Michael Burry of ‘The Big Short’ reveals a $530M bet against Tesla • Hacker News Board

Re: Michael Burry of ‘The Big Short’ reveals a $530M bet against Tesla

#41

Post by atatatat » Mon, May 17, 2021, 7:01 PM UTC

awb wrote: post #12

It sounds like the short thesis is centered around Tesla’s revenue coming in large part from regulatory credits. If you take out credits and crypto, they look like most other car manufacturers, struggling to make a profit. > As more automakers produce battery electric vehicles of their own, ostensibly fewer will need to purchase environmental regulatory credits from Tesla, which they have done in order to become comp…

> It sounds like the short thesis is centered around Tesla’s revenue coming in large part from regulatory credits.

Hopefully not (for Burry), because where are those going?

Re: Michael Burry of ‘The Big Short’ reveals a $530M bet against Tesla

#42

Post by agloeregrets » Mon, May 17, 2021, 7:01 PM UTC

thehappypm wrote: post #26

ehmmmmmmmm wrote: post #7

Personally I loved every bit of the GME show and I'd love to see short sellers get squeezed on TSLA as well. Shove it to them. We don't need pessimists in this world.

Good luck.. GME's market cap is a tiny fraction of Tesla's, it would take a whole lot of WSB's to move Tesla.

Which is why TSLA is so overvalued, same game, different scale. There are a lot of Elon Worshipers who pump the price as well but TSLA has basically no proof that they will fulfill any of their advertised goals.

Re: Michael Burry of ‘The Big Short’ reveals a $530M bet against Tesla

#43

Post by totalZero » Mon, May 17, 2021, 7:01 PM UTC

boringg wrote: post #28

ehmmmmmmmm wrote: post #7

Personally I loved every bit of the GME show and I'd love to see short sellers get squeezed on TSLA as well. Shove it to them. We don't need pessimists in this world.

Actually, this will likely be unpopular here, short sellers do have an important role in the economy. In the case of GME and more recently short sellers have been making money on crushing viable businesses (which they should not be allowed) but historically they expose fraudulent companies. I don't like companies getting pushed out of business by big short sellers or making money but just publishing bad research unde…

I personally am against selling equity that you don't own. It creates so many failure modes for the equity markets (failure to deliver chief among them). And I wouldn't be surprised if the net impact of short selling were actually positive for spot price, because shorts tend to sell into strength but they often squeeze into weakness.

We've gotten accustomed to short selling and buybacks, but the equity markets would make far more sense if we were to outlaw both practices. Borrowing something to sell it is a recursive behavior, as is buying shares of yourself. In markets as in computer programming, we have to be careful about recursive behaviors.

Re: Michael Burry of ‘The Big Short’ reveals a $530M bet against Tesla

#44

Post by kikokikokiko » Mon, May 17, 2021, 7:01 PM UTC

awb wrote: post #12

It sounds like the short thesis is centered around Tesla’s revenue coming in large part from regulatory credits. If you take out credits and crypto, they look like most other car manufacturers, struggling to make a profit. > As more automakers produce battery electric vehicles of their own, ostensibly fewer will need to purchase environmental regulatory credits from Tesla, which they have done in order to become comp…

Tesla ins't "struggling to make a profit". It never made it. Other than artificially imposed government credits, Tesla business is not and have never been sustainable. Maybe someday people will start to see Musk for the carnival barker that he really is.

Re: Michael Burry of ‘The Big Short’ reveals a $530M bet against Tesla

#45

Post by gruez » Mon, May 17, 2021, 7:01 PM UTC

boringg wrote: post #28

ehmmmmmmmm wrote: post #7

Personally I loved every bit of the GME show and I'd love to see short sellers get squeezed on TSLA as well. Shove it to them. We don't need pessimists in this world.

Actually, this will likely be unpopular here, short sellers do have an important role in the economy. In the case of GME and more recently short sellers have been making money on crushing viable businesses (which they should not be allowed) but historically they expose fraudulent companies. I don't like companies getting pushed out of business by big short sellers or making money but just publishing bad research unde…

> In the case of GME and more recently short sellers have been making money on crushing viable businesses (which they should not be allowed)

How was GME crushed by short sellers? Before the stock got pumped it was already looked like it was going down the drain due to noncompetitive business practices compared to best buy or amazon.

Re: Michael Burry of ‘The Big Short’ reveals a $530M bet against Tesla

#46

Post by ralph84 » Mon, May 17, 2021, 7:01 PM UTC

boringg wrote: post #28

ehmmmmmmmm wrote: post #7

Personally I loved every bit of the GME show and I'd love to see short sellers get squeezed on TSLA as well. Shove it to them. We don't need pessimists in this world.

Actually, this will likely be unpopular here, short sellers do have an important role in the economy. In the case of GME and more recently short sellers have been making money on crushing viable businesses (which they should not be allowed) but historically they expose fraudulent companies. I don't like companies getting pushed out of business by big short sellers or making money but just publishing bad research unde…

Policing fraud is the role of the government. Restitution for fraud should go to the defrauded, not speculators.

Re: Michael Burry of ‘The Big Short’ reveals a $530M bet against Tesla

#47

Post by thouitsme » Mon, May 17, 2021, 7:02 PM UTC

mdorazio wrote: post #3

I'm having a hard time with this one since from the article it doesn't seem like Burry is seeing anything that isn't very well discussed/analyzed already regarding Tesla. Short sellers have gotten very burned in the past in gambles like this, but they've also sometimes made money. Given how historically irrational the market has been about Tesla, this just seems like a gamble rather than the well-reasoned short posit…

Well, Musk had lots of bitcoin/dogecoin on his mind lately. He is exchanging those for cars but not in a trustable way, how long do you think this can go? I don't have proof of anything but this can certainly damage the Tesla's balance sheet.

Re: Michael Burry of ‘The Big Short’ reveals a $530M bet against Tesla

#48

Post by epistasis » Mon, May 17, 2021, 7:02 PM UTC

turbinerneiter wrote: post #15

Teslas price is just too high. I think they will be very successful and become a big, dominant car maker. But their price only makes sense if they end up being the only car maker left. That's not realistic. Building an electric car is not that hard, especially if Tesla already did all the hard lifting for you. For a while I was thinking that the battery play - becoming the number 1 battery supplier - will justify the…

There's also solar, in addition to storage.

All three technologies are really key parts of the future, and controlling that aspect of the suburban home energy profile have absolutely huge synergies.

As we get to higher penetration of renewables, our grid will change from the current model of supplying whatever power is demanded, to a far more two way mode where excess supply will drive time-shifted demand.

Right now the only monetization strategy on the grid for solar/storage providers are 1) net-metered solar, and 2) backup electricity for outages. This will change.

The most expensive component of an EV is the battery, and it's likely we will have as much grid-attached non-EV storage as we have EV storage.

IMHO the current price is unhinged from any analysis, and fully in the tulip bulb stage of share pricing. But I think that Tesla is better positioned to take advantage of three core technologies of our energy future, three techs that must be tightly coupled, and no other player is even really thinking of that.

Re: Michael Burry of ‘The Big Short’ reveals a $530M bet against Tesla

#49

Post by fastball » Mon, May 17, 2021, 7:02 PM UTC

boringg wrote: post #28

ehmmmmmmmm wrote: post #7

Personally I loved every bit of the GME show and I'd love to see short sellers get squeezed on TSLA as well. Shove it to them. We don't need pessimists in this world.

Actually, this will likely be unpopular here, short sellers do have an important role in the economy. In the case of GME and more recently short sellers have been making money on crushing viable businesses (which they should not be allowed) but historically they expose fraudulent companies. I don't like companies getting pushed out of business by big short sellers or making money but just publishing bad research unde…

People keep saying this but I'm still not sure I buy it. Everyone in the finance industry has some excuse for why their particular gig deserves to exist (HFT / hedge funds / shorts) but economics are complex and having a plausible-sounding reason doesn't mean it actually does help the economy / markets function in the long run.

Do you have any examples of shorts actually help uncover fraud? Or is it more just when the fraud is uncovered (by someone else, say a 3-letter federal agency) the shorts make money, but they had no hand in actualizing the outcome.

Re: Michael Burry of ‘The Big Short’ reveals a $530M bet against Tesla

#50

Post by mbgerring » Mon, May 17, 2021, 7:02 PM UTC

mbgerring wrote: post #40

Eventually somebody on Wall Street is going to figure out that Tesla’s business is batteries, that Tesla’s batteries are getting good enough to compete with natural gas peaker plants, and that there is a massive effort underway to convert our electric grid away from burning fossil fuels.

I don’t understand why more people aren’t focused on this https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/31/22360839/apple-tesla-mega...