Wiki Selling TSLA Options - Be the House

[ssipak]

crazy how every pop is immediately met by sell

FWIW I'm currently flat all short positions. Not selling calls nor more puts down here (too late for that for me, see below). Nor am I adding to long calls either as I have too much -P and +delta exposure for further weakness as it is (plus my poor longs @CB $328 )

My current bag of snakes:

LONG CALLS

• 10x +C205 4/19 @ 8.50 (-72% -$6,109)
  
  
• 5x +C210 5/17 @8.85 (-26% - $2,527)
  
  
• 10x +C255 9/20 @18.50 (-74% -$13,769)
  
  
• 2x +C180 1/17/2025 @31.00 (-10.8% -$615)
  
  
• 5x +C270 1/2025 @13.38 (-39.8% -$2,678)
  
  
• 5x +C150 12/2025 @109.35 (-46.16% -$25,232)

SHORT PUTS

• 10x -P250 9/20 @57.80 (-41% -$24,655); extrinsic 1.30
  
  
• 15x -P300 6/2026 @115.76 (-16.8% -$29,415); extrinsic 4.78

I invite suggestions if you see anything I can do to improve the lot. For sure to cut the +C205 4/19 (37 days left) ASAP on any DCB if we get one even at a loss. It was a good mule for writing against. I can always get longer dated calls further out at the true next low if I want.

So far my CC scalping brought in 2024, which definitely helps. Hope I don't have to give to back:
January: $73,080
February: $45,185.00
March: $15,069.00


Godspeed to us all!

if you don’t mind me asking, how many shares are you holding?

 

[vikings123]

Any truth to this?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1767997105883209980

Not sure about 170$ but yes longs are more likely to get margin called if this continues longer.

 

[mongo]

Can you name a successful car company in the modern era that has a similar strategy?

If you can't get enough sales with your current model to amortize fixed costs (like the factory) to the point of positive gross margins, you might do well to add an additional model.
Of course, this requires that your variable costs (bill of materials, labor per car, etc...) allows for a positive gross margin.

 

[Jim Holder]

TSLA simply copying DonkeyKong's levels:

(Credit: ThetaWarrior)

 

[Jim Holder]

crazy how every pop is immediately met by sell

if you don’t mind me asking, how many shares are you holding?

6,000

 

[Singuy]

If you can't get enough sales with your current model to amortize fixed costs (like the factory) to the point of positive gross margins, you might do well to add an additional model.
Of course, this requires that your variable costs (bill of materials, labor per car, etc...) allows for a positive gross margin.

However adding any new additional product at a complex manufacturing company is a gigantic money furnace from idea all the way to post execution way more than cost optimization gained from the factory. Honestly Rivian's lack of positive gross margin at 50k yearly units is most likely not due the factory being being under utilized.

 

[dl003]

@dl003 are you a Bear yet? If yes, can you please share your next move...

With Love,

TheDog

not really. If we close the week below 168 I will be.

 

[Jim Holder]

Good bag of snakes… you can chill for a while and no one would fault you. Let them work.

Well the long calls will bleed theta, though the short puts will too. I need a DCB to write more CC's.

 

[Cherry Wine]

The short side is getting crowded.

 

[ProfessorZoom]

Goodbye "Tesla Killer" Fisker FSR

 

[Singuy]

Goodbye "Tesla Killer" Fisker FSR

MKBHD killed them, and the fact they had only 1Q worth of cash left.

 

[mongo]

However adding any new additional product at a complex manufacturing company is a gigantic money furnace from idea all the way to post execution way more than cost optimization gained from the factory.

Yeah, but that's a CapEx furnace not a lose money on every unit money furnace.
You usually can't overcome your fixed cost deficit by reducing your variable costs.

 

[juanmedina]

Any thoughts about when it seems like a good deal to get some shares? At $150 we would be down 40% for the year, that seems like enough. At 50% we would be at $124 which seems farfetched IMO when Rivian said that will have zero growth for the year and they make no money and they are down 44%. I think I am going to start adding shares slowly very very soon and maybe also sell something like $150 December puts currently paying 11% return with a break even if $133. @Knightshade any thoughts?

 

[ProfessorZoom]

MKBHD killed them, and the fact they had only 1Q worth of cash left.

That after hour candle is violent

 

[uscbucsfan]

Can you name a successful car company in the modern era that has a similar strategy?

Tesla

Rivian investors cling on to this as well. They have always touted the R2 as their Model 3.

It's absolutely not Apples to Apples as the car market/EV market is much different than it was 10 years ago.

 

[dc_h]

I'm not doing anything fancy and I do longer term based positioning with options. I fortunately sold a bunch of CC's with Jan/June 2025 400 strike prices all the way back in July. I've held off on the urge to close them and that's worked out well. Even if the share price starts to recover in the medium term, I feel those are pretty safe to just let expire in Jan and June of next year. Time decay will start do an number on them as we get into the 2nd half of 2024. I plan to then sell another large batch of CC's with 2027 strikes and use the proceeds buy further out LEAPS with ATM strike prices. Hoping we don't get a huge rally before 2nd half of 2025. I would be able to substantially increase my share count if the stock stays in the low to mid 200's by Q2 of 2025.

In the meantime right now, I'm starting to sell cash secured puts and will go more aggressive into that if the stock gets down into the 150's and buy June 2026 $200 LEAPS with the proceeds.

I have some 2025 CC's and I've been moving them up to 2024 at a lower strike. If we bounce, I'm ok selling at 225 in April and 250 in July. I appreciated the big price for CC's from 300 to 400, but I don't see much risk in bringing them forward at a lower strike and being able to get out and selling calls against cash instead of stock.

 

[mongo]

Tesla

That's not correct. Tesla had positive gross margins on current vehicles before launching new ones. Tesla only had one negative gross margin quarter which was podt Roadster and pre S volume production.

 

[Jim Holder]

Hats off to @tivoboy for accurately calling the $160’s target for 2nd half of March all the way from the $230’s weeks ago. Thanks to you I had short positions in place which made the descent less painful and more profitable.

 

[uscbucsfan]

That's not correct. Tesla had positive gross margins on current vehicles before launching new ones. Tesla only had one negative gross margin quarter which was podt Roadster and pre S volume production.

Rivian fans point to the Model S selling at a $4k loss when they announced the M3. Google shows the Model S was selling around a $4k loss as late as 2015...now I didn't dive deep as you know half the *sugar* online about Tesla is false.

Tesla burns cash, loses more than $4,000 on every car sold

Tesla's narrower margin for error is just one more way in which it is different from its century old rivals.

www.cnbc.com

This was almost a year after the Model 3 was announced.

Also, Rivian claims they will break even on each car sold by Q4 this year (we'll see).

But, they tell their customers/investors they are following Tesla's path...again, not completely honest, but that's the story.

 

[BornToFly]

That's not correct. Tesla had positive gross margins on current vehicles before launching new ones. Tesla only had one negative gross margin quarter which was podt Roadster and pre S volume production.

Exactly. Tesla had one quarter of negative Auto gross margin in its history. The contrast with Rivian is huge.