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Tesla Smashes Earnings And Revenue Expectations

businessinsider.com

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Re: Tesla Smashes Earnings And Revenue Expectations

#51

Post by ncavig »

damoncali wrote: post #36
ncavig wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might be a stupid question, but as a Tesla stock owner, and (becoming more apparent ever day) naive investor, how do you find out this information and/or digest it so well? I'm mainly a google finance guy and had no idea so much of the stock was being shorted.

Forgive the unsolicited advice, but I think that's the wrong question. First ask yourself what you'd do with that information. Then think long and hard about indexing your money. Read up on portfolio theory and you will see that it's incredibly difficult (some say impossible) to beat the risk adjusted return of the market (at least not on purpose). It turns out if you are not in many stocks - 40+ (the exact number de…

FWIW I do have a strong majority of portfolio dedicated to index funds, and have automatic investing set up for those funds biweekly. But there do come times where I see a company, and after some due diligence I do see as a company I believe in and see prospering in the long. Tesla is one of those companies so I bought a fair amount 2 months ago.

Regardless of solicited or not, I do agree with your advice and if nothing else, hopefully readers who fear to ask such questions gain from friendly advice such as yours

EDIT: grammar

Re: Tesla Smashes Earnings And Revenue Expectations

#53

Post by retroafroman »

stdgy wrote: post #18
mrchucklepants wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything but engine sound. I will miss the deep, throaty growl of a large V-8.

In the future, I suspect we'll see aftermarket outfitters touting externally facing audio equipment to imitate the sounds produced by high-powered combustion engines. I also suspect the majority of them will be sold to teenagers with fairly under-powered vehicles ;)

The BMW M5 (an example of exactly what the Model S is competing against) already does this, because the interior cabin is so well insulated that you can't hear the turbocharged V-8, and owners want to: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13746_7-20111031-48/bmw-m5-gene...

Re: Tesla Smashes Earnings And Revenue Expectations

#55

Post by whatusername »

cloudwalking wrote: post #8

This is the first of many profitable quarters for Tesla. The Model S is a better car in every single regard (except for range), than any other car on the market. It is safer, faster, roomier, more fun to drive, has more storage, quieter, more convenient, and less polluting. Electric vehicles will displace combustion vehicles. Everything that makes a car, the electric car does better. Right now the electric vehicle ma…

Hyperbole much? The model S is a great car. It has a great combination of features. But aside from maybe its dashboard -- I can't think of a single attribute where there isn't a car that specialises in that to beat it. An M5 is faster, a 911 is better looking, a Hilux has more towing capability, a Tarago has more passenger space, a ft86 is more tuneable, a Camry is cheaper, etc, etc.

Re: Tesla Smashes Earnings And Revenue Expectations

#56

Post by jcnnghm »

mikeyouse wrote: post #9

A good article to help understand the massive afterhours movement: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/08/autos-tesla-idUSL2... High-Level Summary: There was a ton of short-selling interest on TSLA (due to expectations of a big earnings miss). Almost 27% of the 115mm shares outstanding are currently being borrowed by short sellers. TSLA has more short interest by percentage than 98% of US stocks. Everyone was real…

I can't imagine this not squeezing. The short interest would take 7 days at 4 million shares a day to cover [1], and is about 45% of the float, assuming people haven't been covering for the last couple of weeks. Many of the shorts were opened when Tesla was trading around $40. I am really interested in seeing the updated short interest data from Nasdaq, which will be released tomorrow. If those numbers still show big short interests, expect big banks to hammer the stock up. I sold some shares for a little over $70 after-hours.

[1]: http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/tsla/short-interest

Re: Tesla Smashes Earnings And Revenue Expectations

#57

Post by count »

enraged_camel wrote: post #11
3am wrote: post #7

A couple of interesting statistics about stocks that are easily available are related to how many people are shorting it (ie, someone borrows a share, sells it, and makes a profit if they can re-buy it at a later date to close the short position). In the case of TSLA the stock, as of Apr 15, almost 31 million shares were lent out to short sellers ("sold short"). That is out of 72 million shares on the market ("float"…

The most amazing thing about your post is that 95% of your post went right over my head. And I consider myself a fairly intelligent person. :P (There's probably some interesting commentary in there somewhere about the complexity of financial markets and how it is probably bad for society to have a vast portion of our economic growth riding on something most people don't get.)

Here's the gist, in simplified terms. I assume you understand what stock and stock brokers are...

You can 'short' a stock that you think is going to lose value (e.g. you expect a major earnings miss to be reported).

Shorting a stock means you borrow a share from (generally) your broker at todays price. You then sell that share to someone else for market price. At a determined date, you have to buy another share at market rate and give it back to your broker (this is called 'covering' your short).

If you bet right, you borrowed a share, and sold it for $N. Then, at a future date, when the price fell, you bought for $N-X, and gave the share back to your broker. You just made $X, the price difference from the value of the stock falling.

If you bet incorrectly, you borrowed a share, and sold it for $N. Then, at the future date, the price is actually higher, and you have to buy a share at $N+X, AND give the share back to your broker. You just lost $X, the price difference from the value of the stock rising.

If you bet REALLY wrong, the $+X factor can get really high - your broker may 'call' and force you to give them cash, pending your future purchase of the share to return (your 'cover').

Now, to MOST people, shares are effectively unlimited - with tens of millions or more shares on the market for most traded firms, liquidity isn't an issue. If you want a share or a few shares in a company, it's pretty easy to get them. What may or may not be happening here, is that a TON of folks are currently 'short' on Tesla's stock, meaning millions of folks are going to HAVE to buy shares of the stock to 'return to their broker' and cover their short. The problem is that Tesla DIDNT go down.

Normally, lots of folks are short on lots of stocks, and the market just moves. Occasionally, you get a confluence of events which leads to there being a high demand for a stock that a large number of shares are shorted on, which has a self-feeding pain cycle: the stock price is based mostly on demand and liquidity - as more and more folks HAVE to buy the shares to cover their shorts, the demand for the stock is going to go up, and thus the price is going to go up as well. This increase in price increases the pain, and triggers many brokers to 'call' those margins, requiring MORE people to buy the stock to cover, driving the demand up even higher. The end result is a big spike in the price of the stock, and a TON of people losing money on their bad bets.

Re: Tesla Smashes Earnings And Revenue Expectations

#58

Post by waterlesscloud »

grecy wrote: post #24
rdl wrote: post #19

If you've been in Silicon Valley for the past 6 months, this was obviously going to happen -- virtually everyone I know who could afford virtually any production supercar, and cares about cars, has or wants a Tesla. Not an R8, not a GTR, not a California, not a Panamera, not an M3, but a Tesla. As they ramp up their production (I think it's down to a few months wait), The only rich people (who own cars) not getting T…

Does anyone driving any of those super cars you mention park on the street?

It's not a supercar, but a guy in my neighborhood (in Los Angeles) parks his Bentley on the street.

Me, I'd clean out my garage if I had a Bentley.

Re: Tesla Smashes Earnings And Revenue Expectations

#59

Post by nfriedly »

ricardobeat wrote: post #39
stdgy wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the future, I suspect we'll see aftermarket outfitters touting externally facing audio equipment to imitate the sounds produced by high-powered combustion engines. I also suspect the majority of them will be sold to teenagers with fairly under-powered vehicles ;)

This already exists. The Nissan Leaf emits some cool sci-fi sounds by default, and I heard a dealer mention it can be replaced with a large selection of sounds by specialized auto shops.

If I ever get one, I totally want it to sound like the car on the Jetsons - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdWswvLPdE0

Re: Tesla Smashes Earnings And Revenue Expectations

#60

Post by changdizzle »

mikeyouse wrote: post #9

A good article to help understand the massive afterhours movement: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/08/autos-tesla-idUSL2... High-Level Summary: There was a ton of short-selling interest on TSLA (due to expectations of a big earnings miss). Almost 27% of the 115mm shares outstanding are currently being borrowed by short sellers. TSLA has more short interest by percentage than 98% of US stocks. Everyone was real…

Great explanation - I (sheepishly) have invested a lot of money in $TSLA and have heard about the short squeeze but don't necessarily understand it, and this explains the movement - thanks!
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