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Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

reuters.com

351–360 of 360 posts

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly my point: you are valuing TSLA as a car maker, and I along with the market prefer to value it as tech company.

What is tech about it? Cars and batteries aren’t software you can easily make endless clones of and sell over and over again.

Actually, lot of Tesla cars is software, it is wastly superior to anything on the market right now, and it is worth to mention they are updating it quite frequently. Also there are datasets, like I said.

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#352
post #347
post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that if you have a short position the size of 5% of your portfolio, and the stock then triples in value, the size of the short position would grow to 15% of your portfolio. What's your point? 15% is still nowhere close to insolvency or forced liquidation. If you're right about Tesla's long-term prospects being abysmal, you would still come out ahead.

The point is that 15%>>5%. If being 15% short is a not-so-good idea, that’s the situation now for people who entered a 5% nothing-to-worry-about short a few months ago. Should it triple again in the near future, the short would be 45% of the long position (and they would be sitting on a huge unrealized loss). Being right in the long term is not necessarily enough for a short to be a good investment.

The 5% number isn't an ironclad rule, it's an arbitrary example. There's nothing bad that suddenly happens if your 5% position later becomes larger.

If you short a company valued at $50B, with 5% of your portfolio, it would have to become a trillion dollar company before you go insolvent.

If that's still too scary for you, you can short it with 1% of your portfolio. Now the company needs to become a $5T company, before you go insolvent.

If you honestly think that Tesla will surge into a $5T company, before crashing back down to If you claim to be extremely confident about Tesla's stock crashing, but aren't willing to take even a 1% short position, then your actions don't match up to your words.

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#353
post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Polestar 1 was a hybrid, the Polestar 2 is pure electric. They have some of their own stores, but I believe these are purely retail. They might be serviced in Volvo dealerships at the moment, I don’t know.

>The Polestar 1 was Was??? the car reviews are less than ~30 days old and not a single unit has been delivered to customers " the Polestar 1 will be delivered to customers first, in early 2020"

Fair enough! I tend to gloss over it because it still has an ICE engine in it, even though Polestar are supposed to be the “electrification” brand.

I got the impression that it was a kind of halo car, intended to be made in small quantities just so that Polestar could brag it was making a 600hp sedan. I believe they’re only making 500 a year, for three years.

It isn’t their focus, and given their strategy, it was obsolete the day they announced it. It feels like they took the Volvo Concept Coupe, put a Polestar badge on it instead of a Volvo badge, and announced the Polestar was shipping a car.

But you’re right, they’re supposed to ship it this year, and if demand continues, they’ll ship it though 2022.

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#354
post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm father away from Teslas than that. My Kia is not an EV and I've never bought a new car in my life, always used. Tesla is so compelling to me that I'm jumping from practically one end of the spectrum to the other.

That's a very common theme as well. Excluding the BMW 3 series, Honda Accord, Honda Civic, Toyota Prius, and Nissan Leaf.

https://twitter.com/tsrandall/status/1194307196923842568?s=2...

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#355
post #195
post #121

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I feel like you're painting the second option as bad when it's exactly the same flow as buying gas. Nothing about paying for electricity needs an account and more than buying gas does. I agree that Tesla's system is pretty slick but the alternative isn't bad.

In theory yeah it shouldn't be that bad. In practice there are many different third-party charge providers, and they all have their own RFID cards you have to order in advance after setting up accounts and adding payment methods and whatnot. Or if you don't have the special RFID card that matches the station you want to charge at, you might be able to download an app and set up an account on your phone, but a lot of…

Holy hell the future is awful. How did these companies manage to mess up "swipe your credit card for electricity?"

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#356
post #352
post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that 15%>>5%. If being 15% short is a not-so-good idea, that’s the situation now for people who entered a 5% nothing-to-worry-about short a few months ago. Should it triple again in the near future, the short would be 45% of the long position (and they would be sitting on a huge unrealized loss). Being right in the long term is not necessarily enough for a short to be a good investment.

The 5% number isn't an ironclad rule, it's an arbitrary example. There's nothing bad that suddenly happens if your 5% position later becomes larger. If you short a company valued at $50B, with 5% of your portfolio, it would have to become a trillion dollar company before you go insolvent. If that's still too scary for you, you can short it with 1% of your portfolio. Now the company needs to become a $5T company, befo…

Note as well that the long term may never come. A company can be acquired at an "irrational" price before reality imposes itself.

Did you short Monsanto in 2015 because you expected Roundup lawsuits to hit the stock? Well, you were kind of right but that's Bayer's problem now. Monsanto (the stock MON) is no more and you position was closed at a loss.

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With each car they get a lifetime of service revenue, mostly without competition. They expand their network effect, their supercharger footprint, and their technology lead as they maintain momentum. Cybertruck is poised to be a giant success, reaching into new markets outside of traditional EV buyers and into rural and suburban light trucks, the highest margin section of auto sales. Finally, its prominence attracts u…

You've got a lot of nerve calling buy-and-hold unsophisticated.

I don't think buy-and-hold is unsophisticated or an incorrect approach. I hoped to mean that Tesla stock buyers may not be very analytical or make decisions based on stock fundamentals, but instead make investment decisions based on intangibles. Clearly anybody who took a position and held on is looking pretty smart right now, and a lot of market pros aren't.

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#358
post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I absolutely do understand that. But there are economic principles at play here too. A $7,500 rebate is effectively a lower price without costing the manufacturer anything. While it is true that the buy has to meet the $7,500 threshold for that to work (which is not insignificant) for much of the lifespan of rebate availability, the cars were averaging >60k. Hopefully most people buying cars in that price range have…

It is now a hindrance as every other EV maker (except soon GM) gets the subsidy to compete against Tesla which no longer does.

Yeah, definitely... and it looks like Ford might actually enter the phaseout next, making it purely a subsidy for foreign automakers.

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#359
post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't the kids seats face backwards?

That was an option initially for Model S. Two backwards facing jump seats for kids. They don't appear to offer that anymore, probably hoping you'll by an X instead. X has 2 regular forward facing seats in the third row.

Or maybe Elon Musk wanted to be able to fit his whole family in the S and when the X came out that was no longer needed.

Re: Tesla races past $100B in market valuation

#360
post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. And the cost of time on Tesla options right now is insane. $590 puts for April cost ~$66.

That's not the cost of time you're seeing; it's the implied volatility.

Sorry for the delayed response--- didn't see your comment.

An option's value is its intrinsic value, plus its time value. The time value of an option is mostly sigma, yes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Option_time_value#Time_value

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