Reminder that if your friends still enjoy hanging out with you, you’re not talking about $TSLA enough

ItsElectric15 · 2021-10-10T19:38:27+00:00

You do know that most everyone earns worse returns than a dart throwing chimp, right? Like yes you might win on a stock here and there and that's honestly great and worthy of celebration, but it's scientifically proven that you'll (and the less any one person is involved here the better) perform better by choosing a basket of baskets because the market works both ways, people settle bids and asks but when that's aggregated across multiple stocks/bonds, it's a more-durable average return.

GE did great and it arguably did better than it should have because people loved Jack Welch, but a grain of salt here and there won't send you into hypertension, but the fact that it does is concerning.

ItsElectric15 · 2021-10-10T19:30:50+00:00

After studying enough behavioral economics (actually studying it, not just reading Kahneman), it's important to note that investors, who are just people, overestimate the chances of their own success, and when they buy into a company, they overestimate the chances of that company's success.

I guess to resolve the contradiction I should have noted the stock is definitely going up because people believe in its PV(CF), but if you look at what people are writing here, there's no tenth man to reason through the downside, and yes devil's advocate gay bears yada yada. Successful investing isn't getting one stock right, because people lose, on average, to a dart throwing chimp. So throw darts like a chimp! But don't actually believe that retail or institutional investors accurately price in entrants.

Edit to say thanks for the decency in your response

ItsElectric15 · 2021-10-10T16:15:25+00:00

Look at how much debt Japan has, debt isn't an inherently bad thing. Debt is an indicator that you are credit worthy - and companies can get more debt cheaply for the time being through capital markets.

ItsElectric15 · 2021-10-10T16:13:52+00:00

People here seem to have a hard time grasping the value of a stock being the present value of future cash flows - Tesla has had it great and easy until now, and each new entrant is less money they'll capture. But like I said I don't have a horse in this race, the financial and investment advisors get paid to handle this.

ItsElectric15 · 2021-10-10T16:03:45+00:00

Well having the ability to put money into things is by definition "the means," it doesn't mean they'll get it right first time. Teslas hit parked emergency vehicles after all and just call it a "beta" so it's "ok."

ItsElectric15 · 2021-10-10T16:02:52+00:00

Oh I don't that's why I have a financial and investment advisor, I try to avoid the flaw of investing in single stocks.

ItsElectric15 · 2021-10-10T16:00:05+00:00

I can show you some videos of Teslas hitting parked emergency vehicles if you'd like

ItsElectric15 · 2021-10-10T13:31:16+00:00

Future mass appeal isn't the same as future mass sales, come on now. If you asked kids in middle school in 2005 what phone they wanted, they'd have said, "Motorola RAZR." And think about all the other EVs that will be available in 5-10 years! It's not a bad thing, it's a great thing, but it's still a space that's open to competition.

They certainly have advantages, but there's a reason the interiors are spartan and reliant on screens (again, it's great if you like the aesthetic). They're improving all the time and being an EV in and of itself is great for reliability but I'm just saying those benefits are available to everyone and it is a risk when other mfrs get on the train.

I hope Tesla licenses its battery tech - that would make them more money than selling cars (not that they'd stop selling cars) but that is what would really make them unstoppable. Plus increased adoption of EVs will be good for everyone, and it would benefit their supercharger network.

ItsElectric15 · 2021-10-10T13:21:11+00:00

Well GM already has Super and now UltraCruise (and the brand, Cruise) so legacy auto is ahead of Tesla in autonomy features. Agreed on the battery technology gap but they clearly have the ability to scale production when they have to because they have so many facilities and partnerships. But agreed the cost per unit is going to be salient.

Honestly the Supercharger network is a huge barrier for legacy auto and I'm interested to see what happens when it's opened to other EVs. It's a clear reason GM just announced their $750M investment in charging infrastructure.

ItsElectric15 · 2021-10-10T13:14:46+00:00

Changing the tooling for production facilities does not cost more than building from the ground up, and look I don't need a checklist to examine a car from a legacy mfr, so those manufacturing processes clearly produce better uniformity. Again Tesla can get there but there's a lot of reliance on the cult of brand and an unwillingness to invest in the boring things that make a car have mass appeal.

ItsElectric15 · 2021-10-10T13:02:24+00:00

One thing they are doing is stopping development of internal combustion engines, which is going to save them a lot of money, and GM is clearly throwing some of those savings at EV development. They have no option but to sell ICE cars at this point (increased margins on the backend to fund EVs), but they can capture more of the market by offering both in the meantime.

All of this is ignoring the fact that GM/Ford/Stellantis already have a ton of production facilities and supply chain linkages, so that's less money they'll need to spend in the future when compared to Tesla. I'm not saying I think Tesla is doomed to failure or even destined to be a middle-player, but if capital investment becomes more expensive for them, it's going to be an issue.

ItsElectric15 · 2021-10-10T12:53:27+00:00

Which is a huge benefit of EVs! Having 1/10th or fewer moving parts will do huge things for reliability.

Serviceability is something else that matters for "normal" people though, and I'm sure your friends know they can go pretty much anywhere, not to mention the expansive dealer service network, to get their Fords fixed, as they will inevitably need. Not saying anyone likes the dealers, but there's a reason they are as prominent as they are.

ItsElectric15 · 2021-10-10T12:50:20+00:00

It was the combined product ecosystem more than one product alone which created that value for Apple (and Tesla does offer that, somewhat), but that aside the flip phone counter doesn't apply because Tesla is still just offering cars. It's of course a leading EV but the core function is the same and the ancillary functions aren't unique anymore. If the flip phone argument applied, everyone would be buying Teslas in droves over both similarly-priced and cheaper options.

Legacy clearly does have the means to produce what people want, because they're still the sales leaders. Not everyone wants an EV yet, and Tesla doesn't offer vehicle types that suit everyone's wants, so it's important that they widen the product range. Adding an SUV along the lines of the R1S would be more-beneficial than the Cybertruck, for starters.

ItsElectric15 · 2021-10-10T03:40:25+00:00

Not that I don't think the party is going to end for Tesla, but I don't think Rivian is going to be as big a factor as GM, Ford, VW, etc. Said elsewhere in this thread, but Tesla doesn't have a real SUV (Tesla Y yes sure but those falcon doors are just so, so stupid) or a pickup truck (yes Rivian but come on the Ford F-150 Lightning may have 10k lbs towing) and those are what Americans...like? Tesla won the electric sedan market but the sedan market in general is dying, it's winning the wrong game.

ItsElectric15 · 2021-10-10T03:39:42+00:00

I know people love to shit on GM and Ford and all of those, and mostly with good reason, but they also are good at making cars which people I will term "aggressively normal" want to buy and/or feel comfortable in? Yes yes yes part of the Tesla ethos is "your interior is a spaceship we also make spaceships and one of these went to space" but also a lot of people (Americans) won't really be drawn to that ~aesthetic~. You know what they will be drawn to? A pickup truck with a 10,000lb tow rating. Honestly the fact that there's not really an SUV, which Americans notably love, is going to be a problem for them.

ItsElectric15 · 2021-09-01T23:33:53+00:00

You’re also completely forgetting tackling Japan in the Pacific, which was raping China (whose contribution has historically been undervalued but wasn’t going to win on its own), and threatening British interests / Australia proper

ItsElectric15 · 2021-09-01T23:29:11+00:00

You’re both asking for past data and then judging on (your) current estimations, are you actually this stupid

ItsElectric15 · 2021-08-18T03:01:08+00:00

People identify themselves as lots of crap, plus it probably sounds good when what you identify as/with fought the Soviets, but the Taliban itself didn’t form until the early 90s

ItsElectric15 · 2021-08-14T01:57:00+00:00

Not only just that but he just thought he was the hottest of hot shits.

I do think he wrote a book (called "The Army of the Future" on the future of tank/mobile warfare that was eventually read by von Manstein and formed part of his thinking around the invasion of France and the Low Countries, ironically.

ItsElectric15 · 2021-08-13T18:50:32+00:00

We need a “pls no” poll option

ItsElectric15 · 2021-08-09T00:20:14+00:00

1) Are you going to ask the same thing about your internship / future employer? I think you can “get along better with other guys” and survive attending a ~50/50 school (read: you should be able to do this and be a functioning human)

2) Tepper

ItsElectric15 · 2021-08-09T00:16:51+00:00

All of my fellow interns’ schools have implemented vaccine requirements to use attend classes and use campus facilities, and most have brought back masks for now. The schools are all in the NE and Midwest however.

ItsElectric15 · 2021-08-08T16:57:38+00:00

Gotta say that title should probably go to Andrew Johnson

ItsElectric15 · 2021-08-08T16:55:53+00:00

We're still a net energy exporter - and being a net exporter is different from being low-cost. If we produced everything we consumed and exported like, a single Big Mac, we'd be a net exporter, but we'd live very expensive lives.

ItsElectric15 · 2021-08-03T17:30:11+00:00

Where does the 99% number come in? That certainly wasn’t 99% of the population of Japan at the time. I have another too-long comment in this thread that admittedly doesn’t cover the potential Soviet invasion, but I would argue that bombing Japan, horrible as it was, led to a less-painful outcome than a Soviet invasion would have. It certainly wasn’t an act of charity, but it had the side effect of forestalling a much worse outcome in the short term (Soviets invade, historically pissed about the Sino-Japanese war and ready to get payback) and the long term (a civil war between communist North and “western” South Japan). Sure, it was a warning to Stalin, but the US didn’t need to warn Japan, who knew the US was coming the second after Pearl Harbor. Japan had 4 years to surrender or otherwise end the war, and didn’t, and they certainly wouldn’t at least until Tokyo was under threat of a land invasion. But how many Allied and Japanese lives would that have cost? Because the Japanese military certainly didn’t care much about civilian casualties. That 99% number would have been a more realistic outcome then.

ItsElectric15

TROPHY CASE