gabeincal
Active Member
Love it... Can you post a photo of your son with another S now? Just for reference...
-
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What started you investing in Tesla (@Jackl1956 thread)
- Thread starter Jack6591
- Start date
Love it... Can you post a photo of your son with another S now? Just for reference...
I've been really enjoying the responses to @Jackl1956's "what got you investing" question. I'm prepared to take the time to use my mad skillz to split them all out to a separate thread, to make them easier to find for prosperity and posterity (and propinquity 
). So I'm going to do something that moderators normally discourage; please like or disagree on this post, and so long as the likes are significantly more, I'll take the time to do it, in an hour or so. But I won't keep doing it forever, so if I do do it, consider this a request to make sure the replies go to that thread too.
What say you all?
). So I'm going to do something that moderators normally discourage; please like or disagree on this post, and so long as the likes are significantly more, I'll take the time to do it, in an hour or so. But I won't keep doing it forever, so if I do do it, consider this a request to make sure the replies go to that thread too.What say you all?
At least 4 of the 10 hangars in the row where my Bonanza lives have Teslas.
I've been really enjoying the responses to @Jackl1956's "what got you investing" question. I'm prepared to take the time to use my mad skillz to split them all out to a separate thread, to make them easier to find for prosperity and posterity (and propinquity
What say you all?
I think that’s a good place for all the responses to go and die IMO
Edit to clarify. I like the responses and am concerned they will not be seen in a separate thread. I’m clearly outnumbered though so no big deal
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Pretty sure the blue Roadster belonged to Scott Swazey, who was one of the guys who built the Open Vehicle Monitoring System for the Roadsters, and soon after was hired by Tesla and moved north. The Sig Red was serial number 55 (BGC is 29) but he got his first, and still drives it as of last year; it turns out his daughter rode at the same barn as my wife.
gabeincal
Active Member
I began my professional life as an anti-investor. I was set to become seniority number 2 as a pilot with TWA and would have so much in my retirement fund when I reached 60 I wouldn't need more. I didn't want investing to complicate my life. While based in San Francisco I watched Netflix begin. I kept thinking if I was an investor I would buy some Netflix because they had much more selection than local DVD rental stores. I bought books online from Amazon when it first started as an online bookstore. When it expanded to everything else, I again thought, "I'd buy some Amazon, but I'm not an investor". In later years I looked back at these moments as gifts that I turned my back on.
Anyway, TWA had its share of problems so I didn't make much money in the 80s and 90s and in early 2000 I developed a health issue that ended my flying career (but I could live a pretty normal life, just not in the cockpit). I suddenly had no assured future and wished I had become an investor. Moreover, my whole life had revolved around aviation and I missed the night flights across America at 35,000 ft. when north to south lines of thunderstorms lit up the sky hundreds of miles away as we all headed for the one break in the line near some odd location like Farmington, N.M. I missed the 16 years of hopping rides all over the west in my open-cockpit Great Lakes biplane.
I moved to Hawaii, wrote a book, the book gave me a reputation but not a whole lot of money, but the reputation led to a position as a college professor leading a collegiate flight program. To commute the 70 miles across the island and back I started looking at electric cars, first the Fisker, which looked shaky, and then the proposed Tesla Model S. Tesla as a company and the Model S looked viable, and in 2012 I put in an order for a 40KWh Model S, with base price of $49,999. It was a long, long wait for the 40, but Tesla finally delivered when they realized there wasn't enough demand for the 40. Instead they gave us a 60KWh battery with a 40KWh software cap on charging and no supercharging capabilities. It turned out to be a fabulous car for commuting. I could fill to 100% every evening because there was a 20KWh buffer. While waiting I started buying Tesla shares because the company looked like it was going someplace. More importantly, I was so impressed with the car that I figured Tesla and EVs were the future. I got into TSLA at $28/share.
Unfortunately, I had to sell my Tesla shares for about $40/share to refinance my house and when I was ready to get back in TSLA was trading above $120! I had lost my opportunity to make a fortune with TSLA! I then spent lots of time on TMC listening to the arguments in favor of TSLA by people like @DaveT and realized maybe I hadn't lost my opportunity after all. I poured the funds from my anemic 401K into an IRA so that I could buy TSLA within the IRA. I rented out the majority of my home to a family so that they paid the mortgage and I could live frugally with Iceman the Tesla dog in two rooms on the side of the property. With someone else paying the mortgage every month I could concentrate on work and on investing.
Anyway, some politician on another island wanted the flight program on his island and he had enough pull as a legislator in the right committee and with the university to close my rapidly-growing program. I was now an ex-pilot and an ex-professor, nearly 60 years old, starting over with a small but growing IRA. I remember reading posts on TMC by @Chickenlittle where he described buying in the money leaps when the stock was at the bottom of a dip and then converting to shares once the stock price looked like it was moving towards the high side. With the next dip it was rinse and repeat. I tried this technique and it worked well for someone trading in an IRA and not being hit with tax consequences.
What really helped my trading in TSLA was looking at the stock price as a battle with long investors on one side and shorts on the other side. That situation has now evolved to longs vs. manipulating hedge funds, in my mind (and with a suggestion from @Sancho ). At first when I proposed on TMC that manipulations were taking place I was considered a fringe minority view that shouldn't be taken seriously. I invented terms such as Mandatory Morning Dip, capping, dip on steroids, and whack the mole to explain my observations. Looking for failures of manipulations helped me to better predict the bottoms and my investing improved with this outlook. In 2015 Tesla featured Iceman and me in a customer story. In 2016 I started posting daily TSLA trading charts. I found that looking at TSLA trading through this one side vs. the other lens has been very helpful to my trading and for understanding the stock's volatility.
The rally of 2019 and 2020 turned out to be every bit as amazing as the 2013 rally, and I have now become financially independent. As TSLA went up, I paid off various debts, thinking it bad luck at my age to not take a little money off the table here and there. My biggest challenge these days is freeing up the time to write my next book, which will be about Tesla's battle to survive and prosper.
Anyway, TWA had its share of problems so I didn't make much money in the 80s and 90s and in early 2000 I developed a health issue that ended my flying career (but I could live a pretty normal life, just not in the cockpit). I suddenly had no assured future and wished I had become an investor. Moreover, my whole life had revolved around aviation and I missed the night flights across America at 35,000 ft. when north to south lines of thunderstorms lit up the sky hundreds of miles away as we all headed for the one break in the line near some odd location like Farmington, N.M. I missed the 16 years of hopping rides all over the west in my open-cockpit Great Lakes biplane.
I moved to Hawaii, wrote a book, the book gave me a reputation but not a whole lot of money, but the reputation led to a position as a college professor leading a collegiate flight program. To commute the 70 miles across the island and back I started looking at electric cars, first the Fisker, which looked shaky, and then the proposed Tesla Model S. Tesla as a company and the Model S looked viable, and in 2012 I put in an order for a 40KWh Model S, with base price of $49,999. It was a long, long wait for the 40, but Tesla finally delivered when they realized there wasn't enough demand for the 40. Instead they gave us a 60KWh battery with a 40KWh software cap on charging and no supercharging capabilities. It turned out to be a fabulous car for commuting. I could fill to 100% every evening because there was a 20KWh buffer. While waiting I started buying Tesla shares because the company looked like it was going someplace. More importantly, I was so impressed with the car that I figured Tesla and EVs were the future. I got into TSLA at $28/share.
Unfortunately, I had to sell my Tesla shares for about $40/share to refinance my house and when I was ready to get back in TSLA was trading above $120! I had lost my opportunity to make a fortune with TSLA! I then spent lots of time on TMC listening to the arguments in favor of TSLA by people like @DaveT and realized maybe I hadn't lost my opportunity after all. I poured the funds from my anemic 401K into an IRA so that I could buy TSLA within the IRA. I rented out the majority of my home to a family so that they paid the mortgage and I could live frugally with Iceman the Tesla dog in two rooms on the side of the property. With someone else paying the mortgage every month I could concentrate on work and on investing.
Anyway, some politician on another island wanted the flight program on his island and he had enough pull as a legislator in the right committee and with the university to close my rapidly-growing program. I was now an ex-pilot and an ex-professor, nearly 60 years old, starting over with a small but growing IRA. I remember reading posts on TMC by @Chickenlittle where he described buying in the money leaps when the stock was at the bottom of a dip and then converting to shares once the stock price looked like it was moving towards the high side. With the next dip it was rinse and repeat. I tried this technique and it worked well for someone trading in an IRA and not being hit with tax consequences.
What really helped my trading in TSLA was looking at the stock price as a battle with long investors on one side and shorts on the other side. That situation has now evolved to longs vs. manipulating hedge funds, in my mind (and with a suggestion from @Sancho ). At first when I proposed on TMC that manipulations were taking place I was considered a fringe minority view that shouldn't be taken seriously. I invented terms such as Mandatory Morning Dip, capping, dip on steroids, and whack the mole to explain my observations. Looking for failures of manipulations helped me to better predict the bottoms and my investing improved with this outlook. In 2015 Tesla featured Iceman and me in a customer story. In 2016 I started posting daily TSLA trading charts. I found that looking at TSLA trading through this one side vs. the other lens has been very helpful to my trading and for understanding the stock's volatility.
The rally of 2019 and 2020 turned out to be every bit as amazing as the 2013 rally, and I have now become financially independent. As TSLA went up, I paid off various debts, thinking it bad luck at my age to not take a little money off the table here and there. My biggest challenge these days is freeing up the time to write my next book, which will be about Tesla's battle to survive and prosper.
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It was sometime in 2013 after the big pop in Tesla share price. I was browsing tech news and came across an article about how SpaceX was run by a man named Elon Musk and was the first private ground up venture to rendezvous with the space station and how he also has an electric car company. Up to that day I had not even heard of Tesla, but my mind was jolted. I immediately went on an information seeking journey. After my first weekend of fact finding, I purchased my first 10 shares. The more information I began to find, and seeing more disconnect with what the media was saying versus what I was discovering made me progressively add to my position. The amount of FUD in some cases was just unbelievably laughable, so I knew there was something special with Tesla.
My biggest regret up to that point in life was not doing proper research. My father had asked me what I thought about Apple after the original iPhone reveal, and whether we should invest. Me being the naive student at that time just read the newspaper article he was reading and concluded it was a dud. Watching the iPhone reveal on YouTube years later, I vowed that I would not want to have that level of regret again.
I put an extremely high proportion of my net worth at the time into Tesla, but nothing that would ruin me in the long run since I was early in my career. Against family and friends advice, I stuck to doing my homework to ensure I wasn’t missing anything. I explained to my girlfriend then fiancée afterwards about values and life goals for the future. She encouraged me to trust my own instincts and not to sell if we didn’t have to for a house down payment. Now we have the house, a model 3, and an oversized Tesla holding that’s even more disproportionate than what I started with.
Glamisduner
Active Member
Tesla sent me a 5k check after dropping the price on the model 3 a week after delivery (and waiting since 2017). There was a post on the forum about what will you do with your 5k, and one suggestion was to buy more stock. I thought, well it's a damn nice gesture (despite all the stress my terrible delivery cause followed by the slap in the face of a 5k additional loss before I actually got my car back from the shop fixing issues). Not being much of a gambler I still decided what the hell, easy come easy go and bought 5k worth of TSLA, then some more when it dipped. I sold some recently to be sure I got my initial investment back. Considering re-investing it, but it's up so much right now I don't know if I can bring myself to buy more. I missed a buy order by a couple bucks (around $300) and then the stock skyrocketed.
Been a fun ride though.
Been a fun ride though.
Tesla is a black swan — an unpredictable quake reverberating across industries — reverberating across the automotive and fossil fuel sectors. Tesla’s market impact stands alone, unique in business history. In discussing market manipulation, many suggest powerful forces at work controlling the share price of tsla.
What if the opposite is true? What if the S&P 500 index managers are as inept at dealing with TSLA as the automotive manufacturers are?
Just maybe, we’re giving them far more power than they deserve. What if they’re terrified, considering what comes next?
What if the opposite is true? What if the S&P 500 index managers are as inept at dealing with TSLA as the automotive manufacturers are?
Just maybe, we’re giving them far more power than they deserve. What if they’re terrified, considering what comes next?
What got me into Tesla - I have to give full credit for that to the FUD on SeekingAlpha
Or more accurately, purchasing shares of Tesla was my own personal one-person backlash to the FUD on Seekingalpha!
I have never been big into cars or technology, for me a car is a tool to get from place A to place B. As a result, we had always owned very practical cars for the stage of life we were in - Volvo XC90 for lugging around kids and their gear, Toyota Camry as the 2nd car. By 2013, we needed new cars because the Camry was 12 years old and Volvo was a huge drain with repeated mechanical issues. After test driving all the usual suspects (Camry, Accord, Sonata, Highlander, Pilot) a friend convinced us to try the Nissan Leaf. I was in love with that car within the first 90 seconds of the test drive, the salesguy had to actually tell me to slow down - I was going at 60mph in a 30mph zone without even realizing the speed! That was my first introduction to an electric car, and we drove home with it after 4 hours of negotiations(yes - 4 painful hours of ridiculousness)! We had a 240v charger installed at home, which was our only charging site, but the Leaf was sufficient for me for daily commute to work and pick-ups/drop-offs.
Till this point, I had never heard of Tesla, or had any interest in other electric cars. Then one day, a colleague mentioned "are you sure you want to drive an electric car, those batteries are dangerous and catch fire all the time" One quick google search later I was on SeekingAlpha reading intricate details of Teslas and the spontaneous battery fires. Well, I am not an engineer, but I am a PhD scientist taught to question facts till sufficient evidence can prove them. Even to my non-engineering mind those claims of fires sounded wrong, so of course, I searched more and read more. For every 10 negative articles on SA, there would be maybe 1 article with some balance to it. Very soon, I was ignoring the articles and only reading the comments below. The toxic comments just shocked me and the level of hate for Tesla was overwhelming. But, the more I read the more I was convinced that all the junk about battery fires and Tesla was just pure lies. In the comments section, I found out about this forum, so began to lurk here and read comments from real owners. I was also impressed by what the company was trying to achieve and of course, driving my Leaf everyday told me that EVs were the future. So I told my husband that as our support for the company, we should buy 100 shares.
Well, I have written about my super conservative husband before. Instead of 100 shares, he only bought 75 in our joint account for a cost basis of $140. Well, I got annoyed and bought the remaining 25 in my individual account. This was the beginning. Over the next 4 years, I increased my share count steadily. I also started noticing the Model Ss on the road, and was impressed every time I saw one. When Model 3 reservations started, I stood in line for 3 hours to put down my deposit for a Model 3. We got our Model 3 in April 2018 to replace the Leaf - at this point I was completely and totally a member of the Tesla cult. Both me and my husband swore that we are never stepping into a traditional dealership again!
After the first 25 shares in 2014, I have a lot more shares (with a comma in the number). My old roll over IRA is 90% invested in Tesla, and that account has grown from a small portion of our retirement plan to over 60% overall. I have added more through options - often I will sell some deep ITM options and allow 1-2 to be assigned each time adding 100-200 shares to my long term HODL hoard. I exceeded my goal of owning 1000 shares way back in Feb and have continued to add more shares since then. During this time, my husband still has the original 75 shares - I did add 1 share at $420.69 to that 'joint' account, so now it is 76.
This forum has been the best financial advisor I could have ever hoped to have - I have learnt more here about investing and life in general than anywhere else. Tesla and this forum has also brought a ton of change to our lives - now we have Tesla Model 3, Honda Clarity FCEV (will be replaced with Model Y in January 2021) and an old Prius which sits in the garage as our son's car. We have full solar power to our house and are generally extremely careful to try and reduce our carbon footprint. I will be forever grateful to this group for giving me the confidence to stick with my convictions that Tesla is the future, and this future is very bright!
Or more accurately, purchasing shares of Tesla was my own personal one-person backlash to the FUD on Seekingalpha!
I have never been big into cars or technology, for me a car is a tool to get from place A to place B. As a result, we had always owned very practical cars for the stage of life we were in - Volvo XC90 for lugging around kids and their gear, Toyota Camry as the 2nd car. By 2013, we needed new cars because the Camry was 12 years old and Volvo was a huge drain with repeated mechanical issues. After test driving all the usual suspects (Camry, Accord, Sonata, Highlander, Pilot) a friend convinced us to try the Nissan Leaf. I was in love with that car within the first 90 seconds of the test drive, the salesguy had to actually tell me to slow down - I was going at 60mph in a 30mph zone without even realizing the speed! That was my first introduction to an electric car, and we drove home with it after 4 hours of negotiations(yes - 4 painful hours of ridiculousness)! We had a 240v charger installed at home, which was our only charging site, but the Leaf was sufficient for me for daily commute to work and pick-ups/drop-offs.
Till this point, I had never heard of Tesla, or had any interest in other electric cars. Then one day, a colleague mentioned "are you sure you want to drive an electric car, those batteries are dangerous and catch fire all the time" One quick google search later I was on SeekingAlpha reading intricate details of Teslas and the spontaneous battery fires. Well, I am not an engineer, but I am a PhD scientist taught to question facts till sufficient evidence can prove them. Even to my non-engineering mind those claims of fires sounded wrong, so of course, I searched more and read more. For every 10 negative articles on SA, there would be maybe 1 article with some balance to it. Very soon, I was ignoring the articles and only reading the comments below. The toxic comments just shocked me and the level of hate for Tesla was overwhelming. But, the more I read the more I was convinced that all the junk about battery fires and Tesla was just pure lies. In the comments section, I found out about this forum, so began to lurk here and read comments from real owners. I was also impressed by what the company was trying to achieve and of course, driving my Leaf everyday told me that EVs were the future. So I told my husband that as our support for the company, we should buy 100 shares.
Well, I have written about my super conservative husband before. Instead of 100 shares, he only bought 75 in our joint account for a cost basis of $140. Well, I got annoyed and bought the remaining 25 in my individual account. This was the beginning. Over the next 4 years, I increased my share count steadily. I also started noticing the Model Ss on the road, and was impressed every time I saw one. When Model 3 reservations started, I stood in line for 3 hours to put down my deposit for a Model 3. We got our Model 3 in April 2018 to replace the Leaf - at this point I was completely and totally a member of the Tesla cult. Both me and my husband swore that we are never stepping into a traditional dealership again!
After the first 25 shares in 2014, I have a lot more shares (with a comma in the number). My old roll over IRA is 90% invested in Tesla, and that account has grown from a small portion of our retirement plan to over 60% overall. I have added more through options - often I will sell some deep ITM options and allow 1-2 to be assigned each time adding 100-200 shares to my long term HODL hoard. I exceeded my goal of owning 1000 shares way back in Feb and have continued to add more shares since then. During this time, my husband still has the original 75 shares - I did add 1 share at $420.69 to that 'joint' account, so now it is 76.
This forum has been the best financial advisor I could have ever hoped to have - I have learnt more here about investing and life in general than anywhere else. Tesla and this forum has also brought a ton of change to our lives - now we have Tesla Model 3, Honda Clarity FCEV (will be replaced with Model Y in January 2021) and an old Prius which sits in the garage as our son's car. We have full solar power to our house and are generally extremely careful to try and reduce our carbon footprint. I will be forever grateful to this group for giving me the confidence to stick with my convictions that Tesla is the future, and this future is very bright!
I am a Johnny come lately compared to many of you.
I had a general, almost subconscious awareness of Tesla during the early years - some via dubious sources like that BBC Top Gear episode.. at the time, I still thought the Roadster was a cool car despite the nonsense on Top Gear.. then my cousin once mentioned the cool door handles on the S and I started looking at YouTube videos of S & X.
Things really changed when I moved from Australia to Dayton,OH in Nov 2014 (I have since moved back). That was really the first time I could see the car in person. I remember staying up late for the model 3 unveil and then my life changed forever. I reserved the car and I put every cent I had in TSLA. Spent a lot of time fighting FUD, first on Seeking Alpha with the mendacious Montana Skeptic and then on Twitter, thanks to a few people on TMC. My FUD fighting tweets have made it to a CNBC article and court case exhibits
My initial purchase price was in the $260s, but dollar cost averaged it down to $216, thanks to the Mark Spiegel bottom. I have sold off and bought back my entire holding a couple of times now.. once during the disastrous Q1-Q2 2019 and again at start of the COVID crisis. Touch wood, I gained both times.. the last one because I bought a sugar load of LEAPS at the same time I sold the stock. My options holdings now exceed my stock holdings.. but I will eventually cash it out to buy stock (and the Model Y.. come on Elon, launch it in Australia already).
Also, I had to sell 2/3rd of my holdings to buy a house in Sept 2019. I lied about the savings I had for the home deposit in order to retain the 1/3rd.. But I bought 2/3rds back via my retirement account (super).
I had a general, almost subconscious awareness of Tesla during the early years - some via dubious sources like that BBC Top Gear episode.. at the time, I still thought the Roadster was a cool car despite the nonsense on Top Gear.. then my cousin once mentioned the cool door handles on the S and I started looking at YouTube videos of S & X.
Things really changed when I moved from Australia to Dayton,OH in Nov 2014 (I have since moved back). That was really the first time I could see the car in person. I remember staying up late for the model 3 unveil and then my life changed forever. I reserved the car and I put every cent I had in TSLA. Spent a lot of time fighting FUD, first on Seeking Alpha with the mendacious Montana Skeptic and then on Twitter, thanks to a few people on TMC. My FUD fighting tweets have made it to a CNBC article and court case exhibits
My initial purchase price was in the $260s, but dollar cost averaged it down to $216, thanks to the Mark Spiegel bottom. I have sold off and bought back my entire holding a couple of times now.. once during the disastrous Q1-Q2 2019 and again at start of the COVID crisis. Touch wood, I gained both times.. the last one because I bought a sugar load of LEAPS at the same time I sold the stock. My options holdings now exceed my stock holdings
.. but I will eventually cash it out to buy stock (and the Model Y.. come on Elon, launch it in Australia already).Also, I had to sell 2/3rd of my holdings to buy a house in Sept 2019. I lied about the savings I had for the home deposit in order to retain the 1/3rd
.. But I bought 2/3rds back via my retirement account (super).
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but in 2019 that strategy back-fired after the Tesla Q1 debacle and I was mocked by TSLAQ on Twitter as the poor guy who blew his entire retirement savings. (My IRA portfolio had gone down to $22K with only leaps expiring Jan ‘20 and ’21 that were so far out of the money they were practically worthless.) I got so insulted on Twitter that I had to delete my account. But, I held on to my leaps and today that same IRA account is worth $2 million! Who’s laughing now...
I can vouch for this. Good to see that you and your holdings are doing great !!
I was raised in Detroit. When I was in high school "cruising" Gratiot and Woodward Avenues was still a thing. Used Challengers, Chargers, Camaros, Firebirds, Mustangs, etc. were affordable for many high school kids and very popular. I never lost my love for cars, but also fell in love with the outdoors, which led to strong convictions about the need to do more to protect the planet. Those two passions, which were hopelessly in conflict, created a tremendous amount of cognitive dissonance.
So when I first heard about Tesla around the time it formed in 2003, I was fascinated. Having moved to Silicon Valley I followed its progress closely. I toyed with the idea of buying a Roadster and pestered the sales manager at the time into giving me a tour of their old San Carlos facility in about 2006 when they had 6 prototypes, which was very cool.
I continued to follow the company and eventually started to consider investing. After the Model S hit the market to rave reviews -- but the stock did nothing -- I decided to buy for the first time. It was November 2012 and $TSLA was $31 per share. At the time I was slammed with work and family responsibilities so did not have time for extensive research, but felt there was a decent shot at a 10X return in 10 years.
A few years later, I began reading more about EVs and Tesla. My first in-depth experience with Tesla FUD was around the time of the Model X ramp in early 2016. Not Tesla's greatest moment, but the fear mongering seemed way out of whack to me. Around the same time, my son had given me "Thinking Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahnemann, and I started to read about all the ways our emotions can trip us up when we invest. I realized that my conviction in TSLA had only grown, and even though it felt weird to buy stock at 5 times the price of my original investment that's what I did. It was early February 2016, and a local peak of FUD had pushed TSLA down into the $150s, and led to my first post on TMC:
After the incredible reaction to the Model 3 reveal on March 31, 2016, and massive number of pre-orders, I thought shares should have skyrocketed. But they didn't so I bought more. Surprised that such ridiculous FUD kept the share price in check, I continued buying all year. Finally, in December, at what became known as the "Spiegel bottom" -- named after an absurd presentation he gave that marked peak FUD and a market bottom -- I did some irresponsible things I'm not going to mention to buy a bunch more in the $190s.
Although I am primarily a "buy and hold" investor, I have continued to buy and do some trading around the edges and have more shares now than I did in 2016, while at the same time diversifying a bit (I benefited from @Papafox paying forward @Chickenlittle's strategy of buying deep ITM calls on dips and converting to shares when the SP rose, which I did with a small percentage of my holdings). I continue to believe Tesla and TSLA's prospects have only gotten better with time and plan to keep the bulk of my TSLA holdings for a long time to come. My main challenge now is figuring out how to time and manage early retirement.
So when I first heard about Tesla around the time it formed in 2003, I was fascinated. Having moved to Silicon Valley I followed its progress closely. I toyed with the idea of buying a Roadster and pestered the sales manager at the time into giving me a tour of their old San Carlos facility in about 2006 when they had 6 prototypes, which was very cool.
I continued to follow the company and eventually started to consider investing. After the Model S hit the market to rave reviews -- but the stock did nothing -- I decided to buy for the first time. It was November 2012 and $TSLA was $31 per share. At the time I was slammed with work and family responsibilities so did not have time for extensive research, but felt there was a decent shot at a 10X return in 10 years.
A few years later, I began reading more about EVs and Tesla. My first in-depth experience with Tesla FUD was around the time of the Model X ramp in early 2016. Not Tesla's greatest moment, but the fear mongering seemed way out of whack to me. Around the same time, my son had given me "Thinking Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahnemann, and I started to read about all the ways our emotions can trip us up when we invest. I realized that my conviction in TSLA had only grown, and even though it felt weird to buy stock at 5 times the price of my original investment that's what I did. It was early February 2016, and a local peak of FUD had pushed TSLA down into the $150s, and led to my first post on TMC:
After the incredible reaction to the Model 3 reveal on March 31, 2016, and massive number of pre-orders, I thought shares should have skyrocketed. But they didn't so I bought more. Surprised that such ridiculous FUD kept the share price in check, I continued buying all year. Finally, in December, at what became known as the "Spiegel bottom" -- named after an absurd presentation he gave that marked peak FUD and a market bottom -- I did some irresponsible things I'm not going to mention to buy a bunch more in the $190s.
Although I am primarily a "buy and hold" investor, I have continued to buy and do some trading around the edges and have more shares now than I did in 2016, while at the same time diversifying a bit (I benefited from @Papafox paying forward @Chickenlittle's strategy of buying deep ITM calls on dips and converting to shares when the SP rose, which I did with a small percentage of my holdings). I continue to believe Tesla and TSLA's prospects have only gotten better with time and plan to keep the bulk of my TSLA holdings for a long time to come. My main challenge now is figuring out how to time and manage early retirement.
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I look forward to reading it.
Feel free quote any of the pearls of wisdom I've posted on this board in your book.
I am sure some of these stories will work well in your book ... fell free to use mine
chiller
Member
So, my "origin" story: I was sailing across the Atlantic in 2012 with a guy who had a reservation for the Model S. I was intrigued, but I long ago defined buying new cars as throwing money out of the window, and did not connect the dots that this might be an investment opportunity. Not that I had a lot of money to invest at that time anyways.
Some years later, around 2016, trying to optimize the next car to buy, taking into consideration of acceleration, tech and stuff, because of the lopsided taxes in Norway the Tesla kindof... made sense. And since a tesla older than a couple of month is out dated; the only thing that made sense was to buy a new one.
I was in a problem. My life long belief that buying a new car was insanely stupid was stopping me from buying what I truly wanted.. No; Needed!
I have a bunch of self restrain, but it only works so far.
I started reading up on everything tesla, trying to persuade myself from buying one.
I fell across of this forum, and starting reading the investors forum as that seemed to have the best information. I came across @Papafox daily post. I started reading that, and those gave me enough confidence that I felt like I understood what the stock was doing and why.
Those posts made me understand that the FUD was only FUD.
So 29th of December 2016 I bought my first 7 shares of tesla at 218 USD.
Psychologically this was a very good place to buy, because we did not visit those numbers again for years.
During those next few years I bought more stocks, test drove the model S, took delivery of a model S, bought more stocks convinced others to buy stocks, and bought more stocks again.
By the time we visited those numbers I first started buying at, I had no worries (even tho I had bought all the way up to 3xx on the taking private tweet), so I kept accumulating.
I sold my first shares in 2020, two days after buying them (sold 440, bought 352), thinking the covid would force them to drop more, but I was wrong. Re-bought those, and as of now my last buy is at 999.99, thinking that this was the last time I could get shares at less than three digits.
The moral of the story is:
Buy and hold!
And thank you @Papafox for giving me the confidence to start investing. I owe you a couple of beers if you ever show up in Oslo or if I ever go to Hawaii!
Some years later, around 2016, trying to optimize the next car to buy, taking into consideration of acceleration, tech and stuff, because of the lopsided taxes in Norway the Tesla kindof... made sense. And since a tesla older than a couple of month is out dated; the only thing that made sense was to buy a new one.
I was in a problem. My life long belief that buying a new car was insanely stupid was stopping me from buying what I truly wanted.. No; Needed!
I have a bunch of self restrain, but it only works so far.
I started reading up on everything tesla, trying to persuade myself from buying one.
I fell across of this forum, and starting reading the investors forum as that seemed to have the best information. I came across @Papafox daily post. I started reading that, and those gave me enough confidence that I felt like I understood what the stock was doing and why.
Those posts made me understand that the FUD was only FUD.
So 29th of December 2016 I bought my first 7 shares of tesla at 218 USD.
Psychologically this was a very good place to buy, because we did not visit those numbers again for years.
During those next few years I bought more stocks, test drove the model S, took delivery of a model S, bought more stocks convinced others to buy stocks, and bought more stocks again.
By the time we visited those numbers I first started buying at, I had no worries (even tho I had bought all the way up to 3xx on the taking private tweet), so I kept accumulating.
I sold my first shares in 2020, two days after buying them (sold 440, bought 352), thinking the covid would force them to drop more, but I was wrong. Re-bought those, and as of now my last buy is at 999.99, thinking that this was the last time I could get shares at less than three digits.
The moral of the story is:
Buy and hold!
And thank you @Papafox for giving me the confidence to start investing. I owe you a couple of beers if you ever show up in Oslo or if I ever go to Hawaii!
I have a 2005 book on Amazon listed under author name Peter Forman. I sell the only "new" books listed. For international shipping, plz select one of the other sellers, as I don't offer it.
Will send a PM.
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I forgot to mention the icing on the cake of my investment journey - Martin Viecha, head of Tesla’s investor relations liking this tweet
https://twitter.com/s_padival/status/1278482408161959936?s=21
https://twitter.com/s_padival/status/1278482408161959936?s=21
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