Since tsla is a frequent topic on this board, I’m just pointing it out. It’s not a compelling case, imo, but others might have an interest. “ Yes, Tesla (ticker: TSLA) is a mess right now, and signs point to difficult times ahead. The wait time for U.S. buyers of its cars has shrunk from more than three months to, well, nothing. Delivery growth has slowed below the company’s own goal, while production has exceeded deliveries by an increasing amount in recent quarters and prices are getting cut, all signs of waning demand. Musk’s behavior since taking over Twitter has also raised questions about whether shoppers will buy other electric vehicles now that they are available. And the U.S. could face a recession by the end of the year.“
1 Like
Barrons also has a feature update on Kathy Wood, needless to say, she remains bullish, “” Is Wood deterred? Not at all. She’s doubling down on investments that got hammered last year, including Tesla (ticker: TSLA), saying they will be big winners in the long run as they disrupt established industries."
“” ARK Innovation, with $5.9 billion in assets, is still the fifth-largest actively managed equity ETF in the U.S. out of 486, according to Morningstar. And the lightning that Wood caught in a bottle in the first year of the pandemic, when her flagship fund quadrupled, is still out there, she contends. She urges investors to wait five years for her thesis to play out. But the firm hit an unfortunate milestone in 2022 that could make her case more difficult. For the first time, ARK Innovation ended the year with its five-year performance in the red. Those who bought ARK’s funds last year are already in a deep hole. Will they stick around that long as their investments evaporate?“” Wood’s critics contend that she relies on nonstandard earnings metrics to paper over the unprofitability of her portfolio’s companies under conventional accounting. Cliff Asness, a founder of AQR Capital Management, complained last month on Twitter that value investors “have to ride out manias driven by people like her.” Daniel Loeb of Third Point derided her as a “stonk hodler,” terms associated with crypto and GameStop-like trading. The losses have emboldened her detractors. There’s even an ETF, AXS Short Innovation Daily (SARK), whose sole strategy is to take the opposite side of the Innovation fund’s bets. Since its November 2021 launch, it’s up 78%.
Morningstar analyst Robby Greengold says that Wood is “dismissive” of risk management, which led to much steeper losses than other funds in her category last year. Unlike rivals, ARK doesn’t have dedicated risk-management personnel, and holding relatively few stocks has “saddled the portfolio with greater risk,” he says.“”
1 Like
I commented at Seeking Alpha:
According to classical economic theory, prices are driven by supply and demand and it does apply to undifferentiated commodities like wheat and corn. After 100 years, ICE cars have been commoditized. As a young man cars were exciting, I loved my Corvette Stingray. In later life cars became transportation, I loved my Toyota Corollas! With EVs there is phase change. While total auto sales are in decline EV sales are growing. At this stage EVs are not yet commodities and prices can be used as a strategic weapon. It could also be used with commodities provided you were willing to sell below cost – loss leaders and dumping.
With a 30% gross margin and fanatical dedication to cost cutting, Tesla is in the position to use prices as strategic tool to keep ahead of the competition. The oncoming recession will thin out the ranks of wannabe EV competitors.
The Captain
7 Likes
Tesla is scheduled to report earnings Jan 25. An earnings increase of 30% or more is expected. If achieved will analysts continue to worry and complain?
Stay tuned. We shall see.
1 Like
I see a significant risk that is being ignored. Can Musk allow anyone to post anything on Twitter that is contrary to Chinas, narrative, on any topic? What will next year’s Fauci hearing, disclose? China can make tsla a sub 100 stock in a heartbeat, if Musk upsets them.
…what?
Barrons also has a feature update on Kathy Wood, needless to say, she remains bullish, “” Is Wood deterred? Not at all.
Don’t talk negative about Kathy. I like her. Last year I made a nice profit with ARKK puts.
1 Like
This years? 
I’m not happy investing in China and Xi sure is a huge risk but I have no choice but to trust Musk’s good sense in protecting Tesla. He did get a better deal in China than most if not all other foreign investors. Musk is a pretty smart guy!
The Captain
4 Likes
Good morning, most investors might not know this but Doc Gottlieb has already stated that the Wuhan Lab was doing, gain of function research. Fauci either lied or he was being, cute, or disingenuous, when he answered those questions. Musk is brilliant but, smart guys make huge mistakes. At this years hearings many issues will come up with respect to Hunters business dealings globally and Fauci and friends, misrepresentations, to be kind. Will China press Musk to limit the content of tweets on issues embarrassing China, in your opinion ? Musk should sell his interests in Twitter, take the loss, and move forward to maximize the value of his other financial interests, imo. He’s a great human being for pursuing the truth, via control of Twitter, but he certainly hasn’t done Tesla partners any favors.
1 Like
Probably.
I’ve thought about this issue before. Depends on your preference. Mine is that I like free speech and financial gain comes second. I also think that Fauci is a storm in a teapot as far as Tesla’s long term development is concerned. I would not mind seeing Fauci in jail but that is not likely to happen. Did you notice all the people who were not called as witnesses in the Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein trial? They take care of their own. The Establishment is a tough nut to crack.
The Captain
2 Likes
He knows this product very well. He started his career founding x.com. Elon was fired because the board did not like his ambitious plan and only chose to focus on one aspect (payments). x became paypal.
Elon is going to implement his x.com playbook with Twitter (content, users, payments/ crypto, communication, ads). Wechat is a success story and he is going to mimic it.
He recently said that Twitter is going to be fcf positive in 2023. DAU and traffic is rising. Spaces is thriving, Many advertisers have come back, Cut costs (~$2B) and $8 subscriber fee is now in effect. Next is content (like TikTok/Youtube). My guess is that he will stay on as CEO till June and then hand it off. He has said a few times that Twitter will be several times more than what he acquired it for.
1 Like
Well, that and he disobeyed a board vote about specific issues and did what he wanted anyway. Which proved to be unsuccessful. But other than that, yeah.
4 Likes
Hi, those are all very different issues. The questions is, can Twitter be the marketplace for free speech , without upsetting half the country and many world powers? I’m sure you saw how quickly liberals turned on Musk. China is going to push back hard if Twitter always, free speech, that challenges , certain narratives, you can take that to the bank. How many covid deaths have there been in China ? Where did the virus originate and when and where was it first discovered? Has China been fully transparent from day one? Tesla’s investment in China is very vulnerable. We shall see, best of luck.
1 Like
Reminds me of Lord Nelson
Why Nelson turned a blind eye at Copenhagen
At first the Danes put up a brave resistance, so much so that Admiral Parker on his flag-ship raised the signal ordering retreat. Some distance away, aboard the Elephant, Nelson muttered to himself and anyone who cared to listen: “Leave off action! Now damn me if I do.”
Some years previously, at the siege of Calvi, Nelson had lost the sight of his right eye. At Copenhagen he used this to his advantage. “You know, Foley,” he remarked to one of his lieutenants, “I have only one eye. I have a right to be blind sometimes.” Thus saying, he raised his spy-glass to his right eye and announced: “I declare, I really do not see that signal.”
The Captain
4 Likes
This is off topic but I am intrigued about why so many are against Fauci.
Masks ? Vaccines ? Shutdown ? Something else ?
I think he did well given the circumstances but am trying to genuinely understand the other side of the argument.
7 Likes
Listen to the congressional investigations where they deposed Fauci, available on uTube and the Twitter files which show that opinions contradicting Fauchi were shadow banned with FBI complicity.
You were talking about the UK Big Brother problem, the North American ex colonies also have that problem.
The Captain
2 Likes
How will China respond when Twitter allows tweets that questions China’s narrative on many issues? “” Backdrop: The 58-year-old Ma, whose estimated $34B fortune makes him one of China’s richest people, long served as a poster child for the Asian nation’s market economy. He co-founded Alibaba - essentially China’s version of Amazon (AMZN) - in his apartment in 1999 and grew it into one of the world’s largest companies. Alibaba’s mobile-payments platform Alipay is China’s answer to PayPal (PYPL), and it grew so big that Ma eventually set it and other Alibaba fintech units up as a separate company known as Ant Group.
Ma’s fortunes came crashing down days before the Ant IPO after he publicly criticized Communist China’s banking regulators during a speech. Regulators quickly canceled the Ant IPO’s Shanghai leg - reportedly on Chinese President Xi’s personal orders - and the company quickly nixed the Hong Kong IPO as well. China went on to implement a broader crackdown on tech companies, and ended up fining Alibaba a record $2.8B for alleged anti-competitive business practices.“”
The recent share price of Tesla seems to contradict that sharply. Certainly investors are worried about future profits. The question still is is that justified? Are they right? Will it get worse? Or will it recover?
1 Like