The most popular CleanTechnica stories of the past week were all about Ford hybrids, the Toyota Prius, clean coal … oh, wait, no. As usual, the company with the most popular, most compelling electric vehicles on the market got the most attention. Check out the 20 stories of the past week that got the most reader attention.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk draws fans and critics for his personality quirks, and the market responds — but is that a prudent investment strategy?
Maarten just wrote an epic piece on Elon Musk’s apparent decision to drop Wall Street and drop a beat on the world via a more enlightened, independent, inspired, societally beneficial, long-term corporate approach than we are used to seeing — even from Tesla.
In the Q1 2018 earnings call on Wednesday, there was an Elon Musk who clearly was not in the mood to be nice to Wall Street and the financial press.
This is a special edition of the #CleanTechnica Top 20 — I’m listing the top 20 CleanTechnica articles of the last week and the top 20 CleanTechnica articles of April. Have a gander:
Many of the talking points used by those short selling Tesla’s stock revolve around the idea that the company’s stock is largely held by individual investors who don’t understand that the company: is (permanently apparently) on the verge of collapse; is actually in need of funding that it says it doesn’t need; and/or doesn’t make the margins on the cars it sells that it reports it does.
This story is about Tesla’s moats, but I don’t mean to imply that Buffett would invest in Tesla. Tesla is far from the value investments of the Berkshire Hathaway portfolio. Rather, Buffett’s comments are to demonstrate the importance of moats. Morningstar even has a guide called Why Moats Matter. Understanding the moats a business employs is clearly important to understanding the business and its future.
The official numbers are now in and more than 38 million shares of Tesla (Nasdaq: TSLA) were in the hands of short sellers as of April 13, 2018. That’s a whopping 10 million shares picked up by shorts in just one month’s time and a strong indication that TSLA short interest topped 40 million shares later in the month. To put the numbers in perspective, TSLA shares held by shorts during the past 12 months have previously ranged from 27 million shares to a bit over 31 million. Even with those lower numbers, TSLA managed to sometimes hold the title of the most shorted stock in the USA! Above 38 million shares, though, that means that more than 30% of Tesla’s tradable shares are in the hands of entities that are betting the stock will lose value. The track record of those who bet against Elon Musk is not good, particularly when the number of shares sold short reaches such epic heights.
The biggest stories of the past week on CleanTechnica covered Tesla, AI, Tesla, Solar Cars, Tesla, Solar Chimneys & Towers, Tesla …
One month ago, we got an email from IHS Markit. The market analysis firm had a totally unsurprising yet also shocking story to share — Tesla [TSLA] was a dramatically shorted stock. It’s unsurprising because this has been TSLA’s fate for years — it’s a favorite of stock shorters. However, it’s shocking because: 1) People and companies shorting TSLA have gotten absolutely burned in recent years and even months. 2) Model 3 production is ramping up — it’s certainly not at full speed and there have indeed been delays, but production is ramping up.
