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[Tuff-Stuff]

AutomaticEarth<>Debt Rattle October 15 2017
Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:21 am

• Tesla Shareholders: Are You Drunk On Elon Musk’s Kool-Aid? (Lewitt)

• ECB Suffers from “Corporate Capture at its Most Extreme” (DQ)

• ECB Still Believes In Eventual Inflation, Wage Rise: Draghi (R.)

• China Credit Growth Exceeds Estimates Despite Debt Curb Vow (BBG)

• PBOC Governor Zhou Says China’s 6.9% Growth ‘May Continue’ (BBG)

• In China, The War On Coal Just Got Serious (SMH)

• IMF Steering Committee Warns Global Growth Is At Risk Of Faltering (BBG)

• Corbyn Has A Washington Ally On Taxing The Rich. But No, It’s Not Trump (G.)

• Brexit Has Made The UK The Sick Man Of Europe Once More (NS)

• UK MPs Move To Block May From Signing ‘No Deal’ Brexit (G.)

• Forget Catalonia, Flanders Is The Real Test Case Of EU Separatism! (OR)

• Europe’s Migration Crisis Casts Long Shadow As Austria Votes (R.)

"Funny but very serious. Recommend the whole article."

• Tesla Shareholders: Are You Drunk On Elon Musk’s Kool-Aid? (Lewitt)

Tesla shareholders (and bullish Wall Street analysts) are either geniuses or delusional and I am betting on the latter. Typical of the lack of gray matter being applied to this investment is a recent post on Seeking Alpha, often a place where amateurs go to pump stocks they own. Someone calling himself “Silicon Valley Insights” issued an ungrammatical “Strong Buy” recommendation on October 11 based on the following syllogism: (1) “Tesla CEO Elon Musk has stated very firmly that they can and will reach his goal of producing 5,000 cars per week by the end of this year.” (2) “Musk has a history of setting aggressive targets (more for his staff than investors) [Editors’s Note: That is a lie.] and then missing them on initial timing but reaching them later. [Editor’s Notes: That is another lie–Musk has NEVER reached a production target.]

(3) “Reaching anything [sic] significant portion of that 5K target (say 1-2K) by the end of December could drive TSLA shares significantly higher.” This genius then suggests that investors stay focused on the Model 3 ramp as the key price driver over the coming weeks and months and argues that the announcement that only 260 Model 3s were produced in the third quarter leaves “much of the risk…now in the stock price.” He is correct – there is a great deal of risk embedded in a stock trading at infinity-times earnings with no prospect of profitability , a track record of breaking promises, a reluctance to sell equity to fund itself even at price levels above the targets of most analysts, and a market cap larger than rivals that are pouring tens of billions of dollars into putting it out of business.

Undeterred, he offers two investment strategies. The first he terms a “reasonable and conservative” one that waits to invest in TSLA shares until the early November third quarter earnings call. In my world, a reasonable and conservative strategy would be to run for the hills or short the stock (as I am doing). A “more aggressive and risky strategy” (compared to skydiving or bungee jumping) would be “to buy shares before that third quarter report and call on the bet that the Model 3 production update will be taken positively.” No doubt investors like Mr. Silicon Valley Insights will put a positive spin on whatever fairy tales Elon Musk spins on that call, but that is a big bet indeed.

Read more … Briefs or use link to access full articles
https://www.theautomaticearth.com/2017/10/debt-rattle-october-15-2017/