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Transportation Businesses

Tesla Stock Plunged After Elon Musk's 'Bizarre' Conference Call (wired.com) 269

Posted by EditorDavid from the bizarre-billionaires dept.
A recent Bloomberg article describes Elon Musk's "bizarre" conference call on Wednesday -- and its aftermath on Wall Street. Elon Musk told investors not to buy Tesla Inc. shares if they can't stomach volatility. They got the message. The comments -- part of a bizarre, heated conference call after the close Wednesday -- sent the electric-car maker's stock plunging. Tesla fell as much as 8.6 percent Thursday after the chief executive officer rejected analysts' questions on another quarter in which the company burned more than $1 billion in cash.
Investors had shorted a total of more than 40 million shares by Thursday -- the most ever in Tesla history -- and despite a rise in Tesla's stock price on Friday, they shorted 500,000 more shares.

Wired argues that Musk "clearly is avoiding some hard questions about Tesla's financial viability. But it's equally true that the call exposed how limited Wall Street can be about visions for the future and what it takes to create new templates for doing old things." This clash was highlighted by Musk's response to "sober questions by respected Wall Street analysts" like Toni Sacconaghi.

Musk brushed him off, sniping that "bonehead, boring questions are not cool." To add insult to that injury, Musk then fielded questions from a YouTube user, who proceeded to dominate a call normally open only to significant Wall Street analysts. That did not sit well with the Street, and Sacconaghi lambasted Musk the next day on CNBC with the rather clever jab, "This is a financial analyst call, this is not a TED talk."

Friday, Musk returned fire, with tweets asserting that the question was boneheaded because the analyst already knew the answer and was asking purely to advocate a negative thesis about the company.
But Barron's replayed the conference call, and argued that Musk was mistaken, reporting that "the analyst wanted to know about capital requirements, not expenditures."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Tesla Stock Plunged After Elon Musk's 'Bizarre' Conference Call More

Tesla Stock Plunged After Elon Musk's 'Bizarre' Conference Call

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  • Two Words (Score:4)

    by Hognoxious ( 631665 ) on Saturday May 05, 2018 @06:48PM (#56560790) Homepage Journal

    Gerald Ratner.

    • Well, at least Musk didn't call his cars "total crap."

      Honestly, it doesn't really affect my opinion of Musk that much. With his bizarre rants about living in a simulated universe and the AI boogeyman, I've always thought he was brilliant, but possibly a bit unhinged. This is just one more example.

  • Go back to launching and landing rockets. The stock market isn't rocket science.

  • I get his frustration completely .... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by King_TJ ( 85913 ) on Saturday May 05, 2018 @07:00PM (#56560832) Journal

    Unfortunately, as soon as you take your company public, this is the B.S. you get caught up in. Today's Wall Street investor doesn't give a crap if you're a super genius with world-changing ideas you're trying to gear up to sell to the world. They only care about profit and loss statements and projections for the next quarter's revenue. They're going to buy and sell your stock right along with hundreds or thousands of others, going by whatever trends they think they can spot to maximize their income on them. They really don't invest in you because they believe in your business and business model anymore.

    I don't work in the financial world, so maybe some others who are will challenge my assertions here? But I do have a friend whose dad owned a big investment firm for something like 40 years. He decided to retire about 8 years ago, saying he always told himself he'd quit, the day he stopped feeling like any of the investing made sense to him anymore. And that day came.....

    So on one hand, I have to kind of laugh and admire Musk here, doing what he did. It's a nice "poke in the eye" to the Financial "gods" who rule American business these days. But on the other, it really is true that he's so heavily financially leveraged with Tesla that he'd have nothing but unrealized ideas if all the big lenders and investors backed out on him.

    And IMO, one thing he has working against him is that he needs to build out a massively expensive network of superchargers (and maintain them all, including the promise of free charging for many customers) - BUT he doesn't get any of the government protections that we've extended others who tried to undertake similarly massive infrastructure roll-outs (such as the cellular companies). I'm not saying he SHOULD have any of that, either! But he's trying to compete against the established gas station infrastructure that benefits almost all the other auto-makers. So he's going to NEED to stay on the good side of people with lots of money to lend him.

    • And IMO, one thing he has working against him is that he needs to build out a massively expensive network of superchargers (and maintain them all, including the promise of free charging for many customers)

      That will become a smaller and smaller percentage of customers as time goes by, so if he can hang on for a while, this is a problem which should solve itself.

      But he's trying to compete against the established gas station infrastructure that benefits almost all the other auto-makers. So he's going to NEED to stay on the good side of people with lots of money to lend him.

      No, he isn't. Gas stations don't compete with EV charging stations. They perform totally different functions, even though their purposes are similar.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dgatwood ( 11270 )

        And IMO, one thing he has working against him is that he needs to build out a massively expensive network of superchargers (and maintain them all, including the promise of free charging for many customers)

        That will become a smaller and smaller percentage of customers as time goes by, so if he can hang on for a while, this is a problem which should solve itself.

        I assume you mean the free part, rather than the need for having superchargers. And you're right, but only to a point. After all, Tesla still giv

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by King_TJ ( 85913 )

          Well, I'm talking about the whole "ball of wax" really. I understand that as we get more electric cars out there, there will be more charging stations built by many different manufacturers. But Tesla has the ones that supply enough wattage to get one of their cars recharged in a reasonable amount of time so you can grab a bite to eat and continue on a road trip, with it charged back up sufficiently. The GPS systems in their vehicles know about all of these stations they installed too, so it can factor them

      • They compete for the same real estate. Lawsuits have been started over this already. But time will tell. Most carmakers are switching to EV and Hybrid options, while Toyota still thinks hydrogen is going to be the next big thing, for some reason.

        • Most carmakers are switching to EV and Hybrid options,

          Literally every volume automaker, in fact, and many of the smaller ones.

          while Toyota still thinks hydrogen is going to be the next big thing, for some reason.

          Toyota, Honda [cnet.com], and GM [greencarreports.com] are all banking on the USA MIC's adoption of hydrogen (for "clean" war machines, which are also quiet and which produce clean drinking water which is of immense value in desert warfare, hint hint) to make hydrogen viable for passenger vehicles — at least in certain specific markets which include the United States and Japan. However, as you probably know, it remains barely viable even in the primary test marke [greencarreports.com]

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by JBMcB ( 73720 )

      They really don't invest in you because they believe in your business and business model anymore.

      Uh, that's exactly why they invest. If they think your business model will work and generate income, then they will invest.

      In any case, IT'S NOT ELON'S MONEY. He's taken 12.7 BILLION dollars of investor money after 27 rounds of financing. Yeah, investors get to ask some questions. If he doesn't like answering those questions HE SHOULDN'T HAVE TAKEN THEIR MONEY.

      • Re:I get his frustration completely .... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Saturday May 05, 2018 @08:56PM (#56561216)

        Yeah, investors get to ask some questions. If he doesn't like answering those questions HE SHOULDN'T HAVE TAKEN THEIR MONEY.

        He seemed fine with their actual questions. It's short-term bullshit "investors" that he wasn't putting up with and to that extent told then to sell his stock and not buy it. So really, he's doing exactly what you are insisting he should.

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by Joviex ( 976416 )

        If he doesn't like answering those questions HE SHOULDN'T HAVE TAKEN THEIR MONEY

        You almost got it. If he wont answer those questions, do like he said, take your money, and leave.

        Demanding from him answers, is retarded.

        Dont like it? Why invest. Move on.

      • If he doesn't like answering those questions HE SHOULDN'T HAVE TAKEN THEIR MONEY.

        And that's precisely what played out here. Investing isn't something the CEO chooses. People chose to invest in Tesla, that doesn't entitle them to anything other than profits and depending on their share a vote on measures when they get raised (controlling stakes not withstanding). He and you are 100% in agreement. He doesn't want to answer the questions and he invited to those who demanded answers to take their money elsewhere.

    • Definitely frustrated (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Okian Warrior ( 537106 ) on Saturday May 05, 2018 @08:16PM (#56561092) Homepage Journal

      Not to inject facts into a good discussion, but the reality is that Tesla stock dropped about 2% after the call, and it's already rebounded. (If you include the part of the drop that occurred right before the call, it would be about 5%. Figure $301 to $284 and back.)

      Look at the 1-month variation in this link [google.com] and note that the variation after the call is about the same as four other similar variations in the past 30 days.

      Big, fat hairy deal.

      Also, the questions that Musk avoided weren't "sober questions by respected Wall Street analysts", they were leading questions intended to elicit a response that could be taken in a negative light. In one case, the question was answered completely by the filed papers, and illustrated that the asker didn't do his homework.

      Tesla is the most shorted stock in history right now [cnbc.com] (not most shorted in todays market, by some measures it's the most shorted stock of all time), and a lot of people would like to see it fall so they can make some money.

      You won't get an honest opinion about Tesla for awhile, not until the short sellers realize that they can't bring the stock down using hype.

    • Re:I get his frustration completely .... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Saturday May 05, 2018 @08:19PM (#56561110)

      Today's Wall Street investor doesn't give a crap if you're a super genius with world-changing ideas you're trying to gear up to sell to the world. They only care about profit and loss statements and projections for the next quarter's revenue.

      And they're right. Whether your ideas generate a profit or a loss is what distinguishes if they're super genius world-changing ideas, or deceptively seductive ideas which sound good in theory but turn out not to work in the real world due to factors its proponents are glossing over or fudging. Merely proclaiming an idea to be super genius world-changing does not automatically entitle it to profit (or in Tesla's case, investment). The idea has to pan out in real life, which is what Tesla's operating statements tell us. Dig through all the past slashdot stories about revolutionary breakthroughs in battery technology which ended up not panning out. That's the difference between how well people think an idea should work, versus how well it actually does (or doesn't) work in real life.

      On the other hand, Tesla's stock price is meaningless to its operations except if Musk wants to sell more shares to raise capital. In that respect, the rantings and ravings of financial analysts are irrelevant. What matters is Tesla's revenues vs expenditures. i.e. How much they're spending to build their products, and how much/how many customer are paying to buy those products. The stock price merely reflects shareholders' confidence in the company to continue to survive and grow while making money.

      Personally, I think Musk knows Tesla stock is overvalued. Its market cap exceeds Ford's while its unit sales are less than 2% of Ford's. So as long as he's got confidence in handling Tesla's debt, he's not afraid to say things which might bring that irrationally exuberant stock valuation back down to earth. That'll rankle investors who bought Tesla stock as a baseball card investment (i.e. they're hoping to sell after its value increases), while not upsetting any true believers who bought Tesla stock because they think it's the future of auto-making.

      • They're NOT quite right, though.... and here's why (Score:5, Insightful)

        by King_TJ ( 85913 ) on Saturday May 05, 2018 @10:52PM (#56561606) Journal

        Plenty of incredibly good business ideas are ones that need patience and time to bring to fruition. There's a need to do due diligence and make sure the company isn't just a false front, or a bunch of clueless idiots wasting every dollar they're loaned. But a company like Tesla has already proven it can deliver a working product that people find desirable. In fact, they did it several times over -- ever since the first Tesla Roadster came out.

        Wall Street is destroying a lot of great ideas because they hyper-focus on short term results. If you're a big, established firm, that's probably fine. They generally sell in saturated markets where their profits are relatively stable. But for anything else, you used to have a lot of investors who bought and HELD stocks because they truly liked what the company was doing. They weren't living "quarter to quarter" to look for the first sign they needed to do a sell-off.

        All the computerization of Wall Street is probably what led to a lot of this. Computer automation and ability to execute micro-trades super rapidly over high speed networks turns it into a pure game of numeric trends, vs. wishing to put your money into a business you believed in.

    • They only care about profit and loss statements

      Well to be fair, the last time the ignored profit and loss statements we had Enron. And we all know how that turned out.

      • But Enron said they were trying to save the world. Enron had geniuses too. Enron also had a practice of intimidating analysts who asked tough questions.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by iggymanz ( 596061 )

      It is not B.S. Companies that can't make money will not survive. Tesla is not making money. Your starry eyed worship of a "genius with world changing ideas" is the B.S.

      Established automakers are working on making an affordable electric car, Tesla makes expensive toys for the wear-the-nails crowd. They are NOT the solution

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by King_TJ ( 85913 )

        I'm not engaging in "starry eyed worship" here. I've often been pretty outspoken about how the whole PV solar market hawks inflated numbers and stats to get people to buy into it. Solar panel tech is pretty cool and actually works, but it doesn't give the cost savings they promise in many cases. It's a long-term investment gamble at best, where you might come out ahead if your inverters don't die, past the warranty period and the panels themselves don't fail or shatter from hail damage, and if electricity

      • Re:I get his frustration completely .... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by sfcat ( 872532 ) on Sunday May 06, 2018 @02:09AM (#56562072)

        It is not B.S. Companies that can't make money will not survive. Tesla is not making money. Your starry eyed worship of a "genius with world changing ideas" is the B.S.

        Established automakers are working on making an affordable electric car, Tesla makes expensive toys for the wear-the-nails crowd. They are NOT the solution

        Yes, but those other auto makers spend how much on marketing and sales? (billions of $) And Tesla spends what to generate those same amount of sales? (basically $0) There's your first strategic advantage. And where do you think those "established automakers" are going to get all those batteries? Oh, from TSLA because your cell phone battery isn't really the same thing as a car battery. And they will be the only company of scale focusing on those car level batteries. There's strategic advantage #2.

        You keep thinking Ford can just mass produce an electric car anytime they want. Sorry, but that's the magical thinking here. They can mass produce ICE cars but electric cars are different enough that they can't just order some motors from GE and some batteries from Samsung and be in business. Also, the basic business model of all "established automakers" can't survive in an electric world as they make a significant amount of their revenue on parts and maintenance which is going away (both due to electrics and improvements in manufacturing). GM might have a better time of it, due to their better electric cars but they still face the scale problems with batteries like the rest of the automakers.

        • lso, the basic business model of all "established automakers" can't survive in an electric world as they make a significant amount of their revenue on parts and maintenance which is going away (both due to electrics and improvements in manufacturing).

          Automakers make basically dick on maintenance. Those profits are seen almost exclusively by the dealer, who a) typically overcharges for labor and b) typically overcharges grossly for parts. Here, try this: compare Audi parts prices from Sunset Imports or Jim Ellis Audi with literally any other Audi dealers in the country. The parts prices at other dealers are going to be vastly higher everywhere else, because those are literally the only two Audi dealers who don't do this. (As a result, they have a virtual

      • Re:I get his frustration completely .... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Sunday May 06, 2018 @07:12AM (#56562610)

        It is not B.S. Companies that can't make money will not survive.

        You seem to not understand the difference between a bluechip company and a growth company.

        Established automakers are working on making an affordable electric car,

        In America established automakers have been "working on it" for years and have nothing to show. In Europe people don't like the Tesla for the large American tank that it is, and Telsa is rightfully behind the automakers who make a more European style car. If those established automakers were resting on their laurels for 14 years and are having their lunch eaten.

        Tesla makes expensive toys for the wear-the-nails crowd.

        The Model 3 costs $358 less than the average new car price.
        The Model S is the most popular electric car in America.

        They clearly are the solution and have been the solution for a while.

        • Yep. The model 3 alternative for me is the Prius 4. That's not an unaffordable car by any means. And one of the most reliable cars as well - my Prius 2 is extremely cheap in maintenance, with the main expenses being new tires.

    • May have been deliberate and calculated (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Bruce Perens ( 3872 ) <bruce@perens.com> on Saturday May 05, 2018 @09:00PM (#56561234) Homepage Journal

      Tesla is the most shorted stock on the market, with short positions covering more than 30% of the total stock available for trading. Tesla stock has been kited to a high price by its previous short squeezes. When the commitments on short positions came due, the holders had to buy Tesla stock at the prevailing price to fulfil their obligations. They had no choice. There werenâ(TM)t lots of Tesla shares available to cover the short positions, and thus the price of the stock was driven up.

      What if Elon Musk was out to further kite the value of Tesla on a short squeeze, at the expense of all of the Tesla-doubters? He might act exactly as he has been: heâ(TM)d divert attention from good news, and act like a flake. Heâ(TM)d be confident in doing this, nobody could prove it was deliberate manipulation of the stock without reading his mind. Eventually, those short positions would come due, and there would be no stock to cover them, and Tesla shares would go astronomical.

      Short positions like this are called âoewidow makersâ. They can wipe out investors and sometimes drive them to suicide. Elon Musk made his fortune, and continues to, by taking risky actions that other people wouldnâ(TM)t dare. He obviously has an ego, and pauperizing the shorts would fit that.

    • Then don't take the company public. There are plenty of companies that stay private, because they want to remain the owners (well, the original investors, the CEO is still just an easily replaceable pawn). Going public however means the public gets a voice in how things are done, if they decide to get involved that is. Going public means you've essentially borrowed lots of money from the public and they want to see a return on investment. And the public is much more finicky about results than the origin

  • Elon, do it some more! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by steveha ( 103154 ) on Saturday May 05, 2018 @07:01PM (#56560838) Homepage

    It's fun to watch, and if the stock dips down again I'll buy some more.

    Tesla is a "buy and hold" stock in my opinion. Tesla has been doing everything possible to build for the future. I frankly don't care if Wall Street gets personally annoyed with Elon Musk's antics and the stock price dips. Nothing fundamental changed and the stock price went right back up again.

    • Re:Elon, do it some more! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Junta ( 36770 ) on Saturday May 05, 2018 @07:09PM (#56560860)

      I think the challenge is that long term, there are signs that there will be plenty of competition in what would be the bread and butter of Tesla's business.

      They have been doing a lot and it has been costly, but I wouldn't be so confident that investment will become durable first mover advantage for Tesla, or if it is more the tide that raises all ships.

      • It won’t be easy for any competitors to harm Tesla without the same capital investments Tesla has already made; the fact that Tesla has the batteries in-house gives them a huge advantage.

        Their real challenge will be to continue executing to (if not ahead of) plan. They need to be very smart with their money as well as changing standards and technology... like they have been.

        The Solar City acquisition will be an interesting one to review in a few years though.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dgatwood ( 11270 )

        They have been doing a lot and it has been costly, but I wouldn't be so confident that investment will become durable first mover advantage for Tesla, or if it is more the tide that raises all ships.

        I think folks underestimate how valuable their supercharger network is. Having DC fast charging with prices that are always close to the commercial electricity rate for the area, rather than at whatever arbitrary price per kWh or per hour that the host business decides to charge, is a major advantage.

        • I think folks underestimate how valuable their supercharger network is.

          While I agree with you, I think folks overestimate how long it takes to build something like that. It's taken Tesla a long time because they are the groundbreakers. The other players are sitting back and letting Tesla hash out the legal issues before they step in, and they will have a much easier time of it.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by steveha ( 103154 )

        I wouldn't be so confident that investment will become durable first mover advantage for Tesla

        Well, I am confident.

        Right now, almost all electric cars are great "second cars" suitable for short trips and terrible for long trips. Tesla cars, combined with the Tesla network of Supercharger stations, are okay for long trips. A car that can drive for three to four hours, then recharges in the time it takes you to eat a meal... that's not significantly worse than a gasoline car for long trips.

        A Tesla really ca

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Junta ( 36770 )

          Having the range is not so much something others can't do, it's something they don't think they need to do. From deciding to add range, it wouldn't take them more than 2-3 years to release a product.

          On the supercharger stations, various restaurants and shopping malls in my area have charging spots with J1772 spots. In terms of places to do charging, there are already more places to charge per square mile that works with anything than there are Tesla specific stations, at least in my area. I will say that

    • Re:Elon, do it some more! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mamba-mamba ( 445365 ) on Saturday May 05, 2018 @08:33PM (#56561134)

      I will try to explain this in simple, non emotional terms. Tesla is not profitable. This means that they spend more money than they take in. This means that in order to continue operating, they need to get more money. The typical two ways companies raise money are to issue new stock (which will dilute the value of existing stock, similar to inflation from money printing) , or issue bonds. They could also sell assets, if they have some that someone is willing to buy.

      What will happen if they don't get more money? They will run out of money and be unable to pay employee salaries. Also, suppliers will get wind of it and demand payment upfront. Based on present cash reserves and the rate at which the are being depleted, Tesla is likely to require a cash infusion of billions of dollars in 2018. That is how serious it is. Once you stop paying suppliers and salaries, it will probably become necessary to declare bankruptcy to avoid chaos. Companies can survive bankruptcy and emerge and continue to operate, but I think it is fair to say that the company will never be the same afterwards.

      In order to issue new stock or sell new bonds, realistically, Tesla will be forced to deal with Wall Street, and to maintain a positive image for those who may be interested in making the investment. So, even though you may remain bullish on TSLA, it is the job of the CEO to make sure that Wall Street analysts also remain bullish. Sniping or blowing off the questions of analysts during an earnings call is not a way to inspire confidence. What it shows is an inability to deal with unpleasant realities.

      The constant turnover in high-level positions is also something that detracts from confidence in the company. In short, Tesla has problems, and the actions of the CEO on this earnings call made the problems worse.

      • Not profitable means their costs equal their revenues. It does not mean they are losing money and need to get investor cash to keep operating. I don't know where you learned your definition of the word "profitable".

        Tesla has had a lot of capital expenditures that have eaten up their profit. That isn't automatically negative because those expenditures will help control their marginal costs in the future which will definitely help their profitability down the line.

        Tesla has had to build parts of their supply

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by djinn6 ( 1868030 )
          Go read their actual Q1 report [shareholder.com].

          Tesla is losing money even before accounting for capital expenditures. Gross profit is $456 million, but operating and interest costs are more than twice that, leaving them with a $784 million net loss. Capital expenditures are another $655 million on top of that.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Uberbah ( 647458 )

        I will try to explain this in simple, patronizing terms.

        Tesla isn't burning billions in cash to bleach Musk's asshole. They're expanding their infrastructure, manufacturing capacity, and spending money on R&D. Ford would be doing the same thing if they were a new auto company instead of one that's been around for a hundred years. At any point, Tesla could stop expanding the Supercharger network etc and coast on their existing product to be profitable. They're obviously trying to pull an Amazon, who

      • I will try to explain this in simple, non emotional terms. Tesla is not profitable. This means that they spend more money than they take in.

        Every company undergoing phenomenal growth is not profitable, that's the whole point of getting investments in the first place.

    • Tesla is a "buy and hold" stock in my opinion

      I don't share that opinion. Tesla was a buy and hold stock, but currently given their relative size in their field I believe they are way over valued. Don't get me wrong I think Tesla is in it for the long haul, but I think by the time they finally ramp up production to be a major auto company their competitors will also have offerings on the market providing direct competition and the emotional attachment to fancy new tech will be done.

      Tesla, once it start shipping some serious volumes of cars and makes pr

  • Surprised that Jim Cramer defended Musk (Score:5, Interesting)

    by haruchai ( 17472 ) on Saturday May 05, 2018 @07:16PM (#56560892)

    and despite the disbelief of his colleagues he swears he was being serious.
    Seems that analyst has few fans.
    That said I'm becoming ever more pessimistic that Tesla can survive. They may linger for years but unless they really pull it out of the fire by the end of this year, I can't see a turnaround without a restructuring.

  • cry me a river (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Jodka ( 520060 ) on Saturday May 05, 2018 @07:56PM (#56561024)

    " respected Wall Street analysts...."

    That is exactly how the Wall Street racket works, by selling fake expertise on the basis of reputation.

    Musk's disrespect for Wall-Street is certainly warranted. Analysts claim to possess expert knowledge which will yield higher returns, when really their returns are worse than a dumb strategy such as ETFs. Retrospective comparisons of analysts picks to passive investment show analysts perform worse.

    Investment firms are a scam. Do not be a sucker and a victim. Read [amazon.com] about investment from someone who is not trying to extract money from you.

    That Musk moved the price of Tesla shares by blowing off analysts just shows how many idiot investors there are. When idiots sell their Tesla stock because Musk hurt the feelings of the con artists, the smart move is to buy Tesla.
       

    • It's a bit more sophisticated than that. There's some good evidence that good professional investors can beat the market (and most amateurs) relatively consistently. Unfortunately there's also very good evidence that they typically take all of that outperformance (and often more) back in the fees they charge, so that if *you* invest with them then you (on average) won't be better off than if you'd just bought the lowest-cost index fund tracking whatever they measure themselves against you can find (which ma

  • The issue with Tesla ... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 05, 2018 @08:04PM (#56561046)

    The main issue with Tesla is that Musk is constantly promising and NEVER delivering. People are interested in the Tesla brand and the product, but Tesla continues to under-perform and has yet to deliver in time and the delay is of an unacceptable level.

    Waiting 2 years for a new vehicle is unacceptable to most with the exception of a few.

    • At an ASP of $40K, that's about $18.5B in orders. That's a lot of money.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by djinn6 ( 1868030 )

        At an ASP of $40K, that's about $18.5B in orders. That's a lot of money.

        That's assuming people still want it after years of waiting. I think most people who ordered have old cars that they want to replace. Not immediately, but within a few years. If Tesla delays too long, then those people would be forced to buy other cars, just so they can have something to drive.

  • TLDR; Buy the stock now (Score:3)

    by BlueCoder ( 223005 ) on Saturday May 05, 2018 @08:33PM (#56561132)

    The stock was over valued. Either buy now or bash on it with you friends and hope for more of a sell off and then buy it.

    It's a good feeling stock. To be frank, Musk doesn't want to run the company anymore and would gladly hand over the reigns to anyone competent but the market doesn't want anyone but him. No one has created a car company in years. He rushed the model X to market following the standard big 3 car model of recalls... which was a disaster. He is being badgered from all sides from workers that want to unionize and the big 3 funding them to the lack of quality lithium-ion batteries at a low enough price. Lots of behind the curtain politics. The problem is it's a bet and the stock is over valued. When everything does come together he will be sitting on a solid foundation. He can't just wave a magic wand.

    • It's a good feeling stock. To be frank, Musk doesn't want to run the company anymore and would gladly hand over the reigns

      This particular grammatical error is a sign of fuzzy thinking. Reign means lead, right? So the reigns means the leadership? But it's the reins of a horse that he's riding or leading, depending on how you see the metaphor. He's openly avowed that he's leading it not to profit, but into the future. Anyone buying stock is doing it with that knowledge.

      He is being badgered from all sides from workers that want to unionize and the big 3 funding them to the lack of quality lithium-ion batteries at a low enough price.

      Musk is the only one who does have quality li-ion batteries at a low enough price to make a profit selling an EV. The Leaf may or may not actually be making a pro

  • Some 12 billion dollars of short interest is outstanding. It is the entire 33% of the float, and almost 100% of the stocks in the "stock lending" portfolios. Stock fell some 8 % and stabilized to around 5% loss. Only 0.7 billion was "in the money" after the drop. There is still 11 billion interest outstanding and there are not enough shares to go around, not available for sale.

    A classic short squeeze is developing, it is possible the shorts might lose their shirts, once again in TSLA, this time TSLA that

  • That new sofabed is as uncomfortable as it looks?

  • They might have vid up about it.

  • Elon makes wild comments -> Telsa stock dropps
    Elon buys up lots of Telsa stock.
    Telsa does well -> Telsa stock rises.
    Elon sells a little stock to fund his other projects.
    Rinse & Repeat.

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