Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the Perpetual Investors' Roundtable

[ZachF]

How hard would it be to throttle the gas wells a little bit?

I think Putin is trying to taunt Europeans that he has plenty of gas and not caring less about global warming. We should ignore this.

The fault lies with German politicians and organizations who built pipelines into Russia and shut down all their nuclear plants in exchange for suitcases of money from Gazprom. These are also the same people who delayed Giga Berlin as much as they could.

They should be in prison.

 

[navguy12]

About the Russian gas situation:

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Russia burns the NG that was meant for Nord stream because there are no reservoir capacities anymore & CO2 is not as harmful as CH4 in the atmosphere.

That is the gas that was sanctioned and also originally destined in part to reach Tesla's giga Berlin. Iirc then Russia would supply that has it we life all sanctions and don't support Ukraine anymore.

Interesting that this is described as “an environmental disaster“.

I suppose if that NG was burned in thousands of normal, individual daily use cases (business as normal) it would no longer be identified as “an environmental disaster“..?

 

[navguy12]

Since markets are closed today, I wanted to share a talk I recently had with a plant manager from a big chemical company in Flanders.

Some of the issues he mentioned:
Production shutdowns of many plasticizers. This will cause a major huge wave of many shortages in end-products going into many markets.
Some try to overcome this with trying to import chemicals from outside the EU, but there isn't any good enough supply.
Gas energy costs rising through the roof. Trying to convert heaters in production to fuel (this is dropping in price) instead.
Chemical substances were purchased in bulk months ago. Now these substances dropped in price past months, causing to write down these assets with losses, bad on the balance sheet.
Employees complaining on how to make ends meet.
Several competitors all have similar issues.

In general: the EU (industry) and overall market is really going to be . This is really bad . Russia is squeezing the life out of the EU economy. Something needs to change or we'll be in a never seen before recession within months.

Not minimizing the seriousness of the situation.

This situation could be seen as better than an alternative that includes the physical destruction of private property and deaths of civilians because the physical war spills outside Ukraine.

 

[NicoV]

WRT high gas and electricity prices in Europe, it is important to realise that many customers remain shielded from excessive prices because of long term contracts. I recently talked to a local small business owner who is switching his appliances from electricity to gas, because he happens to have a 5 year fixed price gas contract, and a variable electricity contract. That while gas has become much more expensive than electricity. We now also hear from companies with fixed price contracts selling back their energy on the market (that’s a license to print money).
We now live in a strange world where it is possible to pay 20x more for gas or electricity than your neighbour for the same service.
Our local news is now dominated by stories about businesses shutting down energy intensive production, replacing it by import, because these businesses didn’t have long term fixed price contracts and high energy prices make the production financially impossible. That demand (for gas and electricity) destruction may be enough to prevent gas and electricity shortages this winter, we ‘ll see. If that happens, I expect the energy prices to dive around the end of februari, because the speculation will have ended in certainty.

 

[StealthP3D]

Yeah, that was essentially my thesis back on Fri, Aug 14, 2020 when I predicted (here, in advance, that shares would runup ~80% and some Brokers would not deliver their customers dividend shares on time). There was a simple, yet powerful, theory behind this prediction. Let me explain it here again.

Big banks with brokerages (big enough to also hold Options Maker Maker status), are themselves the 'shareholders of record' for large numbers of TSLA shares (ie: BMO Investorline holds ~2M shares of TSLA), and their customers are simply Beneficial Owners.

What this means is that these brokers have the exemption to the prohibition against naked shorting (via the 'Madoff exemption'), and they're ALSO mostly trading stocks among their internal clients, while being responsible only to themselves for share inventory. So it's nothing but a bookkeeping detail if their inventory of TSLA is 2% too low due to their failure to locate TSLA stock in a timely manner.

These are the abusive naked shorts who would get caught by a surprise share dividend. Some of them have routinely maintained open naked short positions on TSLA literally for years.

The effect of this is to drive down the equilbrium share price, by interfering with the proper functioning of the Market for price discover via supply and demand. I wrote here on this topic extensively in Dec 2020 during the S&P 500 addition for TSLA. My simple economic model for TSLA predicted the 'addtion' SP to within $10 by estimating the number of naked shorts that would exist on Dec 18, 2020.

So the same thing happened then: A large number of forced locates and buys (~200M shares) of TSLA were compressed into a deadline, and certain hedge funds which could not easily dodge reporting rules were caught out, then forced to buy instead of playing accounting games and hiding their fails-to-deliver (FTDs). This lead to the 13-day TSLA runup which ended in early Jan 2021 (again, due to reporting requirements for FTDs).

This time, in Aug 2022, shortzes had 149 days notice of the share dividend, 2 big market swings due to macros, and those 2 previous practice runs in 2020. Not surprising they handled it this time while avoiding a 'day-of' SP runup.

But the underlying problem* still exist, and the SEC is doing nothing. $AMC $BBBY $GME

Cheers!

*Hint: it's the Madoff Exemption.

All true and I think it's easy to think we might be around $650-$750 right now without the split and with no pressure to make good on all those naked shorts. Everything is relative to the current market environment. The first split happened in a bull market. Don't forget yesterday's (Friday's) trading, TSLA saw amazing resilience for a high-beta stock in the face of heavy and broad-based selling in the markets. I would expect to see more obvious strength on Monday too as the time to make good on any remaining naked shorts is running out.

 

[Cosmacelf]

How hard would it be to throttle the gas wells a little bit?

I think Putin is trying to taunt Europeans that he has plenty of gas and not caring less about global warming. We should ignore this.

Hard. You can’t shut down certain wells without major issues reopening them. And all the companies who have expertise reopening wells like Halliburton unilaterally bugged out of Russia. Believe me, Russia wouldn’t be doing this if they didn’t have to. Of course, they could just call off the invasion, but Putin isn’t likely to do that.

 

[Cosmacelf]

Interesting that this is described as “an environmental disaster“.

I suppose if that NG was burned in thousands of normal, individual daily use cases (business as normal) it would no longer be identified as “an environmental disaster“..?

Flaring gas is worse because all that energy for those thousands of daily use cases must still be produced. So you are doubling the amount of energy used up.

 

[Ohmster]

Heading is misleading in its vagueness (boy is her stepson). But the article itself seems honest and balanced. Click away.

Elon Musk's College Sweetheart Puts Gifts, Photos Up for Auction to Pay for Stepson's Education: 'A Snapshot'

"Now is just the time to let these things go," Jennifer Gwynne tells PEOPLE

people.com

 

[replicant]

WRT high gas and electricity prices in Europe, it is important to realise that many customers remain shielded from excessive prices because of long term contracts. I recently talked to a local small business owner who is switching his appliances from electricity to gas, because he happens to have a 5 year fixed price gas contract, and a variable electricity contract. That while gas has become much more expensive than electricity. We now also hear from companies with fixed price contracts selling back their energy on the market (that’s a license to print money).
We now live in a strange world where it is possible to pay 20x more for gas or electricity than your neighbour for the same service.
Our local news is now dominated by stories about businesses shutting down energy intensive production, replacing it by import, because these businesses didn’t have long term fixed price contracts and high energy prices make the production financially impossible. That demand (for gas and electricity) destruction may be enough to prevent gas and electricity shortages this winter, we ‘ll see. If that happens, I expect the energy prices to dive around the end of februari, because the speculation will have ended in certainty.

Didn't work for me. My French clean energy provider (Planete OUI) simply went broke.

 

[AudubonB]

You’re on! You know the Northern part, which I do not. I know parts of the Central and South America routes. The trick is to avoid both winters and survive the really hard areas near the Darien on both ends. There are a handful of spots where Spanish doesn’t work.

Not even Spanish doubloons?. Actually, I’ve spent some time in the Darién. And I’d sooner put up with this, from my friend who works in Prudhoe Bay, two weeks ago:

For which, I agree, we’d definitely want to be in our CyBEARtrucks.

 

[unk45]

Since markets are closed today, I wanted to share a talk I recently had with a plant manager from a big chemical company in Flanders.

Some of the issues he mentioned:
Production shutdowns of many plasticizers. This will cause a major huge wave of many shortages in end-products going into many markets.
Some try to overcome this with trying to import chemicals from outside the EU, but there isn't any good enough supply.
Gas energy costs rising through the roof. Trying to convert heaters in production to fuel (this is dropping in price) instead.
Chemical substances were purchased in bulk months ago. Now these substances dropped in price past months, causing to write down these assets with losses, bad on the balance sheet.
Employees complaining on how to make ends meet.
Several competitors all have similar issues.

In general: the EU (industry) and overall market is really going to be . This is really bad . Russia is squeezing the life out of the EU economy. Something needs to change or we'll be in a never seen before recession within months.

This is the time that I hear someone as pessimistic as am I, but with even more detail on aspects about which I knew little. A relative owns a company that makes plastic containers (shopping bags, prepared food containers etc). He's in Brazil, with Russia supporting President, so his supplies are becoming cheaper and more plentiful.

This is making it a certainty that Tesla will have increasing challenges obtaining all those plastic parts, just as Yoke cover deterioration is becoming an issue. Our technical problem is evaluating the impact on Tesla suppliers and Tesla itself, including things we don't think about, like the foam used in the 4680 structural pack.

There is, IMHO, huge disruption coming for global industries dependent on neon (Ukraine), Petroleum products (especially Russian natural gas), or water (a global disaster).

The only question is whether human ingenuity can cope with all this.
If not, just study Gibbon. Amazon.com: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire eBook : Edward Gibbon, GP Editors: Kindle Store
Those who've studied the subject have studied Gibbon. The present question is whether the world is preparing for that. My personal views have been stated, and that if any respite happens it will be the work of Elon Musk and people like him. Hence long TSLA is my primary defense. Going off-grid simply helps us have energy consistently.

 

[JRP3]

Seems like a good time to expand bio plastic production.

 

[AudubonB]

This is the time that I hear someone as pessimistic as am I, but with even more detail on aspects about which I knew little. A relative owns a company that makes plastic containers (shopping bags, prepared food containers etc). He's in Brazil, with Russia supporting President, so his supplies are becoming cheaper and more plentiful.

There is, IMHO, huge disruption coming for global industries dependent on neon (Ukraine), Petroleum products (especially Russian natural gas), or water (a global disaster).

I’m dead certain Russia is not exporting gas via LNG tanker ships, so that must be through first-order downstream products like polystyrene.
And if so….THAT suggests intermediary destinations like Brazil can become lucrative sites for forwarding the same to deprived countries.

 

[Skryll]

Interesting that this is described as “an environmental disaster“.

I suppose if that NG was burned in thousands of normal, individual daily use cases (business as normal) it would no longer be identified as “an environmental disaster“..?

Usually more emission optimized end-devices

 

[Artful Dodger]

Tesla & The Advanced Manufacturing Production Credit // $$$ | The Limiting Factor on Youtube (1 hr ago)

 

[unk45]

I’m dead certain Russia is not exporting gas via LNG tanker ships, so that must be through first-order downstream products like polystyrene.
And if so….THAT suggests intermediary destinations like Brazil can become lucrative sites for forwarding the same to deprived countries.

That is already happening, so I am told. In an hour I will be having a churrasco in my house. Three people knowledgable about this subject will be here. The formal subject is TSLA (i.e. it's a fest initiated due to my actions of a little while back) so these question will be discussed.

Based on recent events it seems likely that one EU mitigant may well be several countries that are in strong domestic energy supply positions but are non-OPEC.

If such things are plausible, Tesla may be a likely party to benefit. The Tesla position also should improve due to the China activities. Others such as TMSC, CATL and Stellantis have some potential litigants to employ.

For us as Tesla investors it si likely that the only mitigants are to be found in very careful logistics planning, itself acutely sensitive to minimizing political risk. Your statement suggests you are studying reality very carefully.

Who would have thought the biggest challenges right now are the result of geopolitical failures coupled with resolute denial of scientific observations?

 

[ZachF]

I’m dead certain Russia is not exporting gas via LNG tanker ships, so that must be through first-order downstream products like polystyrene.
And if so….THAT suggests intermediary destinations like Brazil can become lucrative sites for forwarding the same to deprived countries.

Right now India is importing Russian oil at a large discount, and Russian refined products at a discount, and they are taking the Russian oil, refining it, and selling it to Europe for a large markup.

I have to imagine global chemicals and plastics makers are eyeballing North America and the ME hard right now. Algeria could probably become a large player if the play their cards right too.

All of those places are also co-located with great solar resources as well.

 

[ZachF]

WRT high gas and electricity prices in Europe, it is important to realise that many customers remain shielded from excessive prices because of long term contracts. I recently talked to a local small business owner who is switching his appliances from electricity to gas, because he happens to have a 5 year fixed price gas contract, and a variable electricity contract. That while gas has become much more expensive than electricity. We now also hear from companies with fixed price contracts selling back their energy on the market (that’s a license to print money).
We now live in a strange world where it is possible to pay 20x more for gas or electricity than your neighbour for the same service.
Our local news is now dominated by stories about businesses shutting down energy intensive production, replacing it by import, because these businesses didn’t have long term fixed price contracts and high energy prices make the production financially impossible. That demand (for gas and electricity) destruction may be enough to prevent gas and electricity shortages this winter, we ‘ll see. If that happens, I expect the energy prices to dive around the end of februari, because the speculation will have ended in certainty.

I have to imagine the providers of these fixed price contracts are losing their shirts right now.

 

[Artful Dodger]

It’s probably gonna take europe ~3 years to plug this energy deficit.

2025? That would be a win. 2030-35 was the 'stretch' goal before this crisis. That timetable was also subject to German Auto industry lobbying:

Unpopular EV Opinion: BMW CEO Warns About the Premature End of Gas Cars

BMW’s CEO doesn’t believe the market is quite ready for a full-force electric vehicle takeover.

observer.com

So... Result!

 

[Usain]

Tesla & The Advanced Manufacturing Production Credit // $$$ | The Limiting Factor on Youtube (1 hr ago)

OMG. Please watch this.

If Tesla can get the raw materials from the right places they get a tax credit of $35 per kWh of battery cells produced in the US.

And they get another $10 per kWh for battery pack production. It doesn't sound like there are sourcing requirements for that as long as the pack is assembled here.