Author Topic: Tesla  (Read 7919 times)

MasterStache

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Tesla
« on: June 14, 2017, 08:47:40 AM »
Not a fan nor do I participate in individual stock picking but did anyone invest a chunk in Tesla at the beginning of the year? Stock is up over 78% YTD. Yowza!!!

marielle

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Re: Tesla
« Reply #1 on: June 14, 2017, 08:52:42 AM »
Nope, but I considered investing about a year ago! I didn't have any money though and glad I didn't, since it very easily could have gone down as well. If I had a sizable portfolio I may have considered investing like 2% worth just for fun.

talltexan

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Re: Tesla
« Reply #2 on: June 14, 2017, 09:09:49 AM »
In other threads, I've shared my philosophy that investing in individual stocks--which will cost you money on average--should be thought of as buying "prestige properties" that will grant you social status in your conversations with other stock pickers and will allow you to be part of a company with a cool mission, etc.

Tesla seems to pass that test.

MasterStache

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Re: Tesla
« Reply #3 on: June 14, 2017, 09:26:19 AM »
I dabbled with a couple energy stocks back in 2004 listening to some investment guru on the radio when I didn't know any better. I only had about 1K to play with. Ended up with $1200 when I sold less than a month later. 20% return was pretty awesome. But I was purely lucky and will never do that again. 

aspiringnomad

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Re: Tesla
« Reply #4 on: June 14, 2017, 09:36:38 AM »
In other threads, I've shared my philosophy that investing in individual stocks--which will cost you money on average--should be thought of as buying "prestige properties" that will grant you social status in your conversations with other stock pickers and will allow you to be part of a company with a cool mission, etc.

Tesla seems to pass that test.

Last year, I sold some Apple gains held from pre-MMM years to buy Alphabet and Tesla in an attempt to "diversify" my buzzy tech stocks a bit. Certainly didn't read any 10-Ks. I do it for fun as well as a bit to be part of the "cool mission" since I love following cool, new tech. Post-MMM discovery, I have a rule to keep my fun picks to less than 5% of my taxable account value. I do have a good friend I often talk to about stocks, but these days it's mostly me trying to convince him to index with a larger chunk of his portfolio so I never bring it up in conversation. It's been a nice run for Tesla, but my plan is to hold indefinitely (see: "cool mission"), and I wouldn't be at all surprised to see it crash below my cost basis at some point in the future.

One pretty cool, true story about Tesla stock: I have a friend who bought a large chunk of Tesla stock in 2012 and sold it all in 2013. He confided that he made enough on that speculation pre-tax to fund a new Model S purchase. He bought a sailboat instead. Not as un-Mustachian as it sounds because he seemingly spends half his life on that boat. I do realize that for every one of those happy stories, there are probably 10 that are never told of people losing their shirt picking individual stocks.

Ocinfo

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Re: Tesla
« Reply #5 on: June 14, 2017, 09:50:51 AM »
No, but I did buy some in 2013 for around $100 per share. I use about 10% of my NW to stock pick and its been very profitable the last 5 years, mostly because the market has been up so much overall. Also own AAPL for around $60 basis and BAC for $5 basis. Sold NFLX that would have been up over 10x, the one that got away...


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MasterStache

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Re: Tesla
« Reply #6 on: June 14, 2017, 01:06:46 PM »
In other threads, I've shared my philosophy that investing in individual stocks--which will cost you money on average--should be thought of as buying "prestige properties" that will grant you social status in your conversations with other stock pickers and will allow you to be part of a company with a cool mission, etc.

Tesla seems to pass that test.
I do realize that for every one of those happy stories, there are probably 10 that are never told of people losing their shirt picking individual stocks.

My son's biological grandparents were unfortunately invested in Enron quite heavily. Luckily they did end up retiring fairly comfortably with pensions. Just a bit later than anticipated.

WildJager

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Re: Tesla
« Reply #7 on: June 14, 2017, 06:48:36 PM »
In 2013 I invested some into NFLX and facebook, and considered TSLA but didn't know enough about it.  Sold netflix and fb after a small gain and called it good.  Would I have had more money now had I rode with both?  Sure... but so did a lot of people in 1999.  I frankly don't know enough about the companies, so I left while ahead and invested more in indexes.  Though I have made a bunch with INCR, around 300%... hot tip!  Just kidding, don't follow that tip.  Invest slowly.

DavidAnnArbor

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Re: Tesla
« Reply #8 on: July 11, 2017, 09:31:37 AM »
If Tesla delivers all 373,000 pre-ordered Tesla Model 3, that's about $13.5 billion dollars of sales at about $36,000 per car.

Tesla Steps Up Auto Service as Model 3 Debut Nears
https://nyti.ms/2u4uVT2

ChpBstrd

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Re: Tesla
« Reply #9 on: July 11, 2017, 11:37:17 AM »
There's a good reason stock pricing models use 10 year treasury bonds as their risk free rate of return. It is assumed that 10y should be your standard holding period for a stock, and anything else is short-term market timing.

So all this "should have bought x two years ago" talk is the wrong question to ask. The right question to ask is something like this:

"You have been selected for a 10 year expedition to Mars. You will be unable to change investments during this time, because you will be totally focused on the mission and internet bandwidth is too low. How would you structure your portfolio so that it will have grown as much as possible by the time you get back to earth?"

Car Jack

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Re: Tesla
« Reply #10 on: July 11, 2017, 11:37:37 AM »
If Tesla delivers all 373,000 pre-ordered Tesla Model 3, that's about $13.5 billion dollars of sales at about $36,000 per car.

Tesla Steps Up Auto Service as Model 3 Debut Nears
https://nyti.ms/2u4uVT2

I wonder if that will result in $1,000 profit per car......or $1,000 loss per car.  Model S and X deliveries were below par because they couldn't keep up with batteries.  How's that going to work with the 3?

DavidAnnArbor

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Re: Tesla
« Reply #11 on: July 11, 2017, 03:47:21 PM »
If Tesla delivers all 373,000 pre-ordered Tesla Model 3, that's about $13.5 billion dollars of sales at about $36,000 per car.

Tesla Steps Up Auto Service as Model 3 Debut Nears
https://nyti.ms/2u4uVT2

I wonder if that will result in $1,000 profit per car......or $1,000 loss per car.  Model S and X deliveries were below par because they couldn't keep up with batteries.  How's that going to work with the 3?

Tesla and Panasonic built the Gigafactory in Nevada

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigafactory_1

Hash Brown

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Re: Tesla
« Reply #12 on: July 11, 2017, 03:59:28 PM »
There's a good reason stock pricing models use 10 year treasury bonds as their risk free rate of return. It is assumed that 10y should be your standard holding period for a stock, and anything else is short-term market timing.


Good chance that Tesla will be out of business by 2025.  I'll speculate that the luxury automakers will all be making better and more profitable electric cars in the 2020s and that it's going to be awhile before compact electric cars are profitable for anybody. 

surfhb

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Re: Tesla
« Reply #13 on: July 11, 2017, 06:38:13 PM »
Tesla's is a battery manufacturing /alterative energy company....period.      I bought $10K a year ago and plan to keep it till its gone or I retire with it.     It could go the way of the Do Do or be the next GE.    I also idolize Musk....the guy is a baddass.

Purely speculation on my part but fossil fuels/coal/natural gas are going away slowly and solar and wind is not. 

The thought of every home being powered by a long lasting  and rechargeable Tesla battery pack is a pretty great idea.
« Last Edit: July 11, 2017, 06:45:32 PM by surfhb »

DavidAnnArbor

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Re: Tesla
« Reply #14 on: July 11, 2017, 06:59:48 PM »
Underground tunnels to transport cars on tracks also seems futuristic and crazy and exciting. So does the Hyperloop concept. Who knows.

Seppia

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Re: Tesla
« Reply #15 on: July 12, 2017, 09:01:02 AM »
Tesla's is a battery manufacturing /alterative energy company...

...who doesn't have any proprietary battery technology and owns a solar panel business who's deep underwater.

Underground tunnels to transport cars on tracks also seems futuristic and crazy and exciting.

It seems completely dumb. Why would anybody ride a subway made for cars? It seems supremely inefficient.

I wouldn't buy one stock of tesla.

ender

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Re: Tesla
« Reply #16 on: July 12, 2017, 09:07:37 AM »
I think the value of Tesla is entirely hype at this point compared to its actual value.

It's valued higher than Ford, who made...TWENTY FIVE times as many cars in the first quarter of this year.  For every car Tesla produced, Ford made 25.

Even if 100% of Tesla's preorder Model 3s were magically created first quarter, Ford would still have nearly doubled their production.

I get that many of Tesla's vehicles are premium, but still. It seems ridiculous to me to value a company so differently even ignoring the massive profitability differences (-$1.33 EPS vs $0.39 for Ford).


FINate

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Re: Tesla
« Reply #17 on: July 12, 2017, 09:27:51 AM »
Nor do I pick stocks...but anyone here happen to invest a chunk of money in Fitbit last year? Stock is down like 68% from last Sept. Oh right, people only like to talk about their "winning" stock picks ;-)


Hash Brown

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Re: Tesla
« Reply #18 on: July 12, 2017, 09:51:37 AM »
It's valued higher than Ford, who made...TWENTY FIVE times as many cars in the first quarter of this year.  For every car Tesla produced, Ford made 25.

I'd be curious simply to see the book value of Ford vs. Tesla.  No doubt Ford owns dozens if not hundreds of valuable properties all around the world.  Tesla owns one factory in California and little else. 

A lot of speculators are confusing Tesla for "tech".  A true tech business is usually software-related, since software can scale up at virtually zero cost.  Someone can pay a team of coders $10 million to create an app and if they're lucky it'll be on 100 million phones in six months.  Cars are a traditional product -- scaling is horrendously expensive, slow, and risky. 

The main reason investors are being fooled into thinking Tesla is "tech" is because it's founder came from a true tech enterprise (PayPal) and the factory is in the Bay Area.  Same thing with the boring company, hyperloop, and the solar panels. 

One of my best friends is a tech and nanoscience writer, and he asserts that Musk has invented almost nothing.  He is a hype man.  He has seduced nerds and libertarians alike. 


DarkandStormy

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Re: Tesla
« Reply #19 on: July 12, 2017, 12:28:31 PM »
One of my best friends is a tech and nanoscience writer, and he asserts that Musk has invented almost nothing.  He is a hype man.  He has seduced nerds and libertarians alike.

I'd have to think, at the very least, a fully reusable rocket counts as inventing something.

That said, it seems the spotlight is on him now to see if he can successfully scale some of these things - solar roof, Model 3, etc.

Lan Mandragoran

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Re: Tesla
« Reply #20 on: July 12, 2017, 02:02:20 PM »
It's valued higher than Ford, who made...TWENTY FIVE times as many cars in the first quarter of this year.  For every car Tesla produced, Ford made 25.

I'd be curious simply to see the book value of Ford vs. Tesla.  No doubt Ford owns dozens if not hundreds of valuable properties all around the world.  Tesla owns one factory in California and little else. 

A lot of speculators are confusing Tesla for "tech".  A true tech business is usually software-related, since software can scale up at virtually zero cost.  Someone can pay a team of coders $10 million to create an app and if they're lucky it'll be on 100 million phones in six months.  Cars are a traditional product -- scaling is horrendously expensive, slow, and risky. 

The main reason investors are being fooled into thinking Tesla is "tech" is because it's founder came from a true tech enterprise (PayPal) and the factory is in the Bay Area.  Same thing with the boring company, hyperloop, and the solar panels. 

One of my best friends is a tech and nanoscience writer, and he asserts that Musk has invented almost nothing.  He is a hype man.  He has seduced nerds and libertarians alike.

Yeah he hasn't invented alot, just been incredibly in his pursuit of the way things should be instead of the way things are. We already had electric cars, he took electric cars, made them fast, sexy, and is in the process of vastly lowering their costs/availability. We had the ability to drive, he took his fleet of cars, put data collection devices on them, and created what is essentially a giant data center for machine learning to feast on.  He's pushing the WHOLE industry to get on board with autonomous driving, google's been puttering around with this tech for like a decade until Tesla got serious about it, all of a sudden every single major car producer is going ham to get there soon so Tesla doesn't take their lunch.

He's "seduced" people because the things he brings to the market have the potential power to actually truly change the way we live on a day to day basis, same as the iphone or something. That has value that is really really hard to actually put in a valuation.  He could totally flame out on some of his ventures, but if any of them stick they tend to be pretty world changing.

Also I think people dont realize how big of a deal the gigafactory in nevada is, it alone will produce the same amount of batteries that the entire world did in 2013.
« Last Edit: July 12, 2017, 02:09:10 PM by Lan Mandragoran »

effigy98

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Re: Tesla
« Reply #21 on: July 12, 2017, 03:40:09 PM »
I did a few thousand, but I thought of it more as a donation that "may pay off one day". 95% of stock portfolio is still in ETFs, this is the 5% fun money I like to put towards big bets.

Hash Brown

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Re: Tesla
« Reply #22 on: July 12, 2017, 03:43:14 PM »
A big problem is that Musk presents his ventures as "green" when in fact he's at war with public transportation and has a bottom line that depends on people driving more than ever and riding trains and buses less than they do now.  Autonomous vehicles and newly-dug tunnels to drive them in will induce more and more driving and people will think it's harmless because the cars are electric.  Fact is that the manufacturing and eventual scrapping of any vehicle -- be it electric or gasoline-powered -- devours as much or more energy than the fuel that powers it for 150,000+ miles. 

Autonomous private autos and cabs aren't going to have much of an effect in dense established cities like London and New York.  Musk needs sprawled cities with under-developed rail systems like LA and Dallas and Houston.  So Musk is inherently pro-sprawl, and therefore inherently anti-walking, bicycling, etc.  Musk hates the California HSR line because it's under construction and there is no way a team of investor-funded lobbyists can stop it.  He also hates the big LA County taxes that passed that will complete the Wilshire Blvd subway and 100 more miles of public transportation rail. 

Big Tech needs inefficiency in order to peddle its false promise of efficiency.   


surfhb

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Re: Tesla
« Reply #23 on: July 12, 2017, 05:19:11 PM »
I remember when Amazon and Google and even the computer were considered poor investments and just over hyped BS too.

Proud Foot

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Re: Tesla
« Reply #24 on: July 13, 2017, 12:05:18 PM »
While I do like the company and what they are working towards, I do wonder which will come first: A profitable year or banks refusing to underwrite the issuance of debt or secondary offerings.

onecoolcat

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Re: Tesla
« Reply #25 on: July 13, 2017, 02:29:11 PM »
It's valued higher than Ford, who made...TWENTY FIVE times as many cars in the first quarter of this year.  For every car Tesla produced, Ford made 25.

I'd be curious simply to see the book value of Ford vs. Tesla.  No doubt Ford owns dozens if not hundreds of valuable properties all around the world.  Tesla owns one factory in California and little else. 

A lot of speculators are confusing Tesla for "tech".  A true tech business is usually software-related, since software can scale up at virtually zero cost.  Someone can pay a team of coders $10 million to create an app and if they're lucky it'll be on 100 million phones in six months.  Cars are a traditional product -- scaling is horrendously expensive, slow, and risky. 

The main reason investors are being fooled into thinking Tesla is "tech" is because it's founder came from a true tech enterprise (PayPal) and the factory is in the Bay Area.  Same thing with the boring company, hyperloop, and the solar panels. 

One of my best friends is a tech and nanoscience writer, and he asserts that Musk has invented almost nothing.  He is a hype man.  He has seduced nerds and libertarians alike.

Yeah he hasn't invented alot, just been incredibly in his pursuit of the way things should be instead of the way things are. We already had electric cars, he took electric cars, made them fast, sexy, and is in the process of vastly lowering their costs/availability. We had the ability to drive, he took his fleet of cars, put data collection devices on them, and created what is essentially a giant data center for machine learning to feast on.  He's pushing the WHOLE industry to get on board with autonomous driving, google's been puttering around with this tech for like a decade until Tesla got serious about it, all of a sudden every single major car producer is going ham to get there soon so Tesla doesn't take their lunch.

He's "seduced" people because the things he brings to the market have the potential power to actually truly change the way we live on a day to day basis, same as the iphone or something. That has value that is really really hard to actually put in a valuation.  He could totally flame out on some of his ventures, but if any of them stick they tend to be pretty world changing.

Also I think people dont realize how big of a deal the gigafactory in nevada is, it alone will produce the same amount of batteries that the entire world did in 2013.

I like the company, i like musk and I love his vision but I'm not about to risk any money on Tesla.

I read an article somewhere that explained China is building a bunch of battery factories that will outscale Tesla's gigafactory in terms of production and price.

Tesla's solar roof is extremely expensive and the panels are not nearly as efficient (or affordable) as SunPower panels or the forthcoming First Solar Model 6's.  At the time Tesla acquired it, SolarCity was a company headed towards bankruptcy and it had alarming special purpose vehicles on their final 10-K filing.  I think Tesla shareholders got a rotten deal out of SolarCity.  Also a solar roof is nothing new.  Numerous companies have staked it all on a solar roof and all have gone under.  Tesla is different and have mainstream recognition so it could work out for it.  I hope it does.

It is an anomaly for Tesla to turn a profit.  If the company takes off it wont matter because it could be in its building phase, it can take a bit with tech companies.

None of this means Tesla will fail in the long run but it has convinced me to avoid the stock, and I'm a sucker for all things clean energy.  I personally feel the company is grossly overvalued. 

I've read on a forum that Tesla will lose money on each Model S they roll out but I doubt this is true and do not consider this in my opinion above.

Lan Mandragoran

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Re: Tesla
« Reply #26 on: July 13, 2017, 03:03:25 PM »
Yeah... I agree :). Im a huge Tesla fan, but I try to practice what I preach and not speculate with my $$$$ even if I do think they could end up being amazon.

I only disagree with your pessimism.  I dont think it will take an anomaly for Tesla to do well.  I think if they do well its because they are the first to do some very impressive/disruptive/world changing things(cheap electric cars at a high quality, automous driving, spaceX with the rocket tech they have, or the cost savings they provide).

If they dont succeed in being the first to do those things at a very high level, they will fail, if they do succeed they will be apple in 10 years.


Car Jack

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Re: Tesla
« Reply #27 on: July 13, 2017, 04:12:31 PM »

Purely speculation on my part but fossil fuels/coal/natural gas are going away slowly and solar and wind is not. 


Canada produces a ton of hydro generated electricity.  We buy a bunch of it in my state from them.  I think we'll see multiple ways to generate electricity.  The more ways, the better and I'd be fine to see coal completely go away first.  The last coal fired plant in our state just shut down but 1/3 of the US is still getting electricity generated using coal.

onecoolcat

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Re: Tesla
« Reply #28 on: July 13, 2017, 07:42:12 PM »
Yeah... I agree :). Im a huge Tesla fan, but I try to practice what I preach and not speculate with my $$$$ even if I do think they could end up being amazon.

I only disagree with your pessimism.  I dont think it will take an anomaly for Tesla to do well.  I think if they do well its because they are the first to do some very impressive/disruptive/world changing things(cheap electric cars at a high quality, automous driving, spaceX with the rocket tech they have, or the cost savings they provide).

If they dont succeed in being the first to do those things at a very high level, they will fail, if they do succeed they will be apple in 10 years.

I didn't say it will take an anomaly for Tesla to do well.  In fact, I would say Tesla has done extraordinarily well because it has seen its market cap explode.  It's just not common for Tesla to actually turn a profit.  This in and of itself is not a mark of death as most tech companies don't turn a profit until they have been around for awhile.   That said, continual losses paired with a explosive market capitalization carries a lot of risk which is why it is just one of many concerns about the company.  It very well can, and I hope it does, turn green.  Until it does though, the share price is driven by speculation.

SpaceX and Tesla are separate entities.  Musk just happens to be CEO of both companies.  Tesla is publicly traded and SpaceX is a private company that Musk controls.  I believe The Boring Company is another separate entity.

Full autonomous driving is not yet available and there are many companies working on it simultaneously, including Google, Uber, Baidu, Nvidia, Intel, BMW and Apple.  In fact, Audi is leading the pack at moment as they are the first to put into production level 3 autonomous technology.  Source:  https://seekingalpha.com/article/4087480-audi-beats-tesla-gm-level-3-autonomy




Lan Mandragoran

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Re: Tesla
« Reply #29 on: July 13, 2017, 10:47:47 PM »
Idk some semantics in there imo, spirit stays the same. I think we are agreeing mostly.

And I didn’t know Audi was doing so well! That’s awesome.  However due to how Tesla is implementing there autonomous driving I think they will catch and pass very fast. No one else has 5 BIllion miles of data to run through machine learning.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-20/the-tesla-advantage-1-3-billion-miles-of-data
(That’s from a while ago the number is much higher now)

Google might be ahead of them both atm though, they seem quite conservative though.
« Last Edit: July 13, 2017, 10:51:09 PM by Lan Mandragoran »