Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Panasonic sells its $3.6B Tesla stake

finbold.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 185 posts

Re: Panasonic sells its $3.6B Tesla stake

#131

Post by AnimalMuppet »

foobarbazetc wrote: post #92
avelis wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah "dumping" a winning trade isn't dumping. It's taking profits to move onto other investments.

Why would you completely exit a winning trade that you have more insight into than most people since you’re the sole supplier of the primary component in the thing if you thought it was going to have a higher ROI than other investments? … you wouldn’t.

You would if you cared about diversification at all. That is, if Tesla has problems, the stock you hold goes down, and your sales go down. Even if you think Tesla's going to do well, if you're not certain, you're wise to spread the risk.

It's the same logic as saying that an individual shouldn't invest all their money in the stock of their employer. If the employer as trouble, the individual can be laid off at the same time that the stock crashes.

Re: Panasonic sells its $3.6B Tesla stake

#132

Post by mkr-hn »

deelowe wrote: post #21
paulpauper wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People said this 3 years ago too, arguing Tesla was too big. guess what: it got way bigger. Tesla is forcing other brands to have to adapt or die. They are way behind Tesla in technology, infrastructure, and marketshare for electric vehicle and battery tech.

"The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent." And it will continue to go up until it doesn't. Maybe Tesla has a vault of unicorn blood and is just waiting for the perfect time to unveil it, but as a car company, their stock valuation makes absolutely no sense. It would take a miracle for Tesla to overtake more than all 3 top automakers combined. There is zero indication this has any possibili…

Unicorn blood is way overrated. The effects don't last long.

Re: Panasonic sells its $3.6B Tesla stake

#133

Post by kozak »

ForHackernews wrote: post #19
paulpauper wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People said this 3 years ago too, arguing Tesla was too big. guess what: it got way bigger. Tesla is forcing other brands to have to adapt or die. They are way behind Tesla in technology, infrastructure, and marketshare for electric vehicle and battery tech.

Toyota have been mass producing hybrid electric cars since 1997, and they practically invented the modern vehicle assembly line. It's hard for me to accept as credible the assertion that they would be "way" behind Tesla in anything.

Toyota's reluctance to accept that battery EVs are the next big thing is so strong that it can negate all these advantages.

Re: Panasonic sells its $3.6B Tesla stake

#134

Post by revscat »

JPKab wrote: post #39
FartyMcFarter wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it got way bigger. It's still unclear whether this is due to fundamentals like the ones you mention, or just an irrational stock market. Now that more and more companies are coming out with their EVs, the truth might become clearer.

As a recent owner of a model 3, I've been blown away by the charging infrastructure advantage. The non-Tesla chargers near me in Colorado are just plain garbage. Sometimes, they work great, but other days I go back and the terminal won't function. And currently, these chargers are all the owners of non-Tesla EVs have. I'm actually surprised there isn't a legal push by Congress to force Tesla to open up their charging…

> I’m actually surprised there isn't a legal push by Congress to force Tesla to open up their charging infrastructure to others.

Why does this surprise you?

Re: Panasonic sells its $3.6B Tesla stake

#135

Post by plorkyeran »

vharuck wrote: post #42

Question to anyone more knowledgeable than I am in fiscal or business matters: why did Panasonic invest in a large client? Wasn't it risky? If 2020 had not been kind to Tesla, Panasonic would've been hit twice.

Panasonic made their investment back in 2010. Investing in a (at the time) much smaller partner as part of a business deal is a semi-common thing to do because the smaller company needs more runway to be able to get to the point where they can actually start buying from you.

Re: Panasonic sells its $3.6B Tesla stake

#136

Post by frumper »

robomartin wrote: post #85
foobarian wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would it be a conflict of interest or some vague ethical concern, instead of just expecting the TSLA valuation to drop as they expand their client list?

Let me reduce it to a simple example: Two companies buy tires from the same tire manufacturer. The tire manufacturer owns a significant amount of stock in company A and none for company B. If company A does well, the stock value increases. This could be worth billions. Company B has a legitimate concern here. Is company A getting any preferential treatment? Lower pricing? Preferential deliveries? Better access to res…

The problem in your example isn't for Panasonic, it's for company B. I'm not sure why you think preferential treatment between companies is a bad thing. If you're Panasonic or Tesla you'd want to keep a good thing going and if Tesla wants to change battery design, Panasonic isn't going to cater to the car company buying a rounding error of what Tesla buys to keep some appearance of "fairness."

You make what your customers want, and you definitely favor making what your best customer wants.

Re: Panasonic sells its $3.6B Tesla stake

#137

Post by burnished »

lmilcin wrote: post #88
codeulike wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So selling = dumping? Edit: ok so dumping=selling the whole lot I guess that makes sense. I think this post explained it better https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27633163

No it is not. Stop trolling or go learn financial slang. It is not hard, you can google it. I worked on an exchange and currently with trading systems for one of the largest banks in the world.

Just want to point out that you've got insider knowledge and if you want people to be better educated about distinctions and jargon you gotta educate them. Just referring people to the great oracle called Google leads to the bad old days of googling a question and only getting threads where frustrated specialists snarkily suggest googling instead of asking.

Really though, the hardest part of googling the answer to a question is knowing what to call things and how to phrase your own questions. Google "is amazon dumping printers", its about E-waste and recycling. Of course, you wouldn't do that because you know better, but thats sort of the point. You are the one who knows better, not the questant who is sort of confused definitionally.

Re: Panasonic sells its $3.6B Tesla stake

#139

Post by kwhitefoot »

mperham wrote: post #77
JPKab wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a recent owner of a model 3, I've been blown away by the charging infrastructure advantage. The non-Tesla chargers near me in Colorado are just plain garbage. Sometimes, they work great, but other days I go back and the terminal won't function. And currently, these chargers are all the owners of non-Tesla EVs have. I'm actually surprised there isn't a legal push by Congress to force Tesla to open up their charging…

They are opening up in Norway, presumably due to local laws.

Can you point to a source?

All I can find are articles such as this one https://www.tu.no/artikler/apner-tesla-offentlige-ladestasjo... that talk about Tesla bidding for contracts to install charging stations and that the conditions of the contracts require the stations to be open to other brands of car.

The article points out that Tesla can do this by dedicating part of the station to third party chargers.

So it isn't because they are being forced to do it nor is it necessarily the case that Tesla's own network would be involved.

Re: Panasonic sells its $3.6B Tesla stake

#140

Post by robomartin »

frumper wrote: post #136
robomartin wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me reduce it to a simple example: Two companies buy tires from the same tire manufacturer. The tire manufacturer owns a significant amount of stock in company A and none for company B. If company A does well, the stock value increases. This could be worth billions. Company B has a legitimate concern here. Is company A getting any preferential treatment? Lower pricing? Preferential deliveries? Better access to res…

The problem in your example isn't for Panasonic, it's for company B. I'm not sure why you think preferential treatment between companies is a bad thing. If you're Panasonic or Tesla you'd want to keep a good thing going and if Tesla wants to change battery design, Panasonic isn't going to cater to the car company buying a rounding error of what Tesla buys to keep some appearance of "fairness." You make what your cust…

Where did I say preferential treatment is bad?

I think you are missing my point.

Here's another quick take:

If I am going to enter into a non-trivial business relationship with a supplier and I have multiple equivalent options, I will avoid a supplier with potential conflicts of interest with competitors. If it is important enough for that supplier to get business from many potential large customers, they must avoid having conflict-of-interest issues.

I have a relevant example from a project we are working on right now. It's a specialized aircraft simulator.

We have about $250K in CNC laser tube cutting and welding work we need to outsource to a vendor with the right capabilities. We have been in conversations with about a dozen of them. One of them has a consulting relationship with a company that is a competitor to our client. Not a direct competitor (not the same product) but close enough to raise a question. We had to disqualify this vendor on that basis.

In fact, this sort of thing is so important in business that the vendor actually brought up the conflict of interest to us. We didn't know about it. They informed us that a potential conflict existed and suggested they should not be be considered for the contract.

That's what I think Panasonic is doing. If they want to go after relationships with direct Tesla competitors it is a lot easier to manage if there are no conflicts. Owning billions in stock on one company and none of the others is a clear conflict.

Remember that owning stock in a company means you are an owner of the company. It is YOUR company. Becoming a supplier to companies that compete with a company you own is a very clear conflict minefield.

Post reply on HN