TSLA Market Action: 2018 Investor Roundtable

[kbM3]

What do you feel is the likelihood of my now biggest worry: Musk misjudged how effective announcing a 5k/wk rate + Chinese factory agreement would be? I personally don't feel those news would have caused a "short burn of the century", and I'd like to give Elon the benefit of the doubt that he wouldn't think that either. In fact, that wouldn't make any sense whatsoever, so it would have to be something else.

Sorry to all that this has been bothering me for the past few weeks now and I can't get over it/stop bringing it up, but I feel (and am hopeful) that it may still be very important soon.

Me too. I would not have thought Elon would be so naive as to believe hitting 5k/week and China GF announcement would do it.

Every day that goes by increases the odds that this is what happened.

 

[TheMrX]

I don't see this every day but in the last month or so, there is often a good climb in share price in the last hour, often in the last 30 min of trading session.

I'm oscillating between two possibilities for this :

- Short are buying back after a dip earlier in the day
- Longs are reminding to the shorts that they too have ammo left to fight.

If data can be found to support option 2, I suggest the following name for this move :

End of day long uppercut.

Makes me smile every time I see this

 

[jhm]

I think it also has to be said, that short-selling against a single company in a bull market over a long period of time, simply isn’t a viable strategy, really for 2 reasons. One is that eventually one of three things happen to the company

1) You’re proven right and the company collapses. You win, but you move on
2) The price becomes low enough that someone buys the company. Depending on your position at the time it becomes public, you could get seriously burned
3) The company continues to perform well, sues its detractors and you get caught out (like the Fairfax example)

I think this is a good interpretation of the risk to shorts of going along with a "manufactured" crisis of confidence. The moral is not just that companies that are getting railroaded by the likes of Chanos can fight back with litigation, but that ordinary shorts thinking they can ride on the coattails of a Chanos can get burned too. And it's not just litigation risk. Basically if the bear attack amount to bear external force upon a company to make it crack, then those who are bearing that force could back off for any reason. Certainly litigation can halt the operation, but also the ring leaders could simply determine that the effort is futile and exit abruptly. Either way the ordinary short that is not in on the scam gets stuck holding the bag.

In the case, where a company is failing for its own internal reasons, shorts really do not need to exert any force or even try to manipulate price or perception to make anything happen. The company just fails as it meets its own fate. That would be a much safer short.

So basically the more aggressive and ridiculous the leading bears are, the more likely this is a manufactured crisis requiring external force to bring down the company. So beware of FUD, especially if you are a short.

 

[SW2Fiddler]

If data can be found to support option 2, I suggest the following name for this move :

End of day long uppercut.

~or~
Mandatory Afternoon Punchup?

 

[AZRI11]

If I were a major investor planning to increase holdings, I would not like Elon making comments before hand that might encourage shorts to quit and longs to buy, by speculating that a short burn of the century is coming. This might make my acquisition price higher.



Elon stated that total Energy deployments goal is only 1 GWh (or maybe $100M profit) this next year.

To me a "short burn of the century" that is bigger than the VW short squeeze would require one of two things:
1) Some reduction in available shares and an upward price pressure from some announcement, such that there are not enough available shares for shorts to buy during a squeeze, even if a lot of longs sell on the way up.

Or
2) Some huge tech advancement that makes the market decide Tesla is now worth $150B or more.

Unless someone can think of another.

No one mentions tesla A.I. chip. How much would that add to market cap? Elon is sitting on something.

 

[TheMrX]

~or~
Mandatory Afternoon Punchup?

I like it : it does englobe option 1 and 2 at the same time.

 

[brian45011]

This ties in exceedingly well with Jesse's theory.

Is Jesse's theory reasoning by analogy or derived from first principles?

 

[jhm]

I don't see this every day but in the last month or so, there is often a good climb in share price in the last hour, often in the last 30 min of trading session.

I'm oscillating between two possibilities for this :

- Short are buying back after a dip earlier in the day
- Longs are reminding to the shorts that they too have ammo left to fight.

If data can be found to support option 2, I suggest the following name for this move :

End of day long uppercut.

Makes me smile every time I see this

My impression of this behavior is that buyers could be waiting for lower prices, but at the trading day comes to a close you'll have to buy at these prices or wait for the next trading session. So I take this as bullishness. If you thought that lower prices would surely be available in the coming days, you'd be inclined to wait.

 

[SPadival]

Enlist today. Fight the good fight. Counter fud on Twitter with facts and humor.

Agree 100%

Plus a side effect is that it will help keep this thread on topic!!

 

[jhm]

Is Jesse's theory reasoning by analogy or derived from first principles?

It seems to be reasoning based on observed behavior. There's no need for analogy when historical examples of actual behavior in question exist. First principles may be helpful for elicit potential motivations behind certain behaviors, but that tends to lead to banal descriptions of what shorts theoretically do. It may not explain what Chanos is up to in this specific instance. What a particular short does need not be a consequence of first principles. Indeed it may even be contrary to first principles. For example, an efficient market would render unhedged shorting suboptimal for risk adjusted returns.

But Chanos will continue trying what he thinks has worked for him in the past. So history is pretty instructive.

 

[neroden]

Some of his comments recently do seem a little inexplicable. Reacting to the 6/26 GS prediction of 22,000 M3 Q2 deliveries by saying (on 6/27) that GS was in for a "rude awakening" when he must have known that the actual number would be close to 18.5k still makes no sense to me.

If I remember correctly, GS predicted *production* of 22,000. All their previous predictions were *production*, anyway. If they suddenly switched for this one, it was suspicious and I see why Musk didn't notice the sleight-of-hand.

 

[SPadival]

am usually very sceptical of conspiracy theories, this may be first time ever I'm buying into a story like this above.
And I've been watching Tesla/TSLA for over 3 years, so I have more nuanced sense of the price history than Jesse can convey in a single post.

You should listen to the podcast interview. Jesse clarified a lot of things there. No conspiracy theories alleged about shorts getting together to destroy Elon etc.. Chanos may not even be the biggest short against Tesla, though he is the loudest . This is why I find Jesse’s theory so elegant and compelling

Elon Musk vs. Short Sellers - Interview with Professional Trader Jesselivenomore (07.04.18) - TechCast Daily

 

[Skryll]

Didn’t promise 200K. [...]
Has Tesla been late with things? Yes, of course. But let’s not inadvertently exaggerate. Musk mentioned as ideal but never even remotely “promised” 100,000-200,000.

Exactly, its one of the shorter narratives, when really tesla is about 10 years ahead of everybody else in delivering. Would I have liked my Model 3 more in 2017 than january 2018? Who cares, its epic and awesome and I am thankful! No other car manufacturer has anything remotely close as awesome at the price point. Period.

 

[Skryll]

Amen to that.

And who is better prepared for the recession with rising gasolene prices and belt tightening than Tesla which has got a handle on cost and economy of scale as well as offers all the products you need to detach from the utility grip in the long run, from solar panels to powerwalls to powerpacks for large corporations that will need to navigate an energy crisis at the same time. And guess what, tesla semi does not only offer savings over diesel trucks but also allows tesla to install chargers + solar + batteries at the large energy consuming corporations, i.e. Coca Cola. And whats the next step of savings ? Expanding on that to shave off peak energy consumption from production needs. This all falls into place nicely.

 

[Skryll]

310 support actually did its job today

Hope to be able to add some more close to that on monday before it all bounces back up.

 

[chronopublish]

Me too. I would not have thought Elon would be so naive as to believe hitting 5k/week and China GF announcement would do it.

Every day that goes by increases the odds that this is what happened.

That's exactly what happened and I'm not sure why so many people are struggling with this. Elon has said multiple times, emphatically, that they will be profitable in Q3/Q4 and that 5000/wk Model 3 production was the key benchmark they needed to achieve this. The market did not believe that they would be able to get anywhere close by the end of Q2.

The fact that the market has shrugged off an incredible one-two punch of positive news is not Elon's responsibility. The market will catch up to reality eventually. He promised the short position would explode and it has - they're like Wile E. Coyote who's just run off a cliff. The fact that they haven't fallen yet is irrelevant - there's no ground to stand on.

I've seen a lot of grumbling from people who made short-term bets on Elon's tweet and are clearly salty about it. Maybe you should follow Elon's example - he accumulated shares instead of buying options.

 

[LargeHamCollider]

God bless you nero, but some people can't be saved and are destined to be separated from their money. Fudsters have been emboldened because the macros have been bailing them out. Every trade war scare, every Muller update.. the macros won't save them for ever.

It's important to note that fud on Twitter is having an impact on perceived solvency, as Galli recently coined it and @jesselivenomore has defined as a goal for shorts, and TMC members should take some time each day to counter fud on Twitter. We are starting to turn the tide with facts and it appears more and more are following our lead. Reach out to @MacRocket if you have any questions and want to help fight fud on Twitter. He has really done a great job organizing the fight against fud. I was personally inspired by people like @ValueAnalyst and Ross Gerber who where lone voices on Tweeter fighting the good fight, but now there are dozens of us making a few dozen tweets a day to counter fud. You will recognize many from TMC, but we need more. Many is these fudsters are paid full time to spread coordinated fud and it has an impact. It beats arguing the nuances of how great Tesla and Elon are in TMC all day. Not to bag on TMC, but it is a bit of an echo chamber with the occasional knucklehead wondering buy to spam the financial threads. You know the names.. mmd, myusername, curious sunbird or firebird or whatever bird they are this week.

Enlist today. Fight the good fight. Counter fud on Twitter with facts and humor.

I would like to second this, Twitter is used as a sentiment indicator,.

 

[defc0n]

That's exactly what happened and I'm not sure why so many people are struggling with this. Elon has said multiple times, emphatically, that they will be profitable in Q3/Q4 and that 5000/wk Model 3 production was the key benchmark they needed to achieve this. The market did not believe that they would be able to get anywhere close by the end of Q2.

The fact that the market has shrugged off an incredible one-two punch of positive news is not Elon's responsibility. The market will catch up to reality eventually. He promised the short position would explode and it has - they're like Wile E. Coyote who's just run off a cliff. The fact that they haven't fallen yet is irrelevant - there's no ground to stand on.

I've seen a lot of grumbling from people who made short-term bets on Elon's tweet and are clearly salty about it. Maybe you should follow Elon's example - he accumulated shares instead of buying options.

To be fair, I simply accumulated shares, and I’m still salty.

 

[DaveT]

Observation. What happened to this TMC forum thread? I can't keep up with it any more due to volume, even after the split. 90% of the posts are dry. I've resorted to reading only the posts that have more than five comments and skipping the rest. Many of our proficient posters have left this forum as their posts get drowned out in a matter of minutes.
Mods. I have a great idea. Is it possible to limit posters to one post per day on this thread....cheese louise, I just broke my own rule.

Yeah this thread has become terrible. Signal to noise ratio horrendous. I can barely get myself to glance through it any more.

 

[kbM3]

That's exactly what happened and I'm not sure why so many people are struggling with this. Elon has said multiple times, emphatically, that they will be profitable in Q3/Q4 and that 5000/wk Model 3 production was the key benchmark they needed to achieve this. The market did not believe that they would be able to get anywhere close by the end of Q2.

The fact that the market has shrugged off an incredible one-two punch of positive news is not Elon's responsibility. The market will catch up to reality eventually. He promised the short position would explode and it has - they're like Wile E. Coyote who's just run off a cliff. The fact that they haven't fallen yet is irrelevant - there's no ground to stand on.

I've seen a lot of grumbling from people who made short-term bets on Elon's tweet and are clearly salty about it. Maybe you should follow Elon's example - he accumulated shares instead of buying options.

What are you talking about? I’ve never bought an option in my life.