Short-Term TSLA Price Movements - 2014

[FluxCap]

Here's the context from the latest conference call:

Dan Galves - Credit Suisse
Just wondering if you can give us any additional color on how you've gotten confident in 50,000 Model S deliveries in 2015?


Elon Musk
Actually, I don't think 50,000 is going to be super hard because if you look at sort of how we're exiting the year in production and demand, I think 50,000 seems like a pretty solid number. We don't want to overreach, but I think 50,000 is pretty achievable number. That's more or less a modest extrapolation for where we will be at the end of this quarter.


Dan Galves - Credit Suisse

Can you give us any kind of hard numbers on what you've seen in terms of order flow either geographically or just -- it sounds like since the product announcements, there's been an uptick. Is there any kind of numbers that you can provide on that in terms of percentage increase quarter-over-quarter or something like that?


Elon Musk
I think what we've seen is -- it's difficult to extrapolate too much based on the announcement of the dual motor and auto pilot. There's some amount of people that were waiting for an all-wheel drive car and that kind of thing, so that's why we're being sort of conservative. If you just extrapolated the demand since the announcement, it would be like 70,000 cars a year, but that's in terms of demand. But I think that would probably be unwise to state that as a steady state prediction.

So we're like more considering around 50,000, but it's 50,000 with high confidence just over half of those are North America and Europe and Asia are the remaining half.

Yeah I see that I was kind of looking at this with rose-colored glasses, thanks Chickens. Still, 50k is a "modest extrapolation," not an "aggressive one," so yeah.

 

[chickensevil]

I need to go back to the transcript because now I'm second-guessing myself, but I remember him talking about 70k annual...

Edit: You beat me to it

But yeah, I think that is more of addressing order flow rate. I don't think most of us here question whether they could stimulate demand enough to hit the numbers, I think it is more of an issue of if they can build enough cars. All those numbers have been guided toward 50k MS.

 

[FluxCap]

Jonas released another note this morning basically apologizing for his erroneous "Falcon Wing doors might be a problem" conjecture.

I think the main question this morning is whether Jonas has lost all of his marbles and is just making stuff up to look edgy and get some more time on CNBC, or if he's sandbagging.

 

[AlMc]

Regardless of his reasons/sanity this may be a good opportunity to look at 2017 LEAPS. I have been putting in 'low ball' bids the last two days with no takers. Today may be a good entry point.

 

[chickensevil]

Apparently Stifel is suggesting even more dire news, which makes me wonder what these guys are playing at?

Tesla Motors Inc Model X Could Be Delayed Again

Stifel analyst James Albertine said in a research note that the Model X launch could be delayed once again to the fourth-quarter of 2015. Assuming Q4, 2015 release, Albertine has slashed his Model X delivery guidance for FY2015 from 16,500 units to 2,500 units. The research firm has also lowered its Model S delivery guidance for next year from 57,000 units to 50,000. But Model S estimate reduction was mainly due to “some hair cutting of production” given the disruption related to Model X changeover procedures.

- - - Updated - - -

To note, I think between Jonas and Albertine we have a serious bear attack oncoming to drive the price down, which is what we are seeing in the pre-market. As far as I can tell this is all resembling FUD and I am not concerned at the moment about the medium to long term legitimacy of this claim.

 

[TSLAopt]

Jonas released another note this morning basically apologizing for his erroneous "Falcon Wing doors might be a problem" conjecture.

I think the main question this morning is whether Jonas has lost all of his marbles and is just making stuff up to look edgy and get some more time on CNBC, or if he's sandbagging.

I agree that Jonas is losing his marbles, trying to put myself in his shoes of being the most powerful auto analyst on The Street and letting the power get to me and feed my ego for many years now I've come up with a theory:

I wouldn't be surprised if this is some type of 'lost his mind' attempt at posturing by Jonas....like "you made me look bad with your Falcon Wings door update email right after my note about it potentially being a problem, well I can drive your stock price down with a note of my own if you mess with my reputation like that, don't make me look bad again".

If Tesla released their update to X reservation holders on the Falcon Wing doors a week or few weeks from now it wouldn't have been as embarassing for Jonas and perhaps he wouldn't have felt as compelled to strike back showing his power over the TSLA stock. He feels that they need him to help keep the stock high enough for another capital raise at some point in the future, but by then I don't think we will need Jonas is my opinion, and perhaps that is the opinion of Tesla management at ths point.

 

[Hogfighter]

He's being overly cautious. What irks me about the note is the understatement of the p85d and 85d influence. That going to bump earnings and bring the Model X backlog down a bit via "people who just want AWD" conversions. Gross margins on Model S only go up from here, to me this equals incremental profit and even more economies of scale.

I also can't believe this issue of "demand" is still an issue. How do people not understand the concept of allocations and being production constrained. At this point, if they don't get it there is no helping them.

+1.
It's a uniquely human trait, the desire that the successful will fail. People will continue to look up the skirt of TSLA to find failure, because surely it is there. If only we look hard enough....

It proves that the market is not efficient, and therefore creates buying opportunities.

 

[chickensevil]

It is interesting because there seems to be decent support kicking in to push the price back up at the moment after briefly touching as low as 248.62... Hopefully this was just a panic attempt and the market will rebound the price quickly. Too early to tell though.

 

[CHGolferJim]

Regardless of his reasons/sanity this may be a good opportunity to look at 2017 LEAPS. I have been putting in 'low ball' bids the last two days with no takers. Today may be a good entry point.

Would appreciate any advise on where to go to get a good education on LEAPS. I own some shares long, but would like to increase overall TSLA exposure with lower capital cost. Thanks.

 

[Hogfighter]

SO Morgan Stanley predicts 53,000 deliveries for 2015, when we have a production rate of over 1,000 cars per week right now? Anyone else find that stupid?

 

[FluxCap]

I agree that Jonas is losing his marbles, trying to put myself in his shoes of being the most powerful auto analyst on The Street and letting the power get to me and feed my ego for many years now I've come up with a theory:

I wouldn't be surprised if this is some type of 'lost his mind' attempt at posturing by Jonas....like "you made me look bad with your Falcon Wings door update email right after my note about it potentially being a problem, well I can drive your stock price down with a note of my own if you mess with my reputation like that, don't make me look bad again".

If Tesla released their update to X reservation holders on the Falcon Wing doors a week or few weeks from now it wouldn't have been as embarassing for Jonas and perhaps he wouldn't have felt as compelled to strike back showing his power over the TSLA stock. He feels that they need him to help keep the stock high enough for another capital raise at some point in the future, but by then I don't think we will need Jonas is my opinion, and perhaps that is the opinion of Tesla management at ths point.

Yep, somewhere in the middle there probably lies the truth, but we will never really know his motivations. Ah well, just another blip of noise on the path forward. On we go.

 

[Johan]

SO Morgan Stanley predicts 53,000 deliveries for 2015, when we have a production rate of over 1,000 cars per week right now? Anyone else find that stupid?

Yes, especially as they said in the conference call that they predicted to exit 2015 at a rate of 2000/week.

Also, I agree with others here in the conclusion that this is FUD and a likely short-term downpush perhaps related to max pain being 247.50 for monthly options expiry on Friday. But the more interesting question in my mind is will Elon tweet? Next week? This week? Or in some other form contradict these negative notes? I see a nice oportunity for making a quick buck. Anyone else looking in to short term calls, like NovWk4 or DecWk1?

 

[FluxCap]

SO Morgan Stanley predicts 53,000 deliveries for 2015, when we have a production rate of over 1,000 cars per week right now? Anyone else find that stupid?

Normally I would say yes, that's stupid. But in this case I think it's less stupid and more 1) self-aggrandizement/posturing or 2) sandbagging.

 

[CHGolferJim]

I believe Elon said at 3Q (quoted immediately above) that 70k would be optimistic and 50k "easy".

 

[aznt1217]

Normally I would say yes, that's stupid. But in this case I think it's less stupid and more 1) self-aggrandizement/posturing or 2) sandbagging.

I think people are forgetting the ramp up that will occur in Q1 when the other expansion is finished.... like a Ninja sneak attack... well now that I said it we'll see

 

[mejojo]

I see a nice oportunity for making a quick buck. Anyone else looking in to short term calls, like NovWk4 or DecWk1?

I, for one, am picking up lots of items on sale.

 

[Muskol]

Some tweets from Elon:

 

[v12 to 12v]

What are they basing this one on?

Hopefully we get a tweet from Elon saying that they intend to deliver more than the 5,000 Morgan Stanley predicts.

Tweet issued as requested. Also a statement from Tesla. MS backpedals.

 

[austinEV]

Some tweets from Elon:

Sometimes I wonder if Elon uses these public comments as a management style. As in, there were some engineers tearing their hair out about the doors, preparing a "why we have to ditch the doors" presentation and now they have to just get back to work instead.

 

[tdiggity]

I wish Elon would say something about 50k being the safe # of deliveries.