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Chevy Volt a Failure - GM to Layoff 1,300

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Evil Bastard (aka Chris_L), Mar 2, 2012.

  1. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    The "very clear record of me laughing" ...about some idiotic characterization of my post (that ignores what the post was actually about).

    Thanks for clarifying my post, Inspector Clousseau. Maybe if you read it in Chinese.

    For what it is worth to anyone else, some of the stories I read this morning, pointed out exactly what I was watching after the bell (and which may carry through today -- the offering is going to be a massive dilution of existing equity; for 99 percent of stocks that would get a very negative reaction). Not that it matters to my post about Tesla raising the money -- it bleeding cash having been the point from previous conversations and constantly needing to raise more capital.

    But to some clown on a message board with a hard-on for me, who assigns his own stupid meaning to random sentences I type (taken out of some admittedly long posts) and creates his dumb "it is clear!" tangents, having a set of eyes is an example of my "anti-wisdom in real time."

    Examples:

    After-hours buzz: Tesla, Cisco, L Brands & more

    Tesla (TSLA) stock drops in after-hours trading on $2 billion offering


     
  2. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    TSLA up 2 percent this morning, at 215.38.
     
  3. RevPastor

    RevPastor Member

    There are those that ride stocks long and those that just ride it hard and short. That isn't something that everyone on the freaking planet already knows. However, there is short and then there is 20-minute-after-hour-window-short. Additionally, I don't know what the point of discussing the after-hours drop is. At the absolute lowest point yesterday, it was still higher than just about any point on the day before. So is the issue that Tesla dropped a ton in the after-hours trading or should it be noted that the day ended higher than the previous day?

    Ultimately, Tesla isn't the company that people make it out to be. They are a technology, specifically battery, company. The cars they are making are nice vehicles but they don't exist in a vacuum, something Ragu fails to realize. It is Tesla's ability to utilize it's batteries for something different.

    It's all great to claim that the company isn't going anywhere and that the cars are stupid because they aren't making money, but how often do start-up businesses make money in its first few years. How many years did Amazon lose money? Besides, Tesla didn't enter markets at which there weren't already an extensive amount of competition.

    I could certainly be wrong, but I don't think Tesla is going away anytime soon. They may streamline the car line-up or even drop them entirely if they bleed beyond what they can handle. I just don't see it yet...
     
  4. doctorquant

    doctorquant Well-Known Member

    I don't either. Companies being propped up for political reasons usually have very long lifespans ...
     
  5. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    There is finally something to agree on here. There as no reason to be discussing it, other than that someone who trails me around trying to mischaracterize my posts (and constantly acting like a jerk toward me) made that into the issue du jour. If he wasn't picking out random sentences from my posts to create his dumb narratives about what is "clear" -- in this, case, dishonestly lobbing off the very next sentence (same old thing) that would have had me making the exact opposite point of the idiotic nonsense he was putting into my mouth (Ragu said to trade Tesla stock! -- he's wrong again!) he always makes my posts into, the thread would have never gone there.

    The point of the post was that they managed to come up with another $2 billion via a secondary equity offering (as I was saying earlier they needed to). While their stock is still relatively hot, they used it as currency to raise more cash. Their cash burn rate remains very high, and they still make bubkus. So their business relies on being able to raise money and burn through it-- borrowing (through the debt markets, but they don't seem to be able to do that anymore), copious government subsidies including the ability to sell emissions credits to other car makers for millions of dollars that are given to them via government preference. ... and in this case, secondary stock offerings (the last one was $500 million; this was $2 billion) diluting their existing shares and fucking their existing shareholders. They can get away with it, because there is nothing rational about this company or the valuation the stock is trading at -- even at the current price level which is well off the highs it had made. It will go on as long as there is cheap money making that sort of endless financing for ideas that go nowhere possible without ramifications, and as long as there are momentum traders (not investors) ready to trade on the hype, regardless of whether the company ever delivers what it promises (and it doesn't).


    I agree. Tesla is not going away anytime soon -- at least in the immediate future (it just raised $2 billion in cash!). But it has a model that is unsustainable. As long as it can keep raising cash, though, it will be around. At the point the spigot gets turned off, it either can stand on its own and produce something profitably enough to not only be able to service the massive amount of debt it has racked up, and actually still turn a profit. I'd say the odds of that over the long-term, are not as great as most people understand.

    As I pointed out in an earlier post, there is massive short interest in Tesla, including Jim Chanos, who has made his fortune finding situations like this where stock prices are at ridiculous valuations that have run away from the fundamentals. He will ride it out and eventually make a lot of money when the fantasy world ends (that has less to do with Tesla as a company as Tesla's stock price being idiotically valued).

    Normally, when a company announces a secondary offering anywhere near that large, the immediate effect is to clobber the stock price over the next few weeks. That would happen with 95 percent of publicly traded companies. In the case, of Tesla, though, there is nothing rational happening, and it is actually set up for massive short squeeze (if you don't know what that means, google it) due to just how much short interest there is in the stock. The last time they did a secondary, the stock price shrugged it off, as I pointed out. It's all just irrational when it comes to Tesla and Elon Musk.

    Contrary to LTL (master trader who has no fucking clue about markets, but is always on here to parse trades I suggested out of my posts)'s dumb post prior to yours, the stock is actually running into a wall today. So we'll see. I wouldn't bet on it either way. Tesla stock is well off its highs, but even at this level it is trading at a multiple that makes no rational sense. It has zero earnings (GAAP) and it is massively in debt and has a huge cash burn rate. And a CEO who makes endless promises and has a history of never delivering on all the hype he creates. Forget that, though, the balance sheet of the company is a mess. If the company can't keep raising more and more money -- via debt, equity dilution or subsidies -- it can't exist over the long term.
     
    Last edited: May 19, 2016
  6. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    LOL. Yes. I was definitely the one who brought up Tesla's after-hours drop.
     
  7. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    You were the one who took a random sentence about something that was true (but you had to scream at me how wrong I was about something! because that is nexus of your sad life on here). ... and did a dancing bear act around it in order to be a dick toward me. Look he's worse than <name some other poster>and do a insult.

    While creating your narrative about what my post was so "clearly" about. Do yourself a favor. When you think you "clearly" understand my post and are itching to sum it up in 2 of your idiotic sentences, go back to your coloring book. It's annoying when someone mischaracterizes you over and over again and puts words in your mouth and then insults you all the time -- it's dick message board behavior. In this case, you created the stupidity. ... and on top of it, you did your usual dishonest thing where you ignored the VERY FUCKING NEXT SENTENCE that would have made no sense if my post was the mickey mouse point you "clearly" read into everything I post. But that is your pattern. Act like a dick. Argue endlessly -- even when you are FACTUALLY wrong so much of the time. When the person doesn't back off from your bully act, trail them around insulting them. When they ignore you, insult them on other threads they weren't even a part of.

    And of course, all the while in this case, you ignored the substance of the post -- as always. And derailed the thread. It's so dumb. But that is you.
     
  8. RevPastor

    RevPastor Member

    Please, be specific in stating exactly how the company is being propped up for political reasons.

    Is it really "fucking the existing shareholders" if they continue to take the same actions over and over again?

    You keep saying "copious government subsidies" again even though that was proven to be false quite a while ago.

    The ability to sell emissions credits merely means that they've a product that other private companies are willing to purchase. If those other car companies didn't need the credits or could produce a product comparable (and they already do) then Tesla wouldn't make that money. Your argument on this is very absurd.

    Did it every occur to you that people find value in a battery company, possibly the best battery company in the world?

    I recently replaced the battery in my motorcycle. The new one was damn near half the weight. My fuel efficiency went up. The battery wasn't made by Tesla, but that is an area they can enter, should they choose.

    Given Tesla's connections with SpaceX, what sort of batteries do you think are used on their shuttles and satellites? It reminds me of a project I worked on over a decade ago involving the testing of batteries for a specific satellite program. The goal, of course, was to reduce weight. SpaceX isn't the only company out there launching satellites into orbit. Tesla's batteries are involved in this industry, an industry that isn't coming remotely close to shrinking.


    You believe it is irrational. Many out there, clearly, do not. Over time, I could easily see the wild eyed speculators hoping to cash in on Tesla's big money maker dropping out. But Tesla, as a company, won't fall apart. They will just transition and become more of what I suspect they'll be. The car portion is merely for show...
     
  9. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    Dude. You were gleeful that Tesla was getting, quote, "slaughtered."

    Do me a favor. Go read what you wrote in February about what was going to happen in the market, and measure it against what exists in the market today. And then go assess your nihilist fantasies against what has actually happened in the world for the last 6-8 years.

    I know you hate being called out for being wrong. The solution is to stop being so fucking wrong.
     
  10. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    You ALWAYS respond to my posts.

    These last two pages have certainly been a picture-perfect example of you letting it go.
     
  11. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    Rev, Yes, a secondary offering fucks existing shareholders. In a rational world (not a stock that is not trading on any rational metric currently) it dilutes the value of their shares. Think of it this way: If you owned a "limited edition" something and the price was supported by the fact that it was a limited edition, what would happen if the creator of it flooded the market with a boatload more of them. That is what Tesla is doing to its existing shareholders. The stock price may or may not react rationally to that in the short term, but as I said, in the case of 95 percent of stocks, that would be VERY BAD news.

    Again, I am not going in circles about how much in government subsidies Tesla has gotten -- including those ZEV credits (just a major example) that force its competitors to give it money. Those credits are GIVEN TO TESLA by government to resell. There have been several quarters that it was their only source of income (they lose money selling cars). But you keep ignoring my posts. You don't understand what you are posting about. Please believe me.

    Tesla makes no money selling batteries. It doesn't even produce batteries. It has thrown out a lot of hype about a battery factory (which it has no money to produce) and which it backed off of the original hype about. It also has shown no plan or ability to produce a battery for an EV that is cost effective enough to bring the prices down so the cars are competitive. So I have no idea where you are going. I am very rooted in reality. Not whatever hype you read. And trust me, whatever hype you read. ... I know way more about this company and its finances and what it is actually doing than you seem to want to give me credit for.

    Yes, I believe that the stock price is irrational. Ultimately, something is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it. But when the auction of a market gets out of whack (in the case of a lot of things the last 7 or 8 years, because the price of money has been distorted by reckless policy that has created bubbles), the inefficiencies it creates are likely temporary. As a trader (and I trade pretty much for a living), I don't look at fundamentals (the things I post about on a lot of these threads). As I said several times on this thread, I would never short Tesla stock because even though I know fundamentally it is a joke (and the stock price will never stay this high), the market can remain irrational well beyond my ability to stay solvent. As a trader, I trade time / price. So conceivably if I traded individual stocks (I don't), I might have been long Tesla a lot the last few years -- owned it.

    As an investor? Yeah, fundamentals matter. Because I have long-term time horizons. And no matter how you look at Tesla fundamentally, there is nothing rational that has the company valued the way it is. I can point out in post after post just how much debt it has run up, how it misses on execution, and how it has no realistic plan for ever being able to produce the product it says it is invested in profitably enough to overcome all of that. I'd say the fundamentals would suggest a probability that what you are seeing right now is a fantasy -- UNLESS something about the company drastically changes. I don't do a ton of investing. Just in a retirement account. I would never own a stock like this. It's all hype and nothing on the balance sheet supporting a multiple anywhere near where it is. It's one of the most overvalued stocks in a drastically overvalued stock market -- the short interest is great, including as I said, people like Jim Chanos (who specializes in short selling and makes money doing it).
     
  12. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    No. ... I don't seek you out on here. NEVER. When was the last time I saw you post something and tried to have a conversationm with you? When do I ever look for something you posted on a thread I wasn't participating on, and then start shit with you over absolutely ridiculous things?

    I only ever respond to you when you do this same dick act -- start shit and escalate it. Trail me around and put stupid words in my mouth over and over again to be an asshole. Yeah, of course I respond, because it is annoying.

    If you didn't rush onto threads and ignore what my posts actually say, and do this over and over again (always punctuated with insults), and mischaracterize me constantly with your idiocy, I would never interact with you on here. Same as I ignore lots of jackasses.

    I rarely see you posted something on a thread and respond to it. I ignore you. I rarely respond to your posts at all.

    But I'll take it a step beyond that. I certainly never seen you post something on a thread I wasn't a part of, and then responded with gratuitous shots at you personally -- the way you constantly do. If I had a point (based on what you posted), I would respond to the point, not the person (even if I think the person is a jackass -- although I mostly just stay away from jackasses on here, unless they keep initiating exchanges where they act like a jerk toward me me the way you do). And I certainly have never done your other asshole thing where you take shots at me all over the board on threads I wasn't even participating in -- which is particularly the mark of a loser, in my estimation.

    The ONLY time I respond to you is when you do this same tired act. It gets old when an idiot who isn't even having the conversation comes on with the sole purpose of proving you "wrong" about something -- to the point where he lops a superfluous sentence off of a post and creates a whole nridiculou arrative around it that has NOTHING TO DO WITH THE POST and starts being a smug ass toward you about HIS creation-- telling you what you "clearly" posted. Telling how you were "laughing" and "gleeful" because he thinks that his dumb mischararacterizations (the actual post is still there) actually make his bullshit sound forceful.

    The only time I ever respond to you is when you do that. Because it is fucking annoying. Especially when you are being a constant jerk toward me in the process (something you specialize on in) Shame on me I guess, though, for taking the bait, if that is your point. But you are in no position to make that point.
     
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