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Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

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Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#361

Post by garmaine »

xkjkls wrote: post #193
garmaine wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

‘Good faith and care’ is typically understood by US courts to have a strong emphasis on ROI. But you’re right, it is a little bit of gray area, and can be made purposefully more complicated when, e.g., the prospectus puts other duties first. Google’s “we’re not a typical company and we don’t intend to become one” is a famous example. For benefit corporations are the extreme example of this.

Almost all lawsuits regarding the good faith clause involve some sort of corrupt practice that enriched the executives at the expense of the shareholders (in fact, Tesla is currently involved in a similar lawsuit regarding its purchase of Solar City). It would be near impossible to prove bad faith in choosing one business strategy vs. another if there wasn't some corrupt intent or incentive.

If Tim Cook donated Apple’s cash reserves entirely to charity, or made decisions purposefully wrecking the finances of the company for the lulz, I guarantee there would be a successful shareholder lawsuits. This just doesn’t happen as often. But here have been claims of material harm due to gross negligence before. There are aspects of th Enron case that come to mind, and BP’s shareholder lawsuit after the deepwater horizon disaster.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#363

Post by xkjkls »

garmaine wrote: post #361
xkjkls wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost all lawsuits regarding the good faith clause involve some sort of corrupt practice that enriched the executives at the expense of the shareholders (in fact, Tesla is currently involved in a similar lawsuit regarding its purchase of Solar City). It would be near impossible to prove bad faith in choosing one business strategy vs. another if there wasn't some corrupt intent or incentive.

If Tim Cook donated Apple’s cash reserves entirely to charity, or made decisions purposefully wrecking the finances of the company for the lulz, I guarantee there would be a successful shareholder lawsuits. This just doesn’t happen as often. But here have been claims of material harm due to gross negligence before. There are aspects of th Enron case that come to mind, and BP’s shareholder lawsuit after the deepwater…

Apple donating huge amounts to cash to charity would be an... interesting... lawsuit. I agree that they would definitely get sued over it, but I don't believe that they outcome of that lawsuit is necessarily cut and dry.

And the cases you bring up for fraud/negligence are very different, and pretty obviously not covered under running an enterprise in good faith.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#364

Post by txcwpalpha »

mmsimanga wrote: post #329
txcwpalpha wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Musk is making a contribution to the world. The Wolf on Wall Street not so much. This is such a dumb, narrow-minded statement. Musk isn't some angel handing out miracles. He's a businessman, on a business-centric call, and was being rude to other businessmen who are essential to the success of anything he wants to do. This isn't The Wolf of Wall Street , this was Toni Sacconaghi, an extremely credentialed analyst,…

It's dumb if you willfully select to view the statement in isolation. Wall Street did not come about to make the world a better place but came about to make investors rich. It is this single-minded focus on wealth that I couldn't give a rats ass about. This focus of wealth from quarter to quarter is short-sighted and unrealistic in certain businesses.

This is, yet, again, an ill-informed and extremely narrow-minded statement. Stock markets came about because they were a way for farmers to hedge their bets against poor crop yields and allowed them, as well as the civilizations that depended on them, to survive winters without starving. Stock markets are responsible for the growth of major trade routes that did things like spread agricultural innovation, knowledge, and culture throughout the ancient world. It was not "to make investors rich".

Today, the stock market still serves as a way to spread innovation. Elon Musk would not have been able to build Tesla, nor SpaceX, nor Solarcity without the help that Wall Street has provided. You are incorrect in assuming that this is about a "single-minded focus on wealth". They are asking questions about capital because these are the things that will determine whether or not Tesla will fail at "making the world a better place", and those are important things to know, just like it was important to know if all of your farmers are going to go out of business and cause a famine.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#365

Post by xkjkls »

kneel wrote: post #319
xkjkls wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The west coast bias in Hacker News is always shocking. The capital markets exist for a reason, and the people he's mocking on this conference call are the ones that he's going to need to be begging for billions if things don't deliver in Q3 or Q4.

If the price drops and someone else thinks its undervalued they'll buy it. Elon doesn't have to brown nose to Wall St. bigwigs for that to happen.

I don't think "answering basic questions about the financial health of your company" really should be considered "brown nosing", but to each their own.

And it's not that simple that he can just raise debt or equity if Tesla's stock starts tanking. There aren't billions of dollars out there to be invested or loaned to money losing companies whose stock price is tanking. If come Q4 Tesla is having to raise money at a lower valuation, it becomes even more difficult to see the path to success.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#366

Post by xkjkls »

sotojuan wrote: post #235
xkjkls wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Goldman Sachs has more developers than Facebook. It's not like Wall Street isn't filled with software people.

Those people don't go on HN. This is a forum mostly comprised of college students, web developers with <5 years experience, Silicon Valley startup/tech company developers, and a few experts that have stuck around.

Hacker News has been a repository of software/tech news long enough that I would bet the audience is more diverse than you think.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#367

Post by Retric »

refurb wrote: post #316
Retric wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

7% drop does not really equate to Tesla Plunges IMO. Was this bad enough that you wanted to sell?

Really? They beat earnings estimates, so I would assumed the stock would have gone up, at least by a few percentage points. I would say a 10% drop in a stock over a few hours is "plunging".

I hear plunge and I think time to by, but here are prices from last 30 days:

  286.94
  + 305.72
  - 289.66
  + 304.70
  - 294.08
  + 300.00
  - 291.21
  + 300.08
  - 280.69
  + 301.15
  - 284.45
I see numbers above the recent peak, and below the current low.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#368

Post by kneel »

xkjkls wrote: post #365
kneel wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the price drops and someone else thinks its undervalued they'll buy it. Elon doesn't have to brown nose to Wall St. bigwigs for that to happen.

I don't think "answering basic questions about the financial health of your company" really should be considered "brown nosing", but to each their own. And it's not that simple that he can just raise debt or equity if Tesla's stock starts tanking. There aren't billions of dollars out there to be invested or loaned to money losing companies whose stock price is tanking. If come Q4 Tesla is having to raise money at a l…

>I don't think "answering basic questions about the financial health of your company" really should be considered "brown nosing", but to each their own.

Tesla has been thoroughly analyzed every which way, moreso than other companies. Really there is no end to the amount of info that Wall St wants, everyone is trying to make a buck and wall st senses the hype.

>There aren't billions of dollars out there to be invested or loaned to money losing companies whose stock price is tanking.

Tesla is public. Yes there is. Just depends on whether you can stomach the risk.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#369

Post by nostrademons »

petra wrote: post #359
nostrademons wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty difficult to generate a coherent vision by committee - you usually end up with something that nobody finds compelling, not even the people who collaborated on it. And of course the image of an all-knowing visionary CEO is a manufactured image! It's not like people can actually predict the future. Rather, it's selection bias at work. Those CEOs whose vision doesn't resonate end up getting replaced, or thei…

Sure visions aren't usually created by committee. But aren't visions usually starting very raw, and not really that valuable or unique("let's build a computer for every pocket") - and to get to a coherent and unique vision, you need some research and exploration, which is usually a team effort ?

No argument there (and I think that the success of Musk's companies is largely because of the faceless engineers he hires that toil away to make it a reality).

My point is that left to their own devices, most of those engineers would rather toil away on their own startups or hobby projects, and that convincing them to all work on a tiny piece of a big project requires someone who's both charismatic and has a finger on the pulse of what problems can excite people. Musk has been uniquely successful in aligning people to work on big, hairy, audacious goals.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#370

Post by komali2 »

kc10 wrote: post #354
komali2 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice, helping make it cheaper for us :) I for one have been loving the dump, makes it real easy to buy.

Good for you. Great if every thing works out well and everyone makes money. There are plenty other good companies selling great products where I can invest my money.

If you aren't investigating to hold, why are you investing? Was a large portion of your investment funds locked up in Tesla or something?
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