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Seasoned...
Joined: Sat Oct 21st, 2017
Location: Near The Pointy End , USA
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I own Apple, Amazon and Netflix stock. I love them very much like as if they were my babies.
Your rant is good! I want to hear what you have to say about Elon Musk!!
BWAHAHAHAHAAA HAHAHAHAHA LMFAO!!
I believe in Apple, Amazon and Netflix. I wish I could buy some more shares........one of the best investments I have made! Now polaris stock....eh well lets just say I still own some just because I like the company and where they are going
Apple is still a good investment, so is netflix, Amazon nobody can afford anymore LOL
Diversify is the key, don't put it all in one place
My dad is huge in stock market, I am more of a real estate person myself I like physical things not just numbers on a screen
Stock market = "Maybe"
You summed it all up in one word, I like your idea of paying only what it's worth today whether its a $300 explorer or a $300K property, vision is one thing, value is another
Should know that wouldn't take long...
Sometimes I feel like I'm living in an alternate universe it's like the financial version of the 'upside down' from Stranger Things.
Case in point: last couple days ago the infamously loss-making electric car maker Tesla announced its quarterly earnings. As usual, the numbers were gruesome. Tesla's net loss was TWICE AS BAD as the previous quarter, a record NEGATIVE $717 million. That's a LOT WORSE than analysts were expecting.
After adjusting for various capital investments, Tesla's total cash burn for the quarter was MINUS $740 million which is a bit better than what analysts were expecting. Congratulations. Oh yeah, and Tesla cult leader/CEO Elon Musk mustered an apology to all the analysts he insulted on the previous quarter's earnings call (where he derided them for asking “boring†and “bonehead†questions).
And now the stock has soared 12%.
Is this really what capitalism has come to? Companies are richly rewarded for posting record losses that are worse than anyone expected because the grown men who pilot them can refrain from publicly hurling childish insults at financial analysts while managing to 'only' burn $740 million of shareholder capital? Give me a break.
In total, Tesla has burned through $5 billion of its investors' cash. And nearly half of the money it has left in the bank is in the form of customer deposits, which are often refundable. So that money's not even safe. Most likely Tesla will have to raise billions of dollars over the next few years just to stay afloat.
And yet, despite these losses, and despite the fact that their CEO is sidetracked making flamethrowers, limited-edition Tesla surfboards and promising to solve Flint, Michigan's water crisis. . .
. . . and despite the fact that he seems more concerned with Twitter spats than running the business (the Wall Street Journal ranked Musk as the second-most active tech
CEO on Twitter behind Salesforce.com's Marc Benioff, with 1,256 tweets this year through mid-July) . . . . . . shareholders still granted their CEO the largest executive compensation package in the history of the world earlier this year (worth a potential $50 billion). . . . . . and have now doubled down on their investment, sending the stock price up 12%.
As W.C. Fields once said, “If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.â€
No doubt Musk is full of both. (If you want to dispute the latter, please refer to Musk's tweet in which he called the British cave diver who helped rescue the trapped boys in Thailand a pedophile.) Now, it may surprise you to hear me say that I appreciate what Musk has done for consumers. This guy gave a swift kick in the gonads to the entire auto industry, forcing them to reinvent themselves and create more innovative products. So now all the big manufacturers are getting in on driverless car technology, AI and electric vehicles. And the cars they produce are more advanced than ever before. This is great for consumers, and most of the credit goes to Elon Musk.
Plus, to be fair, Tesla makes great cars. (Unfortunately they lose money on every single one that they sell) I certainly hope the company is able to pull it off. I sincerely do.
I also hope the Detroit Lions win the Super Bowl this year. But the odds are slim. The odds are also stacked heavily against Tesla. They're rapidly running out of cash at a time when interest rates are rising and competition is stiffening. They're no longer the only game in town when it comes to luxury electric vehicles, so they'll have to contend with Mercedes, BMW, Audi, etc. going forward. And, let's be honest, Tesla isn't exactly the most prudently-managed company in the world.
You can say a lot about Elon Musk's vision and tenacity. But often the greatest visionaries don't make the best business executives. Business is well, serious business.
Recruiting, training, managing thousands of employees and dealing with intricate details in a complex manufacturing business these skills don't always go hand-in-hand with creative genius. Clearly Elon Musk doesn't work alone. But there's been an alarming exodus of top executives who have departed Tesla over the past few years.
(Check out this list compiled by Bloomberg of the dozens of senior execs who have left Tesla since 2016, including Chief Accounting Officer, Chief Financial Officer, President of Global Sales, Director of HR, etc.)
But Musk is undeterred he's staying the course. It reminds me of something Barack Obama once said-- “If you're walking down the right path and you're willing to keep walking, eventually you'll make progress.†sad I just had to quote that .
Unless, of course, you're on the wrong path. In which case you'll eventually lose everything. Elon seems content to remain on his loss-making, cash-burning path.
Regardless of the consequences, regardless of the feedback that the market is providing. But we'll see. Anything's possible. In light of such obvious risks, however, it still seems like a sign of pure lunacy.
To wit:
- Tesla manufactures electric cars. BMW also manufactures electric cars.
- Tesla loses money on every sale and posts record losses. BMW is profitable.
- Tesla burns through billions in cash. BMW pays its shareholders a 5% dividend.
- Yet with a $50 billion market cap, Tesla is now worth exactly the same as BMW.
Something is wrong with this picture. But perhaps Elon can convince us otherwise
Last edited on Tue Aug 7th, 2018 02:22 am by Undrstm8ed
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"Be never first, never last and never noticed." - Unknown
"The slave is held most securely when he is held by the chains of his own will and of his own fears, and when he is locked down by his own slavish desires for a comfortable life." - Michael Bunker
"Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur" - ~ attributed to Petronius (Gaius Petronius Arbiter (ca. 27–66 AD))
Roman courtier during the reign of Nero.
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it." - Thomas Paine
~ Undrstm8ed Truckumentry Write Up Pg.
~ Undrstm8ed Trailermentry Write Up Pg.
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