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.
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.
Like most larger companies, Tesla tightly controls its employees’ interactions with the press. The celebrity execs hold court with a selected circle of hip media outlets, but the rank-and-file employees are trained to avoid reporters like dangerous sharks. So Business Insider scored quite a coup when it secured permission to speak with four employees who have “some of the coolest jobs at Tesla.”
Tesla isn’t a car company. It’s a battery company that sells most of its batteries with wheels attached.
The performance-based compensation package Tesla’s board recently proposed for Tesla CEO Elon Musk has drawn a variety of responses to date. After two of the most prominent proxy advisory firms out there came out against the proposal and urged shareholders to vote against it, Tesla’s fourth largest investor, the T. Rowe Price Group, seemingly came out in favor of the proposal.
Having taken delivery of his Tesla Model 3, our founder (and Dad) Roger Pressman decided it was worthwhile to show off the car locally here at the EVANNEX offices in South Florida. Even with the Model 3 currently on display at a local Miami store, RSVPs came flooding in via Tesla Owners Florida (special thanks to Club President Larry Chanin). But it wasn’t just the Model 3 that would be at this marquee event.
It’s remarkable that Tesla rocketed from its IPO to surpassing Ford in value in just 7 years. Tesla’s prowess on Wall Street has left many investors miffed. After all, Ford recently announced 2017 sales of over 6.6 million cars worldwide. Meanwhile, Tesla barely cracked sales of 100,000 cars. How could an industry behemoth like Ford be overtaken by this younger, smaller Silicon Valley startup?
