I've been following Tesla Motors (NASDAQ:TSLA) with a bit of interest lately, as have many market watchers and potential investors. For those who are unaware, Tesla manufactures luxury electric vehicles in California, which is also currently their primary market. Tesla has been in the news recently (hence, this blog) because of their very positive sales numbers. According to a USA Today story, Tesla's solitary product, a luxury performance sedan, outsold Porsche, Lincoln, Land Rover, Jaguar... in fact, the first half of 2013, the Model S even outsold the Audi A6 and Lexus GS in California, beating Tesla's sales target for the entire year, and turning a profit.
I'm pretty impressed, but there is not enough here for me to invest. Here's why.
Like most investors of any size (and I'm definitely in the small category), I'm pretty careful about where my money goes. Also, like most investors, I've had my share of hits, misses and "woulda, coulda, shoulda" investments. I looked at Tesla, much like everyone that has an interest in "The Market" when that story came out; at that time I think the stock closed just under 132 USD per share. Today it is around 167 USD per share. When Tesla was an IPO (initial public offering) it was offered at around 37 USD per share. So as of today, this stock is essentially a "four-bagger"; that is, it has quadrupled in price. If you had purchased it at the IPO, you'd be sitting on a pretty profit.
Of course, if you had purchased Ford (NYSE:F) in the dark days of 2008, you could have had a share for less than 1 USD, I believe. It closed today just under 16 USD per share. A 16 bagger.
When it comes to investing, one of the greatest voices I've ever heard was Peter Lynch. Lynch was the first fund manager to take a mutual fund over the 1 billion USD valuation. I've learned much from his book One Up On Wall Street and I highly recommend it to all investors. Lynch said he learned much from watching his wife: while he concentrated on the "gee-whiz" high tech stocks of the era, she would continuously shop at the same stores and purchase the same brands. Of course, she was not an investor- she was a consumer. But, when he started observing her behavior, he ran the numbers on some of her favorites and had one of those epiphanies: these companies were not merely solid investments, but were growing! After some time, her purchasing patterns changed, and he asked her about this. She gave her views and then he checked the numbers. Sure enough, they were no longer growing and he saw "sell" written all over their balance sheets (figuratively speaking).
So, my takeaway from Mr. Lynch regarding stocks is this: more than anything else, if you can't explain what a company does- no matter how good the fundamentals look- walk away, McFly. These equities are not the equities you're looking for. My extrapolated corollary is this: if you can't see, feel, taste or touch it, walk away.
And so it goes, sadly, with Tesla Motors. I really like the story: an efficient, high performance, high-tech automobile- even made in the United States! But after that, it goes south for me really fast. First, there's the ~90K USD entry price. The company has announced more models are in the pipeline, including a more down-to-earth ~30K USD model. That's good. However, even though I learned today that Tesla does have dealerships outside of California (in several parts of the world, including two in the Chicago area), I have never seen one, nor do I know anyone that owns one, nor have I ever seen one of their charging stations.
So, although this may be the next Google or Apple, it just isn't a good fit for my investing style, and I'm going to take a pass.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Showing posts with label Tesla. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tesla. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
I Want To Tell You
George Harrison really doesn't get a lot of credit as far as the Beatles go... well, apart from being the reason the Beatles were deported from Germany, at least. "I Want to Tell You" finally rose to the top for today's blog title after considering a number of rain related titles.
Yesterday was the third consecutive day that I tried to cut the grass, as well as the third consecutive day that we experienced rain, and storms, so my first choice was Eurythmics' "Here Comes the Rain Again," which was appropriate. Then, another Harrison song, "Rain" came to mind. I had almost decided to use CCR's "Who'll Stop the Rain?" when Duran Duran's "Hold Back the Rain" came to mind. Sheesh! What's a blogger to do? The thing that made the decision for me was this: I didn't start out to write about the rain, but it's pretty much what got today's post going.
I woke up unnaturally early on Tuesday morning, fifteen minutes before my 0730 alarm. I did all of the usual morning stuff, and by 0800 had my first cup of tea in hand. The weather was threatening rain, but I figured that as long as the rain was light, I would cut the grass. Rain came (but there wasn't much actual precipitation), thunder came, and then it was clear. The weather went through a few cycles like this. After my fifth cup of tea (~1300CST), I had decided I'd had enough. It was relatively dry and the grass was taunting me. I changed into my grass cutting gear and headed out.
As we had been rained out the previous day, I knew the gas tank was full. I proceeded to pull on the starter handle; I was rewarded with the handle coming off the string! I made a bigger knot which actually survived a few pulls before coming off again. Jennifer must have been watching, because she came out of the house. In the most measured and polite voice that I could muster under the circumstances, I handed the green plastic handle to her and said, "Fix it. Please." I then went to the fence and pulled down some of the ubiquitous wild morning glories.
After a few minutes she had reattached the handle and given the motor a few unsuccessful cranks. Undaunted, she went into the garage and got out Ye Olde Sparkplug Socket and removed Ye Olde Sparkplug. It was somewhat fouled, so I got a paper towel, dipped it in some gasoline, and gave it a good cleaning. She replaced Ye Olde Sparkplug, reattached the wire, and it started on the second crank. Then, I proceeded to cut the grass. The grass was higher than we usually allow it to grow, so it took around forty-five minutes to cut. It was also incredibly humid: by the time I was done, there was sweat on top of my perspiration.
I put the mower away, went inside and cleaned up. I made myself a delicious concoction of spicy seafood ramen, Progresso Tomato Basil soup and cheddar cheese and started this blog entry. I infrequently go to work in the "front half" (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday) of the week, but I text or email every day to see if I'm needed. I was pleasantly surprised when the asked me to come in.
And then it rained some more. Now, about twenty-four hours later, we have flooding, flood warnings, flash flood warnings and more rain is forecast.
Whew! After all of that, what I Want To Tell You is this: I found a couple of pieces in cyberspace that I wanted to share. The first one claims that "80% is the new 100%" and other one through a finely detailed chain of events example effectively refutes the first. I think the author of the first piece might have been speaking from his own experience about growing into a more effective manager, but in the world I live in, 80% almost NEVER cuts it. In my world, when I am proofreading something which has an expiration of July 17, 2013 11:59, that isn't good enough- because sometimes my world is based in internet time, 24/7, and 11:59 not only needs to be followed by A.M. or P.M., but the time zone also needs to be specified. I could go on and on and on, but I think you get the idea.
Lastly, Jennifer and I were at the library today, pretty much intending just to drop a few things off. However, I thought we'd go up to the fourth floor to see if we could see any of the flooding. This time, there was no water. We went to the New Books shelf, and a title caught my eye. With great excitement, I grabbed R For Dummies before anyone else could! I had actually been looking for something like this for the past several months! I showed it to Jennifer, and she naturally said, "What's R?" I took a breath, gathered my thoughts and gave her the best answer I could think of: "R is the freeware version of S." I got the deer-in-the-headlights look. I eventually was able to explain that R is a language used to graphically represent statistics. It's easy enough to understand, but it's not always that easy to explain. At this point reality came crashing through the R-induced fog, and Jennifer remembered that Mr. T needed a new book to read. I had a thought that he might enjoy a nice biography of Nikolai Tesla, so I went off in search of that while she browsed the electronic catalog. Surprisingly, every one of the Tesla books missing from the shelves, so I went to check the electronic catalog to confirm this. They were indeed all checked out, the catalog confirmed, but I found a few other interesting titles. I went into the stacks and grabbed The Physics Book. It is a softcover book approximately 500 pages in length, and the pages are equally divided between text and pictures or illustrations. It covers milestones, persons and generally presents the history of physics in a very readable format. Another book that caught my eye but I did not check out was Physics for Entertainment. It was written in 1913 and apparently was a best-seller in the 1930's at one time. Curious, curious title.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Timehack 062713 0532
Yesterday was the third consecutive day that I tried to cut the grass, as well as the third consecutive day that we experienced rain, and storms, so my first choice was Eurythmics' "Here Comes the Rain Again," which was appropriate. Then, another Harrison song, "Rain" came to mind. I had almost decided to use CCR's "Who'll Stop the Rain?" when Duran Duran's "Hold Back the Rain" came to mind. Sheesh! What's a blogger to do? The thing that made the decision for me was this: I didn't start out to write about the rain, but it's pretty much what got today's post going.
I woke up unnaturally early on Tuesday morning, fifteen minutes before my 0730 alarm. I did all of the usual morning stuff, and by 0800 had my first cup of tea in hand. The weather was threatening rain, but I figured that as long as the rain was light, I would cut the grass. Rain came (but there wasn't much actual precipitation), thunder came, and then it was clear. The weather went through a few cycles like this. After my fifth cup of tea (~1300CST), I had decided I'd had enough. It was relatively dry and the grass was taunting me. I changed into my grass cutting gear and headed out.
As we had been rained out the previous day, I knew the gas tank was full. I proceeded to pull on the starter handle; I was rewarded with the handle coming off the string! I made a bigger knot which actually survived a few pulls before coming off again. Jennifer must have been watching, because she came out of the house. In the most measured and polite voice that I could muster under the circumstances, I handed the green plastic handle to her and said, "Fix it. Please." I then went to the fence and pulled down some of the ubiquitous wild morning glories.
After a few minutes she had reattached the handle and given the motor a few unsuccessful cranks. Undaunted, she went into the garage and got out Ye Olde Sparkplug Socket and removed Ye Olde Sparkplug. It was somewhat fouled, so I got a paper towel, dipped it in some gasoline, and gave it a good cleaning. She replaced Ye Olde Sparkplug, reattached the wire, and it started on the second crank. Then, I proceeded to cut the grass. The grass was higher than we usually allow it to grow, so it took around forty-five minutes to cut. It was also incredibly humid: by the time I was done, there was sweat on top of my perspiration.
I put the mower away, went inside and cleaned up. I made myself a delicious concoction of spicy seafood ramen, Progresso Tomato Basil soup and cheddar cheese and started this blog entry. I infrequently go to work in the "front half" (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday) of the week, but I text or email every day to see if I'm needed. I was pleasantly surprised when the asked me to come in.
And then it rained some more. Now, about twenty-four hours later, we have flooding, flood warnings, flash flood warnings and more rain is forecast.
Whew! After all of that, what I Want To Tell You is this: I found a couple of pieces in cyberspace that I wanted to share. The first one claims that "80% is the new 100%" and other one through a finely detailed chain of events example effectively refutes the first. I think the author of the first piece might have been speaking from his own experience about growing into a more effective manager, but in the world I live in, 80% almost NEVER cuts it. In my world, when I am proofreading something which has an expiration of July 17, 2013 11:59, that isn't good enough- because sometimes my world is based in internet time, 24/7, and 11:59 not only needs to be followed by A.M. or P.M., but the time zone also needs to be specified. I could go on and on and on, but I think you get the idea.
Lastly, Jennifer and I were at the library today, pretty much intending just to drop a few things off. However, I thought we'd go up to the fourth floor to see if we could see any of the flooding. This time, there was no water. We went to the New Books shelf, and a title caught my eye. With great excitement, I grabbed R For Dummies before anyone else could! I had actually been looking for something like this for the past several months! I showed it to Jennifer, and she naturally said, "What's R?" I took a breath, gathered my thoughts and gave her the best answer I could think of: "R is the freeware version of S." I got the deer-in-the-headlights look. I eventually was able to explain that R is a language used to graphically represent statistics. It's easy enough to understand, but it's not always that easy to explain. At this point reality came crashing through the R-induced fog, and Jennifer remembered that Mr. T needed a new book to read. I had a thought that he might enjoy a nice biography of Nikolai Tesla, so I went off in search of that while she browsed the electronic catalog. Surprisingly, every one of the Tesla books missing from the shelves, so I went to check the electronic catalog to confirm this. They were indeed all checked out, the catalog confirmed, but I found a few other interesting titles. I went into the stacks and grabbed The Physics Book. It is a softcover book approximately 500 pages in length, and the pages are equally divided between text and pictures or illustrations. It covers milestones, persons and generally presents the history of physics in a very readable format. Another book that caught my eye but I did not check out was Physics for Entertainment. It was written in 1913 and apparently was a best-seller in the 1930's at one time. Curious, curious title.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Timehack 062713 0532
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