vchong8
03-07

SpaceX launched the eighth test flight of Starship, the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built, from its Starbase site in South Texas on Thursday evening (March 6).

Starship's huge first-stage booster, known as Super Heavy, came back to Starbase for a launch-tower catch about seven minutes after liftoff as planned. But the vehicle's 171-foot-tall (52 meters) upper stage — called Starship or just Ship — experienced a serious problem shortly thereafter and ended up exploding over the Atlantic Ocean.

https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/watch-fiery-spacex-starship-flight-8-debris-rain-down-over-the-bahamas-video


The Year of the Snake mad Trump's second term sees Elon's induction as chief Minion to Mr Despicable. Mr Musk has been busy slashing through the Democratic run overgrown jungle with his magic DOGE sword. Sharing the limelight with his beloved hero, the young men boast of clearing bushes when in fact much was weeds and valuable plants integral to US soft power.

Nevertheless, falling Tesla sales in Europe and China belies a more serious situation at his companies. While X can run on fresh air and water, the hyper competitive autonomous automotive industry is getting a make over even before Telsa's robotaxis launch in June. BYD and Geely have both announced FSD capabilities across their entire product line-ups challenging Tesla's Autopilot upgrade for $8,000 amid cheaper LiDAR modules. Premium models will use LiDAR and radar sensors in addition to cameras.

Elon is still running his companies as an outside investor than a hands on CEO despite being the actual CEO. His superhuman ability to multi task puts the rest of us to shame.


His appearance seems to have only occur on Earnings calls making promises that are often delayed or postponed to an indefinite date. 

His persona and ego is obviously getting the better of him and Tesla's stock price. 


Tesla has since dropped 35% to a more reasonable valuation but we are not out of the woods yet. While his peers like Nvidia, Apple and Amazon are required and priced for perfect execution, not so our Mr Musk. Is the stock a buy at this price? At $270, fanboys will have to support the price, if you are Warren, probably $200 could be a good entry. Meanwhile, I will continue to sell bullish put spreads. 


Happy trading!

$Tesla Motors(TSLA)$  $TSLA VERTICAL 250307 PUT 250.0/PUT 260.0$ 

@vchong8：$Tesla Motors(TSLA)$ TESLA stock price has dropped from a recent high of $488 18th Dec 2024 post election results when Trump won to $419 on Trump's inauguration on 20th Jan. Post earnings, Tesla continue it's downtrend to $361 7th Feb. Why I was bearish from $488 and continue to believe that Tesla will revisit the $300 level soon. Fundamentally, a lot has changed, Tesla late release of new cheaper models, Model 2 expected in Mar this year and a $5,000 price increase for Model X are just the beginning of a slew of negatives. Trump's rollback of green energy initiatives will continue to hurt and give reprieve to Ford and GM. A dramatic 11% drop in China's EV sales was not unexpected given the fiercely competitive Chinese EV market and a slowing consumer economy, however, the plummeting sales of 59% in EU amid rising demand for EVs brings fresh challenges. Tesla's big bet on robotaxis and potential global rollout globally will keep the wheel spinning but I see two major flaws which could be catastrophic for robotaxis. The lack of LiDAR which is becoming mainstream for FSD (full self driving) due to lower costs, wider range and streamlined size $HSAI Hesai Technology means Tesla's reliance on cameras alone risk collision with high speed vehicles outside the range of it's cameras especially in the dark. Waymo's self driving taxis rollout in limited cities shows that LiDAR is a crucial component of FSD. The all in on deploying unsupervised FSD technology without the use of LiDAR will be an interesting experiment. Not having steering wheel at the helm makes it impossible to pivot to supervised FSD in the event of teething problems with the initial rollout. If successful, it could herald a shift away from LiDAR for FSD and hasten the deployment of AI at the edge. The launch of Cybercab is another exciting milestone for Tesla's drive to disrupt all land transportation but it's rollout will be limited by rollback of green energy incentives and Trump's endorsement of greater use of gasoline powered vehicles. Elon's forecast of millions of Optimus humanoid robots in 2025 and 2026 is both exciting and disturbing, heralding a new era where humanoid robots will finally be amongst us not unlike a Terminator movie where jobs will be lost even as Musk.D.O.G.E. cleansing already threatens millions of government jobs. Furthermore, the distractions of D. O. G. E, Space X and Twitter means Tesla will not get the pressing attention it needs at a crucial time. All these could lead to massive job displacements as the unemployment rates rise, Uber drivers are out of a job, migrant labor leaves, straining consumption. All in all, the dawn of a new era in AI and robotics will likely increase Tesla's valuation for 2026 and beyond but for now I am betting on a retracement to the $300 level which present buying opportunities for the stock.
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Comments

  • LesleyNewman
    03-11
    LesleyNewman
    Impressive insights! Always a pleasure! [Great]
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