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

[Ameliorate]

One can't profit unless they sell the stock. From the looks of it, those who sell at 900 made out like a bandit compared to those who held on today.

we'll see, check back next year

 

[DragonWatch]

Well the prom is over; and I did not get drunk

But tomorrow is a new day. No spilt milk here

FYI ~ Proms were a waste of time and money to me. Now, those military formals were fantastic with the one I actually loved.

If you are new, hang in there ~ it is the end game that counts here.

 

[wipster]

And meanwhile, I literally just bought 2x4s from Home Depot. I kid you not.

So wood IS good! Right you are mate!

 

[humbaba]

Thanks for the interesting overview.

My take is a bit different. I suspect that the AP market will fragment into 'AP anywhere' and 'AP on highways.'
If LIDAR can reach the latter (much lower) threshold then it has a real chance of beating Tesla to market and being a huge success.
No one but Tesla has any realistic chance of being AP everywhere, but then again they are not even close either.

I don't see how fragmentation is possible: Waymo is a long way from making a profit, even if they were allowed to charge for autonomous rides. The vehicles are expensive and I don't recall them even being electric which means operating costs are higher than with an EV. Then they have all of the R&D costs which must continue in order to not only break into new markets but stay in ones they get open. The problem is the brute force with LIDAR approach is brittle and will need constant tweaks. It will also have interventions (most likely via remote control to lower the cost). Maybe coastal cities are orderly, but here we get tree limbs blocking roads at unexpected times. We get unannounced and unmarked road maintenance crews. And unannounced and unmarked utility work that affects the roadway.

Regardless, as soon as anyone (which will be Tesla) gets real self driving it scales to all markets as quickly as regulators approve it. No need for lengthy and expensive data building and refining the driving model for a new market, along with gathering the proof of that to convince the regulators.

As I said before, I fully expect Waymo to be the first to market with self driving. And, if they plan well (which I think is a given), they will make good money (though I expect nowhere near enough to pay off the R&D). But the party ends as soon as someone (Tesla) comes out with real self driving.

I haven't looked into it, but it seems quite safe that the upfront cost of a Waymo vehicle costs appreciably more than a Model 3 and it will have to be electric to approach Tesla's operating cost. Those two factors alone would give them a significant competitive disadvantage, but then you handicap them with the "develop per market" issue and it doesn't seem conceivable they will ever pay off the initial investment unless Tesla does not get FSD for a long time. How long? I don't know the numbers, but 2030 seems enough if they can effectively spread into multiple lucrative markets.

That right there is the race: can Waymo make money for its investors before Tesla deploys FSD.

 

[hoang51]

I managed well for yesterday's sudden drop by utilizing trailing stop quote by percentage. I originally set it to 7%, but moved it to 5% to gain a little bit more gains. This is a heck lot better than manually moving the stop loss order each wave of news I get, and in the past, I hardly use stop losses. Earlier in the day, my wife was making sure that I will protected the gains and not lose since I recently bought at $695, which I have already did. I've learned that when there's a big jump in TSLA, better make sure to have a plan B if things go the opposite way, as I've had in the past had to hold onto TSLA longer than I wanted to and didn't get to participate in the dips to lower my basis. So for those who wished they could've sold it near the top, look into trailing stop quote by % or $ and that should help you protect the gains. BTW, my trailing stop quote got triggered at $920 and sold off there. Highest at $968.99 x 5% drop = $48.45 drop = $920.54. Hope this helps for those who wanted to know how to protect their gains.

I definitely do want to jump back into TSLA at a lower price point, and I've looked at the options max pain for the end of this week currently at $750, but I'm pretty sure it will move once the end of the trading week comes around. I surely would buy back around the $6xx before all this exuberant stock advancing, but might have to settle for $7xx. Will probably wait until Friday to get the most discount according to trading history as some have mentioned before. Also waiting on Papafox's daily trading chart analysis.

Any others who are waiting to jump back into TSLA wanna share their thoughts?

 

[SW2Fiddler]

New Wuwa video:

(My apologies if someone else posted it and I missed it)

My reaction (before even watching):
Pat, I want to buy an A!

 

[neezer]

So wood IS good! Right you are mate!

As in Cathie Wood?

 

[StealthP3D]

Here is the interview on CNBC this morning of "new stock market analyst" Ralph Nader. Decades ago he made his name as a lawyer investigating car safety, which has nothing to do with his argument against Tesla. We can give credit to the anchor for being incredulous that Nader offered no evidence for his claim that a Tesla insider has been manipulating the stock. It appears more like Nader himself is attempting to practice stock manipulation.

Too funny!

He said there's a lot of speculation going on (in the stock market in general). Let that sink in.

What the hell does he think has been going on in markets ever since we had the first silk and spice caravans?

It's really what markets have to do to function. It's all about speculation. If you are wrong, you lose.

 

[StealthP3D]

I used to day trade full time, writing strangles and straddles, covered by futures. But that was 15 years ago, when you still had to call the bank to open or close a position (and hope they would not be on lunch break). Then I joined my brother’s company and left the stock market, until TSLA crossed my road.

You had to use a telephone to open or close a position 15 years ago? I dropped my broker and got an on-line account in 1997!

 

[StealthP3D]

750 went from support to resistance, what a crazy trading day(s)

I don't see anything crazy in that. I would say that support and resistance were not even established, at least not very convincingly.

 

[Nocturnal]

I'll tattoo anthonyj on my arm if that happens.

As I have two 1k calls for Friday, I also will tattoo his name on my arm if SP hits 1800.

 

[davecolene0606]

The shortz say:

Fire Away!
(it’s the batteries, Stupid!)

 

[Nocturnal]

I like Bloomberg spins the "should I buy tesla stock" to be FOMO and dumb people chasing the crowd, but implies that "should I sell telsa stock" is just the trends changing.

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

Accumulate slowly and dump quickly.

That's my motto at sketchy buffets for sure.

 

[mongo]

we'll see, check back next year

I'm all for holding, but there is no reason those that sold in this specific instance at 900 could not buy back in now and have more shares, and thus more gains next year.

 

[Carl Raymond]

A question please...
I buy a share for 100 dollars.
A year later I buy another for 50 dollars.
The next day I sell half (one) for 200 dollars.

Gain is 100 or 150 dollars?
Did I hold investment for more than one year (for capital gains tax purposes)?

 

[davecolene0606]

All I gotta say about Nader boy....

Fire Away!
(It’s the batteries, Stupid!)

 

[humbaba]

I'm more sanguine about US political risk. Elon does hold a (ahem) trump card in that he is a major US manufacturer. And Trump himself seemed to be speaking well of Elon last week. It sounded very Trump like in that it sounded like they came to a transactional agreement. Indeed, I wouldn't be surprised if in exchange for building another giga factory in Texas, Elon got a) Texas sales restrictions lifted and b) modification of the fed tax subsidy to level the playing field now that Tesla doesn't have it anymore.

How would Trump change Texas law? How would Trump change federal law? Even if Trump were to inexplicably throw support behind a federal tax subsidy for Tesla he would have to convince the house and senate to pass such a subsidy, against active lobbying from wealthy oil magnates whose approval he so much wants.

Trump didn't really say anything positive about Elon Musk last week -- out of the word salad you can discern some fundamental confusion about "geniuses" and technology. But at the end there's an implicit threat -- which seems more motivated by the opening of GF3 -- that Musk had better build a factory in the US.

Going from that to the idea that Trump has cleverly negotiated some sort of overturning of Texas law and orchestrated the construction of a Tesla (or SpaceX) factory in Texas without any of the fanfare that Trump's ego demands is more than a little bit of a stretch.

Honestly, the less Trump is aware of Musk or Tesla the better for both. Tesla can execute just fine. They don't need "favors" from a mob boss.

 

[Eugene Ash]

Effective free float of investors willing to trade their shares has got far too small (both due to old investors holding very high price targets and with new long term investors jumping on board the clean energy transition), while the net delta exposure of the options market has got far too big. So prices moves in either direction rapidly spiral, amplified by the delta hedging change...

This was also in Surveillance special this morning, as fat as I recall, voiced by Eisman. It is a roller-coaster, so buckle up or be shaken out

 

[kbM3]

I'm a long term believer in Tesla and would very much like to simply buy and hold for years, but I also recognize that Tesla is an exceptionally volatile stock due to a lot of extrinsic factors including politics, short selling, exuberance etc. That's going to make it a much wilder ride - up and down - that it would be if the stock price was a calm, rational judgement of the companies execution.

That added volatility gives investors a few options, you can:
1) Buy and hold, knowing it's going to be a wild ride
2) Buy and hold while lowering risk with options, but those options have costs that drag on performance; or,
3) Aspire to buy and hold but adjust your position size when the stock price seems to be irrationally low (buying opportunities) or irrationally high (selling opportunities).

The first approach is great if you have the stomach and patience to see it through. The later approach can be called timing the market and is often dismissed, but yet I think here on TMC we do have a good idea of when the stock price is getting irrational. There were times in 2016 and early 2019 when the overall market sentiment was obviously much too negative, and we knew it. I think these past few weeks the stock has gotten too exuberant as identify-able by the same tools (e.g. media coverage swinging from "bankrupt" to "$5000 share"). $500 or $600 after some good ER's and years of price suppression by FUD was a reasonable move, but a 50% higher jump to $950 on little further news is getting carried away.

I think this forum does a pretty good job of identifying dips as buying opportunities and folks doing so are generally applauded for doing so, but I think we do a less good job of identifying spikes as selling opportunities. That's to be expected since this is a very pro-TSLA forum. TSLAQ on twitter would be the opposite - they don't realize when the stock is irrationally low since they think it's going to zero, but they can call it out when it's ridiculously high (but you need discretion here because they always think it's too high just like we always think it's too low).

Looking at the recent action, $950 may be lower than the price we expect in a few years, but it's still higher than what the generally accepted price is likely to be in the short-medium term (I think). Thus, while you can ride that out, there is money to be made by selling when the price is irrationally high, just like there is money to be made buying when the price is irrationally low. The challenge is using good discretion and staying calm so you aren't backing the truck up on every small dip nor clearing out on every modest spike. Only act when you're thinking "this move is getting ridiculous".

I starting buying TSLA in 2014 and then backed the truck up in late 2016 when the share price seemed irrationally low at below $200. The company seemed to be doing well, and yet the stock had again dove to sub $200 when I thought fair value was around $300.

Today I think the shares are worth $500 - $600. As such, over the recent run I sold 1/5th of my shares at each of $420 and $550 because the share price had returned to about where I valued the company, and thus my "irrationally low" shares I had overloaded on could be sold for a fair value. I would have happily held my remaining 3/5ths indefinitely, but the continued recent run seemed to be getting irrationally exuberant. $650 seemed high, $750 was getting crazy, and when I woke up yesterday and saw $900 I thought it was out of hand. Thus I sold a further 1/5th portion at each of those points, which cleared out my position yesterday.

I very much wanted to relax and hold, but I couldn't justify doing so through what seemed like a period of exuberance. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't see a lot of positive catalysts until the second half of 2020. Thus, for now I am out but I'll be looking to get back in when the stock returns to what I assess as the fair present value of $500 - $600. I'll probably start buying at $600 and add in increments if we dip lower from there. If the stock doesn't hit those prices in the next few months but stabilizes higher then I may re-enter at those higher prices in the mid-year.

Option 4 - My strategy.

I am buy and hold in my taxable accounts but I have diversification in my IRA (roughly 20% of my overall account) for 2 reasons:
1) I expect to be in a higher tax bracket (because TSLA) in the long run, so I want my slower growing stock in the IRA.
2) I can maintain diversification percentages using frequent trading with no tax consequences.

So I picked my nominal Tesla percentage in the IRA at 25% this morning when the stock was at $800.

I will increase my Tesla percentage up to 30% as the stock drops to $500. (Already today, I went to 26% at $760 and then 27% at $710).
I will decrease my Tesla percentage down to 20% as the stock goes from $800-$1000.

This helps in several ways:
1) I am effectively harvesting volatility if the stock just keeps bouncing around, but I don’t lose anything if the stock just goes flat (as is possible if I used options).
2) It automatically buys more when the stock goes lower and sells some as the stock goes higher.
3) I can just setup limits ahead of time, and then readjust when either gets triggered.
4) I’m following a strategy and that helps take emotion and guesswork out of the equation. I assume it will be less stressful.

Some may be in a situation where they are just starting out and just buying 100% Tesla and holding forever would be the best option. But for others with sufficient assets and/or a desire to diversify, I just wanted to put this strategy out there.

 

[Joe F]

Speaking of wood, Cathie Wood is scheduled on CNBC today at 5:05 PM ET, 16 minutes from now.