bottom line of
savings without even mention of financing costs, let alone incorporating it into the calculator is not technically a falsehood, but it is an attempt to use consumer ignorance to make the product look more strictly economically compelling than it actually is.
We've seen deluges of articles trying to talk Tesla down based on falsehoods... I think it's likely that with the opening of intellectual honesty being on their side, we will see the usual gibberish peddlers produce a deluge of articles trying to talk Tesla down on Tesla's cost calculator and their general marketing of the Solar Roof as cheaper than a conventional roof/energy costs. I'd expect many of these articles will try to inflate this instance of overselling into a broader smear that Tesla generally misleads consumers and cannot be trusted, and in some instances, even, that Tesla's entire operation is built on trying to dupe and take advantage of the public. Having put up a muddy calculator on its website, Tesla is not going to be in a very good position to clear up the considerable mud that is likely to slung at the economic attractiveness of the Solar Roof.
Note: If you disagree with me about Tesla overstating the economics of the Solar Roof, that's fine, it's debatable. fwiw, I've had enough of that debate for now on the general thread, and I'm not looking to bring that discussion here. my point is, don't be surprised if we see a stream of critical articles coming very soon, whether you agree with me that some criticism is valid in this case or not.