You were very close on the names. Lyle Lanley was the salesman. Lionel Hutz was the lawyer voiced by Phil Hartman.

Full disclosure: I haven't watched the Simpsons in 25 years, but I did see that Monorail episode.

So he is 25 years old with no relevant experience or knowledge and only has a platform and audience because Elon needed to filibuster any critical questions on his conference call?

Yeah, I think dog sitting to scrounge up enough money to buy one more share of Tesla is a pithy summation of Mr. Galileo.

Stock is flat today but the Feb 1 350 360 370 380 calls are up.

Seems like free money to me selling those (assuming you have buying power to write naked). I can see a decent pump from fake numbers and wishful europe orders, but not over $350 by friday.

$.66 per contract for a 380 call is absurd. Is he going to announce a buyout again, lol.

You first lol... It's free money until it isn't, for what it's worth I've seen a lot of call buying so maybe something like a ratio spread would make sense as opposed to selling naked calls with unlimited risk.

I'm going to wait for near the close tomorrow for peak earnings hype and sell a few. Feel good about closing short at 291 and this is a way to make a few bucks while waiting to get back short after the presumed earnings report pump.

I just can't see a way where $380 is possible. New china law allowing only TSLAs? California going Tesla-only? Makes no sense to me, even with the wildest of projections it's not getting over $380 before friday. But someone is buying these, it's nuts.

People who hack journalists to pieces don't mind a bit of insider trading on the side.

Although I agree, TSLA is a unique animal and doesn't trade as it should.

FWIW, all the TSLA bears I've seen are pretty much in universal agreement that the fraudulent guidance and earnings tomorrow will pop the stock, and everyone and their grandmother is buying $340 calls and all TSLA bears are waiting for the pop to buy puts. Plus, tomorrow starts the 20 trading day VWAP countdown for the converts, so Elon will do everything in his power to get the stock above $360 tomorrow.

With such universal consensus and massive call buying, the equity ought to tank after earnings tomorrow or stay flat to hurt the most people possible, but who knows what will happen.

Aside from leverage, is there a reason everyone buys puts instead of just a straight short? If you have healthy enough margin to short the stock to your max risk tolerance, is there a benefit to puts I'm missing?

It's really tough to predict the timing on when this collapses, hence why not just straight short? I had some Jan2020 200 puts that I exited and I think I'm going to just increase my short position.

Yes, good point. Keep in mind the absolute miracle Q3 earning report only took the stock to $340ish from $290 in 2 days. I think $340 is certainly in play, but $380 is just impossible unless he lied in the internal memo and is going to paint Q4 as BETTER than Q3 along with Larry Ellison investing $10bil or so. Even then, this stock has had big resistance around $370.

Again $380 seems ridiculous. Would love to see over $350 of course as a new short entry.

I do straight shorts. Most people buy puts to limit risk and cash required. But I find the puts way too expensive and willing to risk the straight short sale. I agree it can take longer than most bears expect.

Baggy Greg getting a spoiler installed on his Tesla. SPOILER: It’s not going so smooth.

I can't tell if he's an undercover troll or not

Payoff ratio. If Tesla bankrupts by April, you get paid 100:1 on $100 puts. You think there's a <1% chance they bankrupt by April? It's >5% by any analysis you choose.

Your Jan 2020 200 puts paid a >10 bagger on bankruptcy by 2020 before the recent drop and pay several times on a big capitulation by mid year (M3 demand sucks, they can't produce a profitable M3, both >20%).

Thus they allow to bet on good probability but not >50% probability bets. You can profitably, even highly profitably, bet on the underdog. You have room to be very wrong and maintain EV.

You also have less absolute loss risk. If Tesla goes to $450 here by mid year you're left holding your balls if you shorted at $290. A million dollar short is down $550K. $100K of 2020 puts, which pays 10x on bankruptcy hence the same, is down maybe $70K. That's a big, big difference.

Another consideration is the horrible EV mistake of getting scared. I saw quite a few guys get cucked out hard and cover their shorts at $360/$370/$380 for a nice loss due to the sheer amount of money they were down. That ain't gonna happen with puts.

If elon manages to drag this on another year and the stock is ~flat, you lost it all with puts and are even with the short.

He outlasted the 2019 Jan puts, which 6-9 months ago the bears were buying like mad and lost everything. I think he may outlast the 2020s also. I prefer to short because without a substantial fundraise the stock will trade at a much lower multiple, eventually. Not sure when, but I'm not betting on a straight bk.

I don't have anything against shorting, I'm just making the case for why puts make sense and why they're superior for many ends/bets/probabilities compared a short. They have a lot of advantages.

And they haven't lost "everything", because you're going in for 10% (to get the same payoff as a short), not all in. People that shorted at $260 rather than bought puts have lost more of "everything" than 2020 puts. And went 30% in the hole on a large number during which they'd have to not cover - and many tapped out if you look at short % activity before the email that dropped it to $290.

Instead of refreshing the S/X or replacing the 75D with a new model Tesla is throttling the 100D and selling it for $8k less than the 75D base price.

Sucks for anyone that bought the 75D in the last few weeks thinking it was their last chance. And how is this going to help with margins?

Pretty clear they were choking on inventory and this 1-2 combo with the 75D anniuncement and then this software limited 100D is aimed at clearing out both models.

Such strange timing, why not announce as part of the press release with the earnings? Basically a price cut to clear out inventory. Maybe software-limited means they can still value the hardware at full price.

They clearly don't have money to refresh the S/X, so software games is what they hope will move the needle.

I guess because they will try to avoid any forward-looking discussions?

Or possibly because they have another big announcement planned like some way of raising $$$?

This is why I suggest buying a long date ATM or ITM put and selling a front month OTM put against it. If it trades sideways you still make a nice profit. I also think its best to start getting short when the stock gets up over 340. Right now you can buy a Sep ATM put and sell a Feb 270 put against it for around $50. You can keep rolling the Feb put out, down, or up to eliminate the debit unless it rips up on earnings and doesn't look back.

A few highlights
TSLA's intrinsic value is $400/share ($75 billion).
Trillion dollar market cap in 10 to 15 years.
TSLA now in the driver's seat of controlling it's destiny..no longer dependent on capital markets.
Investing in TSLA is like investing in the da Vinci, Einstein, Edison, or (Nikola) Tesla of our time.
Not an Elon fanboy (but goes on a long rant about how amazing Elon is).
Investing my life savings in TSLA is still worth it even if TSLA goes bankrupt.

he read the ashlee vance bio one too many times

Didn't Nikola Tesla die broke?

If you go with Jun puts expecting catastrophie in ~March and miss, you can close in April and roll them forward without taking a huge Theta hit. Yeah, you're going to lose money, but like TS mentioned, you're paying for the EV of a winning bet.

This is a healthy mindset...

Yeah, but in 10-15 years he will have a trillion dollar car company named after him.