Mon Feb 1, 2016 1:50pm ESTComments Off on Tesla Bends The Knee, Applies for Michigan Dealer License
Everyone has to find a way to work around Governor Rick Snyder. When he’s not spending his time poisoning the people of Flint, he is busy pandering for the auto dealer vote via laws forbidding auto manufacturers from selling directly to consumers. Although Tesla’s business model does not include dealerships, The Detroit News is reporting the electric car company has applied for a Michigan dealer license.
Tesla applied for a “Class A” dealership license to sell new and used cars. Under the classification, it also must have a “repair facility as part of their business or have an established relationship with a licensed repair facility,” Woodham said in a Sunday email to The Detroit News.
The stock is up over 2.5% so far in February. No price reaction of note has occurred since this news dropped.
Sometimes you have to toss your entire school of thought out the window because someone logically teaches you something. Your foundation stones, scribed with hammer and chisel, explode them on your knee and then open your mind to change.
Your favorite vagrant stock picker uses these charts to assess swing trades. My most recent entry into Tesla was for the ‘200 role’ which is a power move to $250 a share reserved only for the hottest of momo stud muffins. Lately I sit here, filling up my subcompact with sub $3.00 benzino, watching these Saudi Arabians push the black tea down, and news flow looking grim. To make matters worse, the market was running a rout, this company has some despicable valuation, and the technical picture is a bit dicey.
Let me show you something before cleansing the earth by burning it to ash and smoke. This is a daily candle chart of The Tesla Motors aka TSLA. What it printed yesterday looked like a textbook start to another wave lower.
Then, on cue, like the guy keeps a technical analyst on staff, the most brazen CEO of our time takes out the South African whip and lashes the media. Oh, the drama of it all:
Article in @WSJ re Tesla sales is incorrect. September was a record high WW and up 65% year-over-year in North America.
Said technical picture is now moot, the auction has pulled a 180, and the torque behind this move is spine bending.
Let this be a lesson to all of yous. Tech analysis has its limitations. It is simply a method of measuring supply and demand and their effects. But when you have a brilliant company on the edge of scientific discovery led by a Swiss knife of brilliance, just sit back and never sell those shares.
These old TSLA charts will also be burned for good measure:
Sat Jul 19, 2014 10:58am ESTComments Off on Contextual Approach To a Short Term TSLA Trade
As you may recall, I have been in and out of TSLA common stock for much of 2013 and a good portion of 2014. My most recent common stock swing began 06/10 and is up just a bit over eight percent. Sometimes I juice my position with some leverage, pinning on short dated call options. I came into Friday with August 1 $230 calls and closed them early in the session with the intention of buying the calls back at the end of the day for a discount. It turns out I was trying to be fancy, and I ended up paying a bit more for the position come 4pm. However, I like the short term contextual read on TSLA right here, and I have presented my case below. The yellow box is an expansion of a 15 day ATR. My expectation is for price to achieve the upper target by the close of next week, thus allowing me 2-3 days of opportunity to smack a home run.
The selling continues this afternoon, with sellers continuing their blitzkrieg campaign with a 2pm algorithmic shock wave. A block trade like the one we just experienced at 2pm is a way of starting a siphon—the algo sucks on the tube with the intent of motivating atmospheric pressure to move liquid(ity). Once it starts the flow, a force of equal or greater value must arrive to stop the force.
There’s nothing wrong with sell algos, they just receive more criticism then buy algos. They are both attempting the same feat.
Keep the context of our market in mind. It is mid-December, we have had a huge run, correlations are low, the long term trend is higher, risky assets continue seeing cash inflow, and sellers just controlled their first week since mid-summer.
With that in mind, and despite my extensive coverage of the indices, I think it is important to keep your focus on individual setups and how they are behaving.
My book is going out 95% long after purchasing OWW today at the top tick. I have other names of interest, including LEDS basing just below one dollar.
My AMZN YOLO lottery ticket was a loser. I risked the entire premium because it was a lottery ticket. It had a moment of hope early on, but could not breach recent overhead supply. The trade needed more time than one day. I realized this soon after taking the trade, and was discussing how TSLA would have been a more prudent YOLO…if there is such a thing.
I never grabbed ENPH yesterday. Instead I just watched it and commented on it. Now I cannot buy it and it can likely go much higher. I simply lack to conviction to assume nearly 20% more risk.
My book of stocks spun donuts in the mud this week even though I have winners among my ranks. Here’s the book, largest-to-smallest:
BALT, OWW, FSLR, GRPN, TSLA, YELP, RVLT, YGE, Z, LO, WBMD, GOGO, CREE, F, and my bane MJNA.
Final word of on the market – this looks like discouragement phase, where the market makes an earnest attempt to steal away your favorite shares. Review your risk plans, make adjustments where necessary, and stick to them. Do not assume gains are guaranteed.
Today is the kind of day where I simply do not have much nice to say, so I opt to communicate very little. The cordiality and couth I stockpiled for months was most entirely used up on distant relatives and my derelict friend set. I applied many of The Fly’s etiquette tips to my festivities and things went swimmingly.
I spoke with an old and salty GM engineer for quite some time about the prospects of a certain Elon Musk and his stunning Model S. He dismissed the brand repeatedly stating they will never go beyond niche manufacturer and that their cars are only a toy for the jet class.
He had his points. He loves the Volt but could not justify the lofty insurance premium it carried. The same goes for the Model S, except the niche factor ratches premiums up further. One can service their combustion powered vehicle at 20 places inside a five mile radius. The Tesla lacks 100 years of servicing infrastructure (mechanics). He pointed to the $60,000 Corvette Stingray and boldly claimed it had more technology in place than the Model S. Finally, he is convinced Toyota and their fuel cell technology will be rolled out, en masse, thus completely cementing the geniuses who mass produce automobies leaving TSLA to only service the upper scraps, the golden giblets if you will, forever.
This dilemma rings right through to LED, where an old industry is being disrupted by new technology and young leaders firing sniper bullets at strategic targets from their bird nests. How I see it, eating an elephant is a large task, but if you focus on taking one bite at a time you get it done. A strange man named Michel Lotito once ate an entire airplane. I suppose I side with the strange and against all odds crowd. I am sure Steve Job’s silly iPod was destined to fail too. 1000 songs in your pocket does not stand a chance against the brilliant minds at Sony, right?
Will the masters of industry in lighting and auto making be disrupted by TSLA and CREE? Or will TM mass produce a car you fill up with gasoline which it uses to power a fuel cell that powers your transportation and your home filled with PHG bulbs?
I supposed that’s the thought I will be pondering over the weekend. I would love to hear your thoughts.
It turns out the NASDAQ printed what is called a normal day in market profile theory and the fun thing about normal days is they are anything but. In fact, they are rather rare.
And I must say I do not particularly like normal days, at least not up here at swing highs, because they tend to occur at or near inflection points. A normal day is described as having a very wide initial balance (first hour of trade) which is not breached for the remainder of the session. It suggests indecision, intraday, mostly signaling directional conviction is low.
That context makes sense if think about gapping higher, in a hot (too hot?) bull trend, into a short holiday week. Short sellers do not want to get steamrolled in the thin trade, buyers are hesitant to initiate additional exposure at these elevated levels, and current longs are likely mulling taking profits.
Add to that the narrow pockets of market momentum and you have a solid recipe for indecision.
I have my book about 90% long at this indecisive juncture. AMBA finally went to work, crushing the hopes and dreams of Morgan Stanley analysis hoping to make a name in the technology space. I like to think this guy who downgraded AMBA will read the Raul blog, so I have a special message for him: this chipset powers the GoPro, it is on the X-mas list of every adventurer. Short interest, albeit modest, will start to get icy hands as we approach December 5th earnings. Then they will start making mistakes.
The chicken trade adhered to the November seasonality statistics, naturally, unlike the unnatural meat produced in PPCs new streamlined robot facilities. December brings a tad bit more seasonality mojo, and we still have national eat 1-to-3-birds-at-once day Thursday. I took an obligatory 1/3 scale today, but I like my prospects with the net.
I bought AAPL back right near the closing bell. If you recall, I was in this trade a few weeks back and bailed with a little 2 percent gain. It is an easy vehicle for me to lever long exposure up and down, as it consolidates along gently.
I now hold large positions in the following names, listed largest-to-smallest:
GOGO, RVLT, BALT, YELP, and CREE
These are all full size positions. As you may imagine, this type of book requires attentiveness. It has the capability of lopping 10% off my person rather effortlessly.
My ¾ size positions are as follows, listed again largest-to-smallest:
AMBA, AAPL, PPC, LO, and TSLA
Note: AMBA was by far my largest position prior to taking a scale near today’s high. Tesla and their innovative CEO Elon Musk are in the house of pain. Much like any successful individual, the media will frame Elon with a skeptical eye. Innovators hunt profit and self-gain after all, which is inherently evil. The issue most closely watched at TSLA is the battery technology. If it is to usher in the era of zero emission commuting, it needs to hold up to rigorous scrutiny. If Telsa intends to roll out a model for the middle class, they need sound battery technology established. The chart is just basing out, below my favorite moving averages, suggesting acceptance of these lower prices. What likely comes next is a new exploration lower by price. This will scare most of you. But I will be casually observing the action, minding the drawdown to my books, and meticulously selecting an opportunity to ratchet up exposure because I love me some sweet baby Elon.
I have dog and pony positions in the following stocks. These positions are practically placeholders and some are relics from prior trades:
F, FXY, ONVO, TWTR, MJNA, and O
I thought I would turn a clever trick in MJNA. Now I am -40% on this stupid, STUPID, holding. It will enjoy a fake pump service or go to zero otherwise I will continue to hold this dumbness.
ONVO needs to die for a while. It trades poorly. I will keep my toe in the water to keep my eyes on the name.
TWTR is another name I will hold until zero. I use twitter more than any other social media service in the world, why wouldn’t I own it? One day I will have huge size, but right now there simply is not much to base my risk on. Therefore I wait.
This post has gone on far too long. These are my holdings and some reasoning behind them. Let’s see how they perform this week.
Today the old man woke up at a customary 4am, sans alarm clock, and slowly rose from his twin-size bed positioned appropriately across the room from his wife. He prepared his straight razor with smooth swipes across the grit of his sharpening belt. His thin lips held onto a cigarette as he removed any trace of facial hair with a generation of confidence. He swung the washroom door open and emerged from a thick cloud of smoke in a Tom Ford suit and said, “I want Cisco.”
And so went the day. Old men across the nation dialed their rotary phones and demanded their brokers buy shares of CSCO, in 1000 lot increments, until instructed to stop. The action firmed up the Dow Jones as well as the S&P 500.
We are only 10 points away from the 1800 market on the SPX and I am 95% long. There was a mix of winners on the day. The peddlers sold down GOGO today after an impressive gap which is to be expected from the degenerate class. Meanwhile ONVO ripped the hearts out of shorts and fed them to the pigs.
The chicken play in PPC is setting up finally, and if we close the week out strong prospects look solid for a rise into the gluttonous festivities of Thanksgiving.
Facebook wants needs to corner the sexting market. Without it, they are vulnerable to rapid extinction due to lack of attracting teenage use. On the contrary, teenagers are smoking LO’s Blu brand eCigarettes at a growing rate. LO is winning over the next generation of smoking class.
I am completely out of energy, here’s my book:
AMBA, PPC, AAPL, GOGO, RVLT, TSLA, LO, YGE, WLT, SFM, BALT, CREE, F, ONVO, FXY, TWTR, MJNA, and O
Many of those are partials. The main size is from AMBA-to-WALT
