What's the bear catalyst? Waiting on news of needing a raise? Next earnings?

If you have to ask (like I do), then time is probably the catalyst for your bear thesis. Tesla is clearly an amazing trading vehicle, if you can get the day-to-day news reaction right.

If you can't, then join us and wait for the whole thing to collapse with longer term bets.

They code lots of this to "goodwill" and bury it in service expenses so avoid warranty hitting cogs for auto revenue


Thats blatant fraud but i dont expect anything from it until the entire thing collapses

I don't have any reads at the moment. Things that are going wrong right now:

1. Model 3 is a hilarious failure at winter. Even with this minor early cold, the following are happening on a large scale:

- People can't get into their Model 3s for hours because the retractable door handles freeze in place and won't open. Tesla officially advises them to prewarm the car for hours, drastically reducing range and meaning they have to get up at 4am to heat the car to drive to work at 7am. They hilariously released on over the air update in desperation to claim to fix something that needs a different design or handle warming hardware. It's been mocked by car owners.

- People can't close windows because the windows freeze up

- The base protector of the Model 3 fills up with sludge and drags on the ground as it's flimsy and cheap (very different to the S/X)

- The range is reduced so badly (both by the cold and by heating since there's no waste engine heat) that many people are turning off heating in the dead of winter to make it to their destination.

The Model 3 is completely unreliable for winter driving with greatly reduced range. This is not going to play well. Winter is just starting.

2. Autopilot version 9 is an utter disaster. Read the Tesla Motors Club forum for all kinds of disasters (or watch the videos on Youtube). Random swerving on lane ends/dotted lines, random braking on underpasses, not checking properly before lane change, still slamming into parked objects on "autopilot". With the greatly increased number of lower end drivers on the road, PR disasters are incoming.

3. Production appears not to be ramping. People who watch the factory and who were highly accurate last quarter say they're still far below 5000/week

4. Demand death. The frequent spam emails saying to "order now" and that Tesla can guarantee delivery by year end if you order by November 30th are either Musk being a fraud trying to get advance payments which he fails to deliver/not refund for months (possible) OR demand is in serious trouble. Some evidence for the latter: people are ordering and getting delivery in as little as a week now. That's zero order backlog and dead demand. This is WHILE $7500 credits are active, which are very relevant. Which brings me to:

5. $7500 credits disappear in 37 days. Model 3s effectively becomes $4000 more expensive just as the high end demand dies and their target bracket goes to $45K and below. When this happened in other countries such as some countries in Europe, sales died overnight even on the high end Model S/X.

6. Ongoing investigations bringing sudden news

Pump opportunities:

- Rumors are that Musk is planning a fraud "burst" to 7000/week M3 as part of a show and tell package for investors and the media. We know how last ones turned out, but it could pump the stock

- Market recovery. Tesla has gotten so high because it's in a bull market with strong short squeeze/FOMO dynamics that causes outsized rips in strong bulls.

If my thesis is correct on high end demand being strong but not amazing, the $3750 loss of tax credit at the same time as winter issues become more prominent should be a death to demand. We should get awareness of that via leaks and the people who watch/estimate factory production. I'd short like crazy on confirmation of production waning.

This etron promo video starting with a clearly frozen etron and a guy walking up and opening the door is so lol


https://youtu.be/VYtg_uGYLMw


Also shows them examining the undercarriage which is another reported issue on the M3

Etron mean turd in French. Great choice

The iPace has come from zero to crush Tesla Model S & X in Norway and Holland, their two biggest European markets. They're outselling in both now. iPace in Norway, Tesla's biggest European country for sales by far, is now selling double the Model S & X combined this quarter. That's a $100K revenue hit per car on thousands of their highest margin cars.

Wow that's brutal on vehicles with the higher margin. I wonder if that will translate to the states.

For norway, Teslas year over year sales are roughly flat. Down a little bit. Looked back a few months. But, October was almost 201 vs 292 prior year. So maybe trending worse.
http://www.ofvas.no/bilsalget-i-okto...tegory785.html

this is amazing. so basically shorts were right and all of a sudden two chief accountants resign and they pull a miracle quarter out of their ass.
nothing to see here, everything's fine.
whenever there's a camera and a mic within 20 feet of him he has to tell everybody what a great hero he is. just can't help it.

They're down 30% for October. November is worse. Meanwhile, Jaguar came from nothing with the iPace to double Tesla's sale of the S&X combined.



If the trend continues that's a few thousand high end cars in Norway alone, Tesla's biggest European market by far. Holland has the same story.

But if Tesla is still selling around the same numbers, doesn't what Ipace is selling not matter all that much? Or is Tesla expecting growth in sales there?

I agree it looks like it's eating into it some, but the past few months combined Tesla's sales aren't down a ton compared to prior year. Didn't tally it up but I think it sums to less than 10% down. Numbers are kinda small it could just be normal variance.

But as you said, trend is the wrong direction too.

My thesis did not rely on the SEC doing anything at all, but at this point I have to question why the SEC exists:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-u...ite-ceos-tweet

Jordan Belfort and Sam Antar operated in the wrong era.

they exist to send plumbers and teachers who got a tip from their brother and made fifty grand to jail.

they only care about corporate fraud when the companies are basically dead already.

TS pointed it out before the settlement. Jay clayton is the biggest beta ever.

Yeah. SEC staff and the SEC board wanted to remove Musk and send a strong message about fraud (as they should for the largest securities fraud of the decade), and Jay Clayton intervened personally. No doubt Musk called in some favors.

Now news that China - a $2 billion high margin market for Tesla with over 100% growth last year - has plunged 70% in October, selling just 200 cars (c.f. 11,000 deliveries of S/X in China last year). A few days ago Tesla were saying they will absorb tariffs amount to $10K to $30K per car. For something that's supposedly supply limited.

This is not a good picture. Their 3 largest non-US markets are down 30-70% for their highest margin cars.

Am I reading too much in to news or did the stock rally yesterday on the news that Musk heroically survived near bankruptcy by single digit weeks?

If so, that seems like really backwards logic for buying a stock priced this way

Market buying up big time off lows creates an orgy of short covering in momentum names. That move stimulates buying from the "stock price = it's happening!!!" true believers, and so on.

Shorts available on IB, which is a decent proxy for short covering/total shorts in the market, went from 400K yesterday morning, steadily climbing to 1.3 million today. That's short covering on an extreme level, I've seen a move that large only a few times in Tesla. A lot of very stupid people short Tesla...they're almost as stupid as the bulls, which is saying something.

It's pretty cool that a bunch of fairly clever people are getting psyopped by an aspie conman who's Twitter-hawking a $50 billion pile of **** worth $0 to yet more aspies.

All the great frauds are like that I guess. Ponzi, Madoff, Crazy Eddie, Enron...huge valuations at the end of a bull run and a big helping of chutzpah and shameless fraudulent PR that gets bigger and bigger until the juice runs out. Hell, even worthless scam ICOs pulled in $30 billion.

Im glad andrew left has to pay half the mortgage of his ex wife's billionaire husbands mansion because his kids live there

Expect a **** ton of pumps the next few days and weekend since dec 1 is a significant date for the march convertibles. Needs to close above 359 for a certain amount of days AND be high enough to make it worth converting to give up the option premium, so 370 maybe?

The market buying up off lows is going to be the main thing that decides, and yeah, pumping into that is usually the modus operandi. Not sure I buy the convert story.

Technically they can convert lower but that will be a tough narrative to control

So the prospectus says that holders can convert any time from Dec 1 until March expiry at a strike price of $359. With the fed mega-pumping the market just now reversing their position on rates and ripping QQQ, might not be a big ask.

I have no idea what the 30 days stuff is about.

What am I missing about the converts? Is it not just a (dilutive) call option with 359 strike? What's the incentive to exercise early? Selling the convert before expiry should always be more profitable than exercising, no? Or are the risks of everyone converting at once sufficient to start early exercising for large hodlers?