in TSLA Jan ’14 $40 C @ $3.7
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Tesla has decided yesterday to announce earnings tomorrow before markets open. Maybe Elon wants to teach shorters a lesson?
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Nicu
sorry, this was a conference call for a “company update”, not earnings call
in short, there is no problem at Tesla, everything on schedule
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“Peter Rawlinson, Palo Alto, California-based Tesla’s vice president and chief engineer, and Nick Sampson, who supervised vehicle and chassis engineering, departed this month, Ricardo Reyes, a company spokesman, said in an e-mailed statement.”
They have been replaced and reported that they had transitioned off Model S before leaving. I think -20% for this is exaggerated, and some news wrongly reported that two members of the board have left which should do some real damage to the stock because that could mean something bad. One executive engineer and a subaltern leaving is not great news but also nothing near -20% proportions.
Unfortunately this gives shorters an easy out so my prediction of a short squeeze just suffered a hit. While not dead yet, it looks weaker each passing month. On 9th February we will see the next car, the Model X.
Have a nice week-end all.
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Nicu
btw, completed today a trade: in 100 $41 Mar TSLA calls @ $.05
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And thèse don’t include Dec and the 4S isn’t yet being sold in China and and and …..
Nicu are you numbers big enough?
http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/09/ios-marketshare-up-from-26-in-q3-to-43-in-octnov-2011/
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Nicu
33.75M – I had it for most of the quarter a slightly over 30M but I had to take into consideration the rain of positive articles and even pro analysts comments, as they have access to very fresh data from surveys, suppliers, carriers etc.
it’s only today that I have seen for the first time the shipping time drop to 3-5 days; they have sold everything they could make – which also verifies the theory of Asymco that this is true long term; this year Apple used the same production facilities, processes and tools for the iPhone (no new design) and knowing they are entering straight the holiday quarter, I think they kept the pedal to the metal every second
I usually estimate my numbers using a “confidence interval” because I empirically found that it works better than simply guessing one number; when I do that I hope that 70-80% of the time the real value falls into it; for the iPhone, my interval is 30.5M-37M
If you guys are interested, I could write an article (on SA) to explain my methodology of cooking up estimates (I’m hesitating because is a potentially boring subject and I’m also a bit lazy)
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JPWatkins
I’m always interested, but hate to impose upon your innate right to laziness.
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Apple Hotels – wouldn’t it be great? I am in a non-Apple hotel at the moment, at a scientific meeting. When you come in the door, the light switch is near the door but is painted the same color as the walls so you can’t see it. The lamps by the bed have an intricate structure to keep you busy trying to find the switch. But the switch, believe it or not, is not on the lamp, it is on a separate black box about a foot away from the lamp itself. The black box has a handy tiny light on it so you can find it in the dark, once you know – and have been able to remember – that it exists. As for electricity, I am typing this on a table across the room from the desk, because the one (1) available electric outlet at the desk I am using for my iPhone charger. Can you imagine how Sir Jony Ive feels when he visits a hotel, ANY hotel? Hotels are a nightmare of non-design. And of course I am paying a huge sum per day to connect to the internet. This hotel even offers different rates (at different prices) if e.g. you want to game. Hey, I am old enough that I remember stopping at a hotel that advertised in neon lights, “Free TV. Rooms $4 and $6.” When I asked her what the difference was, she explained that the $6 rooms have the free TV. Not a joke! And at that time (you can tell how long ago it was from the room price) there were plenty of motel rooms where you had to feed quarters into the TV. Hey, why not have coin meters on the hot water taps in hotel rooms? Anyone else got hotel horror stories?
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Apple earnings on 24th – damn, I have to seek a way to exchange my Jan. calls for Feb. calls
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Nicu
cashed again a spread: exchanged Jan $405 C to $410 C for $3.3 credit
I think I will aim next to exchange for Feb. calls, and that should cost me about $15 in strike (if I do not want to pay money for the spread)
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Nicu
cashed again the spread: exchanged $410 C to $415 C @ $3.55
I think I will try to extract as much cash as possible for the time being and then do the diagonal spread (to extend the expiration date) with weekly calls instead of paying a whole month – even if earnings are gorgeous, there will be a spike followed by an avalanche of sells so Feb. high will not necessarily be higher than Jan. 25th high
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Nicu
cashed again the $420 – $415 spread @ $4
but no Jan. 27 weekly option available, anyone knows when those are coming?
Feb. calls are quite expensive so I may simply need another little jump of AAPL to exchange $420 Jan C to probably $430 or $435 Feb C, for a small price or a little cash, depending on the situation
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Nicu
Jan. 27 weekly options available as of today
– I’ll see how I can play those
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Nicu
cashed again the $425 – $420 C spread @ $4.1
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Nicu
in Jan 27 $350 C @ $3.55 – I may not be able to exchange favorably those calls that expire tomorrow for those weekly things, so I’ll do a bit of improvisation
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Nicu
haha $450 C
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Nicu
improved those $450 C to $445 C @ $1.08
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Nicu
in more $450 C @ $2.5
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apgarten
Why would you buy 450 Calls? Simpler to sell a 425 Put
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Nicu
You have to have margin for those shorted options. You need about $40k in order to be able to win that $1k. As I have limited cash now, I prefer to take extra risks and go for 4x or more
This is also because I lost considerably more on that play since before Oct. earnings, and the fact that Apple missed then, I think increases the odds for a spectacular beat now. I also think an AAPL rally is largely overdue, so I simply bet that earnings (and guidance) will be very good and that will have some effect on investors.
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apgarten
That way if you are bullish after earnings Tuesday you get to keep the $1050/ per put.
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Nicu
in $455 C @ $1.65
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Nicu
improved those to $450 C @ $.7
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Nicu
I have just sold (in disgust I must say) all $450 calls @ $.45 (they were as high as $1.5 earlier today) and all $445 calls @ $1.55 (they were over $4.2 earlier today), which makes me a loss of around $6k on a $8-9k bet on those earnings (the firs important bet I lost was that earnings call was after options expiration – I had something like 28 calls expired / sold for peanuts last week under $440 strike).
I got a final lesson – as if I needed one more – that short term things are not for me. Even if you’re right (great EPS analysis, jump after HUGE report and what not), you’re still wrong.
I’m relatively happy with my long term position on AAPL (23 C for 2013 and 7 C for 2014) but I will definitely not buy any options with less than 6 months to expiration in this rigged game that AAPL is.
Since October I have done some serious errors, starting with not taking enough profits (my portfolio was more than double what it is today, a real bubble) before Oct. earnings. After that, I tried to use some cash to get into high risk / high reward position and I got only the risk.
The only positives in all this period is that I learned to accept defeat and sell for a loss instead of waiting for the expiration and lose everything; I also had some long term ITM calls that expired last week, meaning that I had them for at least one year, that I have milked almost to perfection during January. And of course, that Apple is still strong for the long term, but this was almost obvious all the time and of course I did nothing for that.
Very expensive lessons, I hope some of you can learn them on the cheap from my experience.
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chach17
Nicu – compared to other analysts you are pretty bullish on your iPad estimates. The only other analyst more bullish than you is a call from Alexis Cabot for 19.47M which seems ridiculously high. What factors led to your bullish iPad estimates? I remember reading that many analysts were decreasing their iPad estimates due to competition from the Amazon Fire.
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Nicu
There is a bit of strange dynamic at play about the iPad.
Q2 – most analysts overestimated and Apple sold a lot less due to production bottlenecks
Q3 – underestimate because one also looks at Q/Q growth; but in the real world unsatisfied demand from Q2 was there and production caught up with that; one could say that sales were artificially boosted for that period of the year (as we will have now on the iPhone)
Q4 – most analysts overestimated because it was very tempting to look at Q/Q growth
Q1 – now I think most underestimate again; and for the first time this year, Q/Q historical growth has some meaning because during the last two quarters, as for Q4 10 – Q1 11, there were enough iPads for sale; last year the growth Q/Q was 75% and I think my estimate is about 50%, because the scale is also important, and I do not have enough data on geographical distribution expansionin fact, I do my estimates using “confidence intervals” (no magic formulas, just what I think, taking into accounts various informations, is the range to have about 70-80% chance to fall in); for exact numbers, I tweeted the table here
https://twitter.com/#!/NicuMihalache/status/160081351553454081/photo/1 -
Nicu
Oh, the Fire plays in quite a different segment, people that do not want to buy a $500+ gadget.
I also think iPad will establish with an iPod dynamics: spikes every holiday quarter, but probably less than the +100% spike we used to see with the iPod.
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Nicu
Tim Cook: looking at weekly iPad numbers, there was no discernible effect either + or – from the Fire
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Happy New Year gang!
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Garth Vader
And the best for you too in 2012!
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Oups, I did it again
I would really appreciate the remarks of this select club at Traderhood !
SOURCE:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/317051-apple-and-tesla-motors-serial-disruptors -
I hope this is a preview of things to come at larger scale (first US then Universewide)
Happy New Year everybody !
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DJIA finished it’s last week stochastic upswing. Now firmly above 80% curving down (see chart). This stochastic upswing (in conjunction with other things) was my basis for expectation of markets ending higher in December. One of the other things, that is still in play was, mother of resistances for DJIA @12,285. These things often times act like a magnet and price often won’t give up until it at least briefly crosses over. Which is exactly what happened. Now with stochastic on DJIA above 80% there is possibility for pullback, but my bet is it is again going to be only temporary, and low retracement pullback, before DJIA tries again to do decisive breakout above 12,285. Hopefully at the beginning of January.
One of the other reasons I am more tilted toward the DJIA breakout higher is gold. Although it is dangerously close to it’s own mother of resistances (1,600) and dropping again lower could create snowball, it already tested waters under it and came back. Further, it’s MACD is at a bullish crossover and stochastic is finishing downswing there as well. Gaining gold would put pressure on dollar, making it cheaper which would add fuel to DJIA.
One more thing is swiss franc. It seems to be overbought and reaching it’s zenith. If swiss franc will ease, as it seems it is technically ready to do, that would make euro rise and again dollar to weaken.
Politically Iowa caucuses are week away and there are strong indications that Ron Paul could win. I think that fact could put slight pressure on dollar as well.
Disclosure: I am long on euro.
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Bunratty
I think DIA, SPY, AAPL, QQQ are all overbought and normally would look for a selloff…however Santa Rally looks to be in full swing, so anything goes. Have freed up some cash just in case
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conshmillo
There you have it, and it should push further as gold looks very bullish at the moment. All as expected in original post – DJIA broke through, gold up, dollar down, swiss franc down, euro up.
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conshmillo
P.S. Pay especially attention to 1,650 resistance on /YG (gold futures) because if that one goes, double bottom pattern is filled and gold may go crazy again. If you think it has nothing to do with you, think twice. Higher gold means lower dollar, higher euro (good for me), and higher DJIA as cheaper dollar makes American goods more attractive. And of course higher DJIA means wind in the backs of your own singular stock. Cheers!
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Nicu 3:09 pm on January 20, 2012 16 days ago Reply
more @ $3.4
Nicu 2:41 pm on January 26, 2012 10 days ago Reply
more @ $3.1
Nicu 3:08 pm on January 31, 2012 5 days ago Reply
more @ $3