So, Tesla has over 2000 orders for the new semi, they are scheduled to begin production in earnest next year, they will start tooling up the factory in December or January, and the stock price is tumbling? There are 2M semis on the road. They sold 500K heavy haul tractors last year. Tesla has sold 2000 reservations off two prototypes. Tesla is poised to dominate another multi-billion dollar business. Personally, I don't take Nikola all that seriously but time will tell. Way too many companies have promised a revolution and then turned to dust. I assumed Tesla would fail too but they have proven themselves. Nikola has not proven themselves, yet. Meanwhile, GigaFactory 2 is deep into the ramp of solar product production. Tesla is starting to use a lot of their own (Panasonic) panels. Over at GigaFactory 3, we can see a new shed and either a large construction trailer or perhaps a large container has been positioned on the property. Ground work is just beginning on yet another multi-billion dollar facility that will create huge amounts of product to feed into seemingly insatiable demand. ... and the stock price is receding. This tells me Tesla stock isn't driven by investors. It's driven by gamblers.
Is it possible it's driven by the market as well? Market is down over 10% but TSLA is down less than that... As a long-term investor I think you would call that a win?
You make a good point. The market is retracting but Tesla isn't part of an index that I'm aware of. Perhaps some owners are thinking, "Everyone else seems to be selling. I should too." It's easy to believe a significant number of people think this way. The only factor I can think of holding Tesla down, at this point, is the dropping price of oil.
I just look at it as “Every article in the world says the whole market is going down and has been due for it for years now. I better get out”. Just takes enough people thinking like that to push it down. Still down less than the market though so long-term that’s a win. When the market returns to where it was, TSLA now has a lot more room to run since it dropped less than the market.
Of course too, it's hard not to think of TSLA as a walking zombie...… that should have tanked long ago. After it broke above that previous trading range between Sept 2014 and April 2017, it stalled out into another range that is now going on 18 months old. It should have followed through to higher prices, but since it didn't one is left to conclude the opposite will happen and that it is currently under distribution. If this shows a sign of weakness, indicating the big guys have finished their distribution and are no longer supporting the trading range, that believing public will panic and it'll be the short of a life time with a downside P&F target of about $45. Edit: I should have added that a sign of weakness is needed to "confirm" the current trading range is distribution since it did come into this range from below, from strength. In other words, supply needs to prove itself. However, there are other troubling signs, albeit not confirming signs, one of which is as I've said, the inability to advance after breaking out of the previous range and then re-accumulating to beyond the previous level of "cause and effect". In simpler terms, this current range is way over done, long in the tooth. Also, the trading volume and volatility have increased through this latest range which may indicate more and more stock flowing into the weak hands of the public.
No, like I said (or more accurately, alluded to) in my previous post, I would need to see a sign of weakness (a large price range down on heavy volume) first. Then I'd short the test (the dead cat bounce).
So you would short it after a big down swing? Isn't the idea to sell high, buy low? I can't say I understand the prevalent short selling mind set but it isn't necessary for me to do so.
It's about the risk Tom. It's necessary to wait for that sign of weakness (SOW) because supply (selling) hasn't proven itself yet. We can't be certain the stock is in distribution; we have to assume it is a re-accumulation trading range until proven otherwise since there is demand in the background, that is, it came into the range from an uptrend. Selling short a weak bounce after the SOW is less risky than guessing beforehand that the CM (the composite man = aggregate of all the big players) intends to take it down. The SOW confirms that. When price is within a trading range it is in the house of the CM where he makes the rules. He has concentrated capital he can use to push the price around (manipulate). If he is distributing in the range then he is buying the bottom of the range to keep the prices high so that he can sell more in the upper parts of the range. In a distribution range he is net selling throughout the range. He has to do this over a long period of time and is good at hiding his tracks. Obviously, he can't sell his entire line all at once or he'd tank the price. But when he is done, he will quit supporting the bottom of the range and since most of the stock would be in the hands of the public (specs and funds) the price will fall because they don't have concentrated capital nor the collaborative will to support the range nor the motive to do so. One of the signs that this may be distribution is the increasing volume and price volatility as this trading range has developed. It could be an indication that more and more stock is flowing to the public who get excited or spooked by every piece of news that is spoon fed to them. If that is the case then there is also more supply available to be traded (as evidenced by the increasing volume) since it is no longer in the strong box of the CM. But as I said it's too risky not to wait for an SOW. The dang thing could go higher until proven otherwise. Weekly: If you can understand and agree to the above, then it should not be too much of a stretch to understand that Elon's shenanigans have caused the CM to have to buy more than he otherwise intended; It has been a struggle for the CM to keep the stock from tanking and he's had to buy more than normal to keep the price in his selling range. Consequently, it has prolonged the time it will take the CM to unload his line. That would also explain why the stock has been holding better in the recent down market. And if you get that, then you can get why I said in the earlier post that TSLA (not necessarily Tesla itself, but the stock) is a "walking zombie". It would not surprise me to see a climatic upthrust above the range (an upthrust moves above the range but then falls back into it), forming what is known as an Upthrust After Distribution (UTAD). If that occurs, it should be the last coffin nail....or not. As a trader I don't care one way or the other as I'm just waiting for an opportunity, waiting for that edge to present itself.
So on that chart in my last post it is clear that volume has been increasing throughout this 17-month-old trading range. As I said in that post, it could indicate, along with the increased volatility, that the public is taking on an increasingly larger stake and the CM a smaller stake and as I said that is problematic because once the CM is done selling the public (funds and specs) won't take his place in supporting the bottom of the range. But also, the increased trading volume indicates an increasing supply of stock available for trading. What I neglected to add to that, and maybe it is obvious, is that increased supply of stock in the market, like any in market, leads to lower prices. When the CM owned most of the stock back at much lower prices he kept it out of the market so as to cause a shortage of stock available for trading. That doesn't seem to be the case anymore. I saw today my local grocery is advertising honey crisp apples for 99 cents per pound. In a normal market they are about $4 per pound. There must be an over supply. TSLA stock may prove to be no different.
I like apples, I prefer Fuji. Honeycrisp are definitely the last apple I would buy from the store though.
Well yeah, I like Fujis too, they are exceptional, but for me they're like an 8 or 9, while a honey crisp sets the gold standard of 10. I like that crisp texture. But yeah, they are the last apple I would buy too, but only because they are usually $4 a pound. We added a few honey crisp trees to our orchard in WI a couple years ago. Maybe in few more years I'll get a harvest. Down here in the south its almost impossible to grow apples.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/31/tesla-4q-2018-production-and-delivery-numbers.html Tesla shares tumble 9% as company misses Wall Street vehicle delivery estimates, cuts prices Tesla delivered 90,700 vehicles during the fourth quarter, falling shy of Wall Street estimates. Tesla boosted production during the quarter, churning out 86,555 vehicles, up 8 percent from 80,142 during the third quarter. Investors are disappointed in the news, sending shares south in morning trading.
I've been trying to learn what I can about Maxwell Technologies. Apparently, Maxwell has developed a dry anode manufacturing technique that could provide an order of magnitude improvement in battery production. Currently, anodes are doped with solvent borne compounds before being sent through a dryer. The solvents are toxic and need to be contained and recovered but can be reused. The dryers limit production speed as they are a major bottleneck. With Maxwell's process, anodes should be able to be manufactured in equipment that needs a fraction of the factory footprint with no drying time requirement. This dry anode requires no cobalt. Storage density is improved. Also, the dry process anodes are said to multiply the cycle life by 4x, even for NCA batteries as used in Tesla cars. The caps, I suspect, are mostly irrelevant. Still, Tesla is already a generation ahead of everybody else. This could further widen the gap, make GF1 far more useful, and the energy storage division even more relevant. I see Maxwell Technology being far more important to Tesla's scale goals than it will be to improving electric cars. This appears to be a major manufacturing breakthrough.
I'd like to add that I wouldn't have a clue how a trader could profit on Tesla stock. It's a random number generator to me. An investor like myself, on the other hand, should be pleased with the hard work and development going on at Tesla. These guys are next level compared to their closest competitors. I believe that, 10 years from now, Tesla stock will handsomely reward the people who believed in this company.