The Lemon Fool

Tesla big battery working in Australia:

http://reneweconomy.com.au/tesla-big-ba ... ips-70003/

Hat tip to Musk for link.

Regards,

Elon Musk lines up $55bn payday – the world's biggest bonus

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... bonus-40bn

RC

It's kind of interesting how Seeking Alpha have been bombarding my email with Tesla articles.

From a guess, nothing more scientific, I woukd estimate about 2/3 are negative.

The negative articles include: Truck will not be built, massive equity dillution coming as Tesla fight against bankruptcy, model 3 not being made & those that are are not selling...

There are the odd positives ones too, but if these bear guys have goaded Tesla into this new pay regime then good on them.

Tesla shares were already looking like they would run & this deal makes an equity dilution from a fund rise unlikely imho & also suggests to me that model 3 production bottle necks are being over come.

This is still a risky equity for many, but although there are endless folk preaching the valuation is way too high & the shares are a clear short, I would not think of any short position other than very short term things if you are skilled at that game, going long term short here looks like running through a mine field. There were folk who shorted Amazon in the 1999 market, if they held through the crash, they might not have been crucified, but margin calls ruined many Amazon shorts long before the price came off. A big reversal could happen for Tesla, but I much prefer the long side here, although I would caution that anyone who has little experience of equities could get hurt messing with Tesla. Many rode Amazon during the late last century bull market then gave a lot back, but those who sold at the top did super well. Reviewing past history can be helpful, but you have to be able to deal with current market chatter that can easily cause anyone to do daft things. Sometimes it best just to turn off all the media & watch the price.

Emotionally I would like Elon to make his money if for no other reason than to show how most of the experts talking & writing about the business have got it wrong. But from an investor trader perspective it's not Elon's success or failure that matters, its mine & experience has taught me to be endlessly cautious.

Regards,

Hi Ody - A big thank-you for spurring me to investigate Musk and Tesla further... Having spent several days in the diversionary world of Wait But Why https://waitbutwhy.com - the procrastination piece started the ball rolling - I have totally reversed my thinking on Musk and his endeavours. The film of the Space X booster landing on a tiny, rocking platform floating in a rough sea was mind-blowing (about halfway down on this page: https://waitbutwhy.com/2016/09/spacexs-big-fking-rocket-the-full-story.html). The man clearly has no upper limits on his ambition and gets things done. He out-Jobses Jobs - I absolutely hope he succeeds and would love to get in on his story...

But therein lies the rub - shares in TSLA are pretty highly priced by any normal metrics. You've been watching the stock for a long time - are pull-backs (due to the aforementioned Wall St manipulations) a regular feature where one can expect to increase one's holding at bargain prices?

ReformedCharacter wrote:
'SpaceX founder and chief executive Elon Musk tweeted Friday that his red Tesla Roadster will head for deep space on the maiden flight of the company’s Falcon Heavy rocket as soon as next month, and do it to the tune of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.”'

RC

The Falcon Heavy was test fired for the first time this morning and apparently went well:

https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/01/09/f ... parations/

RC

Hi Woolly,

Sorry for the delay in answering your question, just very busy at the moment.

If you look at the monthly chart of Tesla you see:


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DUYOIMJX4AAhQj0.jpg

In a very broad look, one sees that there have been two long periods when Tesla was in a range that broke upwards. The share price now looks to be in another range, if so then the best lowest risk entry will be at the bottom of the current range. But if the share price goes there, the media will be full of very negative stories & it will be hard to buy if you pay any attention to these gloom merchants. Of course one never knows & perhaps they will be right some time, but based on past experience, the bottom of the current range is potentially the best low risk entry point if the share gets there.

I don't have any certainty about now. If e.g. the model 3 starts to ship & consumer reports are still positive the share might never test the bottom range again & fly upwards.

As I don't know the longer term I tend to focus on the shorter term, but that requires a skill set in this kind of trading which is probably best learned from some one such as Dan Zanger, or Scott Redler or Rob Smith of T3 live. I have in the past tried several other "teachers" all of which I found to be much worse than not listening too.

Anyone who starts talking about valuation should stay a very long way away from growth stocks like Tesla. These stocks do not trade on current valuation.

Sorry brief, but I have a lot of stuff I need to do.

Regards,

Thanks Ody - no problem ignoring gloom-merchants! Thanks to their agenda there may well be a buying opportunity sooner or later...

I'm trying not to fit TSLA into an AAPL-shaped mould, as financially the two companies are very different.

Back in the '00s there was a lot of negativity about AAPL, some from people who just didn't 'get' Apple, others from deliberate stock manipulators, but fundamentally the company was on a sound footing. Jobs had learned some hard lessons by this stage and wanted Apple to have the freedom to execute without the constant threat of people who didn't properly understand where Apple was going pulling the rug from under them. iPod's success gave them that security.

That's what Tesla needs, but it doesn't appear to be in that position and I'm not sure Musk has been through the (necessary?) baptism of fire yet. Maybe he's smart and disciplined enough to learn from others' mistakes... Tesla's debt and hunger for cash is worrying and I hope creditors are strong enough to stay the course.

Meanwhile in less than a week we may see the first orbiting car - I wonder if the tyres will pop? I'm guessing that the timing in relation to the upcoming TSLA results is not simply chance, and maybe the intention is that the shares will do the same?

woolly wrote:Meanwhile in less than a week we may see the first orbiting car - I wonder if the tyres will pop? I'm guessing that the timing in relation to the upcoming TSLA results is not simply chance, and maybe the intention is that the shares will do the same?

Hmm, possibly not. He has gone on record as saying he considers the Falcon Heavy exploding on launch and NOT destroying the pad would be a "win".

Then again, maybe he is fully convinced it will launch, and downplaying it just for the reasons you state.

Mucho cohones if so.

Wed Feb 6, 1830-2130 is the GMT launch window - should be streaming live. May be delayed, the Falcon 9 that was supposed to go up yesterday, may go up today.

Meatyfool..

Woolly
Back in the '00s there was a lot of negativity about AAPL, some from people who just didn't 'get' Apple, others from deliberate stock manipulators, but fundamentally the company was on a sound footing. Jobs had learned some hard lessons by this stage and wanted Apple to have the freedom to execute without the constant threat of people who didn't properly understand where Apple was going pulling the rug from under them. iPod's success gave them that security.

That's what Tesla needs, but it doesn't appear to be in that position and I'm not sure Musk has been through the (necessary?) baptism of fire yet. Maybe he's smart and disciplined enough to learn from others' mistakes... Tesla's debt and hunger for cash is worrying and I hope creditors are strong enough to stay the course.

Yes, and no!

Apple had a very loyal customer base that refused to buy Msft even when Apple stuff wasn't great, this from long before the iPod. This is not unlike Tesla who still have a lot of deposit money from folk who put down a reservation for a model 3. Apple also sank when they fired Jobs and recovered when he came back via the take over of next computer, similarly Tesla have Musk who has many Jobs like qualities. Jobs needed security for himself as much as Apple needed income and all of that came together with iPod and then iPhone, very like it did decades earlier with the original Mac. That first fortune was squandered by Scully after he fired Jobs, a decision he later acknowledged was wrong. There is currently no firing threat to Musk.

Secondly the iPod and iPhone both met a need very much as the model 3 may do. Whereas the Apple products sat well with consumers, the electric car is being heavily if not directly promoted by governments. Today I was visiting a friend and saw TV news, something I rarely do as I gave up my TV. There was a huge section on dioxins in Manchester and how the politicians were thinking of targeting business who provide parking for staff as they argued it was these cars that were making the dioxin. The politicians probably just want this for dogma or revenue reasons, but by launching these attacks on diesel and petrol cars they are essentially marketing electric cars which are much cleaner. So we have the model 3 launching into a market that has been heavily prepared by the politicians. If the car is any good and can be made in volume Tesla can make some serious money with it. Meanwhile the same concerns over pollution also market solar and storage for Tesla. Essentially the tax payer is doing all the advertising for Tesla.

There are of course concerns over Musk's business qualities, but here there have been some significant changes. Gone are the days he used to say Tesla stock is over priced, now he just says it is set by the market. If you read the biography of Musk you learn of the hard times he had with his Father, suggesting that like orphan Jobs, he has been hardened in many ways.

Regards,

The Tesla Roadster has been loaded and (presumably) Bowie's 'Space Odyssey' cued up on the hi-fi in preparation for a launch attempt tomorrow (6th Feb) of the Falcon Heavy. Given that many scheduled launches get postponed for various reasons and that this is the first launch of the vehicle there's probably about a 50/50 probability that it will actually get off the ground tomorrow.

https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/02/04/s ... vy-flight/

I expect Spaceflightnow to livestream the launch when it occurs. Godspeed Tesla Roadster!

RC

Tesla have Musk who has many Jobs like qualities

- in terms of presentation skills, though, Jobs definitely aces Musk!

But in terms of thinking of the big picture, and not simply aiming to make money at all costs, Musk (like Jobs) is one of the new generation of business leaders that are redefining capitalism in the 21st century, for the better in my opinion.

With the popularity of campaigns to ban plastics opening up a new front in the war against oil it is clear now that a secular change is well underway - renewables, biodegradables, and other clean tech, despite desperate and ferocious naysaying from incumbents, are gaining ground day after day. In a generation's time, we will look back and wonder what we were trying to achieve by opposing this change - why would anyone not want to cover every square metre of roof with solar capacity? Why would anyone want to drive around in machines that through an insanely complex mechanism actually burn hydrocarbons inside them, with all the inefficiencies, noise and pollution that generates? It will seem as illogical and immoral to the next generation as opposing the abolition of slavery does to us.

Re Tesla and batteries, I would be less nervous if Gigafactories were popping up all over the globe - the reliance on a single plant for this vital component is worrying, especially given its known propensity for combustibility! That said, it's not rocket science (unlike SpaceX!), and Tesla's patents are open source - any news of, say, China working to fill the demand gap (BYD, for example)?

woolly wrote:Re Tesla and batteries, I would be less nervous if Gigafactories were popping up all over the globe - the reliance on a single plant for this vital component is worrying, especially given its known propensity for combustibility!)

I presume the reference to a single plant is in reference to Tesla, but that is not the only one, loads of other companies have their own ...

https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles ... gs.pEiE=z0

Meatyfool..

woolly wrote:Re Tesla and batteries, I would be less nervous if Gigafactories were popping up all over the globe - the reliance on a single plant for this vital component is worrying,

1. The Tesla gigafactory should really be called the Panasonic Gigafactory. Unfortunately I haven't been able to figure out which makes money ...

2. There are Gigafactories opening everywhere, but the names are different, and the technology has reached satsificing stage, from here on it is all about cost reduction, scale, and (electricity) supply ....

3. I am in China right now. I've seen more Teslas in the last two days than I've seen in two years in Dorset.

4. Good luck with the launch.

regards, dspp

Using Australian houses as power stations for their grid:

https://phys.org/news/2018-02-tesla-aus ... ssion=true

Suspect this is just the beginning & we will see this type of installation all over the world.

Regards,

odysseus2000 wrote:Using Australian houses as power stations for their grid:

https://phys.org/news/2018-02-tesla-aus ... ssion=true

Suspect this is just the beginning & we will see this type of installation all over the world.

Regards,

I would love it to happen here in the UK, but suspect that this will be a big thing in those parts of the world where the sun is reliable year round.

I'm intending to put my hand in my own pocket for a domestic battery when the price is right, but this is a summer only thing at present as winter sun will never charge the batteries.

Now, when time of day electric pricing begins, just possibly this will take off in the UK, pre-supposing the "cheap" overnight pricing is used to fill the battery and then consume the charge when prices are high. But this doesn't eliminate the need for the real power station like it would in Oz.

Meatyfool..

Meatyfool
I would love it to happen here in the UK, but suspect that this will be a big thing in those parts of the world where the sun is reliable year round.

I'm intending to put my hand in my own pocket for a domestic battery when the price is right, but this is a summer only thing at present as winter sun will never charge the batteries.

Now, when time of day electric pricing begins, just possibly this will take off in the UK, pre-supposing the "cheap" overnight pricing is used to fill the battery and then consume the charge when prices are high. But this doesn't eliminate the need for the real power station like it would in Oz.

Yes, there is not much solar energy about at present, but there is wind and potentially wave, such that with suitable pricing the home user can charge when this stuff is available overnight at good prices and then use it during the day to supplement what ever comes out of the solar. Being able to store electricity is a huge game changer for the electrical supply industry.

Regards,

Did they fake it!

Everything went so perfectly well it was like a Hollywood movie.

So even if the US can't operate a functioning stock market Elon can get folk to Mars.

One of the pivotal moments in the history of Homo Sapiens as its opens up the Moon, Asteroid belts and Mars to exploration.

Regards,

Good video of the Falcon Heavy lift-off here -

https://youtube.com/watch?v=99llRhH71vA&pbjreload=10

Ignition starts around 18.5 mins.

Great stuff...I'm sat here grinning from ear to ear watching this test flight

I missed the moon landing, just, but wish in all my heart to see us land on Mars in my lifetime.

I think we just took a huge step towards that goal......

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

Just awesome! Particularly impressive was the simultaneous landing of the two boosters-incredible stuff

Truly spectacular and should have been live on TV as well as WWW (BBC1 showing a pathetically unimportant FA Cup replay, just because they had the contract...).

Best bit was watching the landing gear of the two boosters unfold prior to landing (top right hand frame of the four when the two boosters where just about to land). Thunderbirds looks tame...