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So I'll admit up front I don't know a lot about investing, but I at least understand a decent amount about business fundamentals. What I can't understand is why

by Ethee 11mo ago

So I'll admit up front I don't know a lot about investing, but I at least understand a decent amount about business fundamentals. What I can't understand is why Tesla's stock hasn't tanked yet. They're losing business across every sector they sell in, they're trying to hard pivot to robotics technology and they have the most vocal egocentric CEO constantly trying to extract personal value from the company. If I owned TSLA stock one of these alone would spook me, but TSLA is still trading at all-time highs. None of it makes logical sense to me, genuinely is there something I'm missing here? Has TSLA just become a meme like Gamestop to the point where the business itself doesn't matter at all?

postflopclarity 11mo ago
> Has TSLA just become a meme like Gamestop to the point where the business itself doesn't matter at all? yes. has been for a while.
rvz 11mo ago
> What I can't understand is why Tesla's stock hasn't tanked yet. Elon Musk. > None of it makes logical sense to me, genuinely is there something I'm missing here? Fundamentals don't work on meme stocks unfortunately, they work on cult leaders and will react when their CEO does or says something erratic.
- onetokeoverthe 11mo ago
  [dead]
vermilingua 11mo ago
There's an alternative explanation to TSLA being a meme stock: investing in Tesla is investing in the financial wellbeing of one of the most influential people on the planet. The way the world is going, it's not unreasonable for TSLA shareholders to believe they may get extrinsic rewards from propping up Musk beyond financial gains.
- techblueberry 11mo ago
  Someone mentioned that specifically Musk might be behind the scenes tying access to a spaceX IPO to something like investment in Tesla.
enslavedrobot 11mo ago
Tesla isn't tanking for the same reason Amazon didn't tank when they built AWS. They used a low margin business to nurture one of the greatest businesses in history. Tesla aims to do the same thing with robotaxi, energy, and eventually humanoid robots. You might not think they will succeed but enough people do that the stock price reflects about a 10-20% chance of success. Just the robotaxi business alone could be worth hundreds of billions a year in avoided insurance costs and save the average Western family about $5k in transportation costs annually. If it works. Most people don't think it will, but most people thought Amazon wouldn't work either.
- ben_w 11mo ago
  > Just the robotaxi business alone could be worth hundreds of billions a year in avoided insurance costs and save the average Western family about $5k in transportation costs annually. If it works. Most people don't think it will, but most people thought Amazon wouldn't work either. For me, it's not that FSD will never work, it's that they're obviously at least 6 years behind Waymo. For humanoid robots, again, it's not that it will never work, it's that not only is there plenty of competition that's already beating Tesla to the market for the "mostly remote controlled with a bit of automation" model (which is useful, I don't want to undersell that), but also that there will be at least a 5-10 year gap between the AI hardware necessary for a level-5 self driving car fitting in the power envelope of a car, and the hardware fitting in the power envelope of a humanoid robot that can get into a car and drive it (and that a fully autonomous humanoid robot is harder than level-5 self driving). Energy? Again with the competition: they're one of the worst current brands in the world market — it's not the idea's wrong, it's just that they're the Blockbuster to a dozen would-be Netflixes. Even with cars, competition from cheaper better models from China and Europe would already be biting Tesla's global sales even if Musk was not angering a significant fraction of what used to be Tesla's core market (upper-middle-class environmentalists).
  - enslavedrobot 11mo ago
    The competition argument is common. The counter point is that Tesla makes their products with greater efficiency. For instance no car company outside of China except Tesla makes a profit on EV sales. If Tesla lost as much money per car as Rivian, a model Y would be under 30k. Waymo cars are ~$200k each the new robocab will be closer to ~$20k to produce. These business advantages are why the market has some degree of faith that Tesla will out compete companies like waymo in the quest for .30cents per mile costs. Currently Waymo is well above $2per mile and has no clear path to 30cents. Getting to 30 cents is the only way to unlock the trillion dollar opportunity, otherwise you're just recreating Uber. These are the types of considerations that make Tesla attractive to risk tolerant investors.
coliveira 11mo ago
Tesla never traded on value. It has always been a kind of meme stock. The CEO will promise the sky, give 10% of what he promised. The shareholders will praise that as something incredible, then change the focus to another area. Now they're again changing the focus to Ai and robotics, even though Musk himself has a competitor company in this area. It's a never ending game that in a decent country should have stoped long ago.
FloorEgg 11mo ago
Tesla was once the most shorted company of all time. GameStop forced the system to adapt in ways that makes shorting harder to track. It's unclear how much of the old short positions (when Tesla was valued around $20bn) are still open. These facts imply some probable second order effects: - Big money trapped in short positions after Tesla was added to S&P 500 desperately needed people to sell Tesla shares so they could cover. - The costs of sponsored content to turn public sentiment against Tesla and Elon are insignificant compared to the liability of those short positions. - covering those short positions (even gradually over a long time) pushes up the share price above what it would otherwise be. I suspect this is why it's so confusing. Simultaneously Tesla prospects appear worse than they are if your impressions are formed by articles written by media institutions that shorts are paying for you to read, and the share price is above what even a balanced perspective would consider reasonable because shorts are still covering. Also "meme stock" really just means stocks that had extreme short positions taken against them are discovered by many small money investors that coordinate over social media. In some cases the short positions are so large they really should be illegal but hedge funds used loopholes. The lack of loopholes in Canada has lead to lawsuits. So stocks over-shorted by hedge funds and discovered by retail investors = meme stock (at least in many cases.
- atonse 11mo ago
  This guy stocks.

by Ethee 11mo ago

postflopclarity 11mo ago

> Has TSLA just become a meme like Gamestop to the point where the business itself doesn't matter at all? yes. has been for a while.

rvz 11mo ago

> What I can't understand is why Tesla's stock hasn't tanked yet. Elon Musk. > None of it makes logical sense to me, genuinely is there something I'm missing here? Fundamentals don't work on meme stocks unfortunately, they work on cult leaders and will react when their CEO does or says something erratic.

onetokeoverthe 11mo ago
[dead]

vermilingua 11mo ago

There's an alternative explanation to TSLA being a meme stock: investing in Tesla is investing in the financial wellbeing of one of the most influential people on the planet. The way the world is going, it's not unreasonable for TSLA shareholders to believe they may get extrinsic rewards from propping up Musk beyond financial gains.

techblueberry 11mo ago
Someone mentioned that specifically Musk might be behind the scenes tying access to a spaceX IPO to something like investment in Tesla.

enslavedrobot 11mo ago

Tesla isn't tanking for the same reason Amazon didn't tank when they built AWS. They used a low margin business to nurture one of the greatest businesses in history. Tesla aims to do the same thing with robotaxi, energy, and eventually humanoid robots. You might not think they will succeed but enough people do that the stock price reflects about a 10-20% chance of success. Just the robotaxi business alone could be worth hundreds of billions a year in avoided insurance costs and save the average Western family about $5k in transportation costs annually. If it works. Most people don't think it will, but most people thought Amazon wouldn't work either.

ben_w 11mo ago
> Just the robotaxi business alone could be worth hundreds of billions a year in avoided insurance costs and save the average Western family about $5k in transportation costs annually. If it works. Most people don't think it will, but most people thought Amazon wouldn't work either. For me, it's not that FSD will never work, it's that they're obviously at least 6 years behind Waymo. For humanoid robots, again, it's not that it will never work, it's that not only is there plenty of competition that's already beating Tesla to the market for the "mostly remote controlled with a bit of automation" model (which is useful, I don't want to undersell that), but also that there will be at least a 5-10 year gap between the AI hardware necessary for a level-5 self driving car fitting in the power envelope of a car, and the hardware fitting in the power envelope of a humanoid robot that can get into a car and drive it (and that a fully autonomous humanoid robot is harder than level-5 self driving). Energy? Again with the competition: they're one of the worst current brands in the world market — it's not the idea's wrong, it's just that they're the Blockbuster to a dozen would-be Netflixes. Even with cars, competition from cheaper better models from China and Europe would already be biting Tesla's global sales even if Musk was not angering a significant fraction of what used to be Tesla's core market (upper-middle-class environmentalists).
- enslavedrobot 11mo ago
  The competition argument is common. The counter point is that Tesla makes their products with greater efficiency. For instance no car company outside of China except Tesla makes a profit on EV sales. If Tesla lost as much money per car as Rivian, a model Y would be under 30k. Waymo cars are ~$200k each the new robocab will be closer to ~$20k to produce. These business advantages are why the market has some degree of faith that Tesla will out compete companies like waymo in the quest for .30cents per mile costs. Currently Waymo is well above $2per mile and has no clear path to 30cents. Getting to 30 cents is the only way to unlock the trillion dollar opportunity, otherwise you're just recreating Uber. These are the types of considerations that make Tesla attractive to risk tolerant investors.

coliveira 11mo ago

Tesla never traded on value. It has always been a kind of meme stock. The CEO will promise the sky, give 10% of what he promised. The shareholders will praise that as something incredible, then change the focus to another area. Now they're again changing the focus to Ai and robotics, even though Musk himself has a competitor company in this area. It's a never ending game that in a decent country should have stoped long ago.

FloorEgg 11mo ago

Tesla was once the most shorted company of all time. GameStop forced the system to adapt in ways that makes shorting harder to track. It's unclear how much of the old short positions (when Tesla was valued around $20bn) are still open. These facts imply some probable second order effects: - Big money trapped in short positions after Tesla was added to S&P 500 desperately needed people to sell Tesla shares so they could cover. - The costs of sponsored content to turn public sentiment against Tesla and Elon are insignificant compared to the liability of those short positions. - covering those short positions (even gradually over a long time) pushes up the share price above what it would otherwise be. I suspect this is why it's so confusing. Simultaneously Tesla prospects appear worse than they are if your impressions are formed by articles written by media institutions that shorts are paying for you to read, and the share price is above what even a balanced perspective would consider reasonable because shorts are still covering. Also "meme stock" really just means stocks that had extreme short positions taken against them are discovered by many small money investors that coordinate over social media. In some cases the short positions are so large they really should be illegal but hedge funds used loopholes. The lack of loopholes in Canada has lead to lawsuits. So stocks over-shorted by hedge funds and discovered by retail investors = meme stock (at least in many cases.

atonse 11mo ago
This guy stocks.