
Tesla's stock just hit a record $420 - berbec
https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/23/investing/tesla-stock-420/index.html
======
martythemaniak
The stock is blazing!

Weed jokes aside, the market has finally caught up to the fact that Tesla is
years ahead of their competitors. I bought my Model 3 18 months ago and it
_felt_ like buying a car from the future. I think my feeling was correct.

2019 saw a number of serious competitors (Audi, MB, VW, Porche) release their
first EVs and they've all been somewhat disappointing. Very solid first
releases taken in isolation, but the market expectations were that the "Big
Boys" were coming in and were going to wipe the floor with Tesla. Turns out
they couldn't, Tesla's head start is real and consequential.

If you go out and actually try to put down $40-50k on a car and judge all EVs
on a collection of attributes (range, efficiency, safety, charging options,
tech, etc) Tesla clearly stands out. It's tough to convince yourself to put
down a nearly-equivalent amount of hard-earned money for another brand, so it
is no coincidence that they outsell other EVs by a very wide margin.

~~~
disconnected
> the market has finally caught up to the fact that Tesla is years ahead of
> their competitors.

Incorrect. The stock value is being pushed up by:

1\. Unexpected quarterly profits in October;

2\. Tesla planning to open a new factory in China and securing a 1.4 Billion
dollar loan to do so;

3\. Apparent strong interest in the Cybertruck and the impending announcement
of the Model Y;

4\. USA and China are easing the trade war, which is pushing the whole stock
market up (there have been "records" left and right in the past few days).

But the big one is number 2. Tesla moving into China means that they can tap
into the humongous Chinese market.

~~~
martythemaniak
Well, TSLA is a very sentiment-heavy stock, so it's hard or impossible to say
what exactly caused this recent run.

For example, they've been guiding Q3 and Q4 profitablity since ~Q2 or earlier.
They started building the Shanghai factory in Q1, the Model Y was announced in
March, the Truck's been talked up since forever, etc.

What's really changed is that the Taycan is no longer a mystery, but a real
car with a real price tag and real range. The ID.3 is almost-real and
struggling with software issues. The E-Tron, new Leaf, new Bolt, etc have real
sales figures. When these were unknowns, you could be reasonably skeptical of
Tesla's claims, but that's increasingly untenable.

Or, as the great Silicon Valley philosothoughtleader Russ Hanneman said:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzAdXyPYKQo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzAdXyPYKQo)

------
slg
Besides all the funding secured and pot jokes, can anyone explain what has
happened to this stock recently? Over the last two months it has gone up
roughly 30% after already having a big immediate jump after the last earnings.
Is this mostly related to long term shorts finally closing their positions in
the wake of those earnings? Or was there some big Tesla news that I missed
that changed the perception of the company's financial position?

~~~
lazyjones
It's probably not one single reason. Tesla has had a lot of good news lately,
from reports about Elon behaving a little better (and winning that defamation
lawsuit), to competing EV from companies like Mercedes and Audi not really
selling well and securing a large area for GF4 near Berlin. The most
impressive feat for me was how quickly they built GF3 and started production
in China, but my tiny contribution to the stock price was earlier this year
(late May), the return to profitability in Q3 probably impressed many
investors as well.

~~~
noodle
Other smaller stuff too:

    
    
      - Porche's Taycan EV is supposed to be the closest direct competition for Tesla cars, but its having production issues.
      - Tesla just pushed a new software update that includes a lot of useful features (voice keyboard/commands, an official camping mode, saving camera clips on honk, etc)
      - A lot of miscellaneous positive press is cropping up from the end of the year and end of the decade type reporting - Time for example put it as one of the "best gadgets of the decade".
      - They recently released and presumably are testing a paid software update to boost M3LR off the line acceleration, which is an interesting situation to obtain revenue from already sold cars.
      - Internally they're pushing to sell a lot to break sales numbers before EOY.  Some places are reporting that they're even selling showroom floor models.
      - They secured a US$1.4B loan from Chinese banks for GF3 acceleration, which was already ahead of schedule.
      - They closed on the land for GF4 and are reportedly looking to start building Jan 2020.
      - The recent news of possibly reinvigorating the EV tax credits in some way probably also helped.
      - Solar is ramping up as well.

------
rwerkjlkjweq
WSB is going bananas over this:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/](https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/)

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eindiran
Just for reference, the claim that "420" comes for a police code for marijuana
possession is completely incorrect:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/420_(cannabis_culture)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/420_\(cannabis_culture\))

~~~
look_lookatme
Seems like a strange thing to go around correcting people on. I didn't even
know it was supposed to be a police code, it's just some silly code word for
weed that like 85% of American english speakers understand to mean weed.

~~~
slap_shot
I, for one, always thought 420 was a reference to a police code for possession
(similar to 187 for homicide).

Eidiran's post just led me to a few posts about it, and I found this article
where you can see a video of the guys back at the exact place of their high
school they met at 4:20. I really enjoyed this.

[https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/The-420-code-
The...](https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/The-420-code-The-high-
larious-definitive-story-12849127.php)

Depending on how one spent their high school afternoons, it might bring back
memories :)

------
stillmotion
> 420 often refers to the police code for cannabis possession

Hah, this journalist is so out of touch with the joke. 420 is the time to
blaze it!

~~~
sudoaza
420 was the California Bill for medical marijuana legalization (and of course
the time to blaze it).

~~~
dragonwriter
> 420 was the California Bill for medical marijuana legalization

“420” was established term for weed before SB 420 of 2003 was introduced; the
slang didn't come from the bill but the bill was introduced on a timing to
exploit the slang.

Also, Medical Marijuana was legalized by Prop 215 of 1996, SB 420 of 2003 was
a measure to revise some provisions of the regulatory regime.

------
ggambetta

      Funding secured.

------
DeonPenny
It was just at $140 a month or two ago I feel like. Incredible

~~~
jfengel
It hasn't been at $140 since 2013. It dipped to $150 in 2016, and $185 in the
spring after a long, slow decline early in the year. If you'd bought it during
that dip it would have been a big win.

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dangerboysteve
Every Tesla stock price increase story is always followed by the mandatory
story of Tesla short sellers getting crushed.

~~~
rcMgD2BwE72F
Because it's the most shorted stock in history relative to its float/market
cap?

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oluomike1
[https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/23/tesla-lands-1-4-billion-
fr...](https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/23/tesla-lands-1-4-billion-from-chinese-
banks-to-build-out-its-shanghai-gigafactory/)

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Animats
Tesla finally seems to be focusing on building cars in volume. Not making
heavy-truck prototypes. Not talking about "transportation as a service". Not
claiming self-driving. Just making electric cars at a profit. That's good for
the stock price.

~~~
rcMgD2BwE72F
>Tesla finally seems to be focusing on building cars in volume.

That has always been the case. Perhaps you meant "Media and markets know focus
on Tesla's building cars in volume". It takes time to build plants, install
machine them and organize the whole logistics/delivery part. They've always
been focusing on this, and had to run the show so people would be ready to
take delivery by the time they reach mass production.

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rossdavidh
I cannot believe that the significance of the $420/share price just now
occurred to me.

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tus88
Take that shorters!

------
OrgNet
stocks (on average) tend to always go up...

~~~
runeks
Except for those that go down, of course.

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pastor_elm
Funding secured.

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CriticalCathed
The shorts on twitter are particularly venomous today. I have to wonder if
they're too emotionally involved in this. Tesla is seriously flawed but
"fraud" is truly ludicrous.

