PIMPING STOCKS

[bobblehead]

They already have 20B earmarked for buybacks at a 70B market cap. They'll do another 20 over the next two years most likely based on free cash flow. I suspect growth will resume again. I think it will double. It will take some time during this market correction but now is the time to buy IMO. Lots of great deals.

I've seen 15B in buybacks and they are going to get a better deal as the market cap is down to 66B since you typed this. I do agree this is good news (which is ironic since you view dividends as a negative, but buybacks as a positive) and will probably help valuation, but its no lock. I'd rather they give a dividend in my pocket while I wait for the value to play out because cash in my pocket is a lock. But understand that Paypal is just another company that used to trade at pie in the sky valuations and crashed hard. Over 300$ and p/e over 70x just a few years ago. They now trade "right". As I said 50% is justified, but with no dividend to pay me to wait I'll invest in companies like AES or SON that are even more undervalued and pay solid dividends.

[wootah]

Now it seems you have a different vision of the company that hasn't changed one bit since then.

Never expressed my vision on Tesla before so kudos for knowing how it changed. Not a stockmarket guy, but it seems you are: how do you explain the 50% drop since the peak in december? You think it's a market correction based on 'fundamentals'?

[bobblehead]

Never expressed my vision on Tesla before so kudos for knowing how it changed. Not a stockmarket guy, but it seems you are: how do you explain the 50% drop since the peak in december? You think it's a market correction based on 'fundamentals'?

Of course his political activism has caused the sudden drop, but that drop was happening sooner or later unless he unveils robotaxis and personal robots. The stock has been wildly overvalued. But understand one thing here. You said "I don't see coming back from this". As if the company were fundamentally flawed because people reacted to something that has zero to do with the fundamentals of the company. Thats just an irrational position. If robotaxis get approved tomorrow the stock skyrockets. Nothing has changed about Tesla the company except your view of the CEO (who hasn't changed the company).

Its fine if you aren't a "stockmarket guy". My point was and is, keep your politics to FYI. If you aren't a stockmarket guy, leave it alone here. If you want to discuss Tesla's crash and, with no passion, discuss if the company has no path to sustainability because of Elon's involvement in politics I'm happy to. My opinion is that is a fucking dumb position to take. Target got a bit too activist and crashed, same with Budweiser. Both stocks are making their way back based on fundamentals. Tesla however was valued as if they cured cancer....same as Palantir (Thiel is a big Trumper as well, but he stays more quiet about it). But one good press release and Tesla will pop again. The true believers will buy and they won't care if Elon is doing dastardly things like rescuing astronauts or not.

[wootah]

Of course his political activism has caused the sudden drop, but that drop was happening sooner or later unless he unveils robotaxis and personal robots. The stock has been wildly overvalued. But understand one thing here. You said "I don't see coming back from this". As if the company were fundamentally flawed because people reacted to something that has zero to do with the fundamentals of the company. Thats just an irrational position. If robotaxis get approved tomorrow the stock skyrockets. Nothing has changed about Tesla the company except your view of the CEO (who hasn't changed the company).

Its fine if you aren't a "stockmarket guy". My point was and is, keep your politics to FYI. If you aren't a stockmarket guy, leave it alone here. If you want to discuss Tesla's crash and, with no passion, discuss if the company has no path to sustainability because of Elon's involvement in politics I'm happy to. My opinion is that is a fucking dumb position to take. Target got a bit too activist and crashed, same with Budweiser. Both stocks are making their way back based on fundamentals. Tesla however was valued as if they cured cancer....same as Palantir (Thiel is a big Trumper as well, but he stays more quiet about it). But one good press release and Tesla will pop again. The true believers will buy and they won't care if Elon is doing dastardly things like rescuing astronauts or not.

Musks politics indeed are the main driver here, so if needed we can switch it to FYI, but I think the stock & company can be discussed without jumping into the politics themselves (which I also did not do in my previous posts, btw).

I cannot speak about the hit the brand has taken in the US which is still Tesla's biggest market obviously, but here in Europe it has been absolutely catastrophic. In a matter of weeks, Tesla turned from an Apple-like hipster brand into the representation of something that is straight up despised. Cars are getting vandalised in the streets, are being named 'Swasticars' or 'MAGAcars', sales have plummeted (-42% in the EU as a whole even though overal EV sales rose 30%) and the link between the brand & Musks political activism is more & more present in everyday life (newspapers, tv shows or even in the streets - just google "Musk posters london").

While it's hard to quantify the extent to which Tesla's reputation has been affected in Europe, JPMorgan analysts said in a note published earlier in March that the scale of the change to Tesla's brand value was unprecedented. "We struggle to think of anything analogous in the history of the automotive industry, in which a brand has lost so much value so quickly," JPMorgan's analysts wrote.

Link

If you look at other major businesses that had to overcome this political brandishing I cannot recall anything even coming remotely close to this. Target & Budweiser are US brands so there never was an impact here. You could be right in that the taxi's might change it, but over here the linked associations linked have destroyed the brand and what it stood for & I would be very surprised to see this being rebuilt in the near future if ever.

As choosing a car is often emotional or they represent a status symbol (people cannot see you payslip, but they see what you drive), this emotional value is very important when deciding which one to buy. A half year ago you were cool if you had a Tesla, now you are embarrassed to be seen in one.

[bobblehead]

Thats all fair, and the brand has definitely suffered here as well. But again, a company can't keep a 100x P/E based on brand. It needs to show the money eventually. Apple was wildly popular AND profitable. Right now its way overvalued, brand or not. Tesla is also way overvalued and not nearly profitable enough. However the company has always traded on the promises of reimaging the world and that hasn't changed. The vandalism and such will subside as people are thrown in jail for damaging the cars of their political doppelgangers (most tesla owners are leftist. Like 73% I have read). We can't allow a company to be ruined because of violence against those that own the product. Could you imagine if suddenly people started attacking anyone they see with an iPhone? Its heinous and needs to end (here. I don't care what they do in Europe).

Tesla will chug along because the car they put on the road is a far better value than almost any other. That was true when Elon was voting for Biden and it will be true until other car makers catch up. But as a car company he can't hold the valuation it trades at. They need the robotaxi or the iRobot to justify the price associated with the stock....again, brand or not. I promise when wine swilling soccer mom can own a robot to vacuum and put dishes away along with a myriad of other chores she will forget about Elon real quick.

[call_me_ishmael]

I personally think Tesla is the most likely to 10x of all the tech stocks right now. Optimus is going to be a huge product (although I will never buy one, and I wonder how many are like me. The ending of Ex Machina is way too creepy with the eerie silence of the robot stabbing the guy).

But it will be insanely huge in the workplace I imagine.

I think Tesla is the company best positioned to win in real-world AI applications because they A) have the money to bank roll it, B) have the engineering talent to do it right, and C) a maniacal sense of urgency that 98% of other companies don't have.

China will of course steal it and create similar stuff due to their culture over there. We will ban it here.

[bobblehead]

I personally think Tesla is the most likely to 10x of all the tech stocks right now. Optimus is going to be a huge product (although I will never buy one, and I wonder how many are like me. The ending of Ex Machina is way too creepy with the eerie silence of the robot stabbing the guy).

But it will be insanely huge in the workplace I imagine.

I think Tesla is the company best positioned to win in real-world AI applications because they A) have the money to bank roll it, B) have the engineering talent to do it right, and C) a maniacal sense of urgency that 98% of other companies don't have.

China will of course steal it and create similar stuff due to their culture over there. We will ban it here.

I agree with a lot of what you say, but my money is actually on Amazon. You say to 10x but without giving a timeline. I just can't see any of the big boys 10x any time soon. Maybe a Micron could. Funny thing about predicting a 10x, you are more likely to lose half your cash than you are to be right. I haven't met the guy who can do it yet (although a lot of guys like Matt McCall brag about nailing the 10x while ignoring the 14 stocks that they called a 10x that got cut in half).

edit: I go back to something I said somewhere here. There is a reason "the motley fool" still crows about crushing Amazon 25+ years ago....because they got lucky and haven't duplicated their success since.

[bobblehead]

TSM (Taiwan semi conductor) has been routed with the rest of the tech world. It looks like a nice 20% annual for the next 3 years SHOULD happen if you buy it today.

[bobblehead]

Seems suddenly everyone has lost their appetite for talking stocks. I get it, its not fun seeing the portfolio crater. I'm extending my margin and adding to some really high quality stocks that pay 6-10% dividends. In the short, the dividends will pay for my margin expense, when the market recovers I'll selectively pay it off and pocket the price difference while having more options for the selling I'll have to do.

One thing baffled me yesterday (well, annoyed more than baffled). Amateur investors (and that includes a lot of people who call themselves professionals) seem to think the stock market consists of 7 stocks. Yesterday Trump announced the pause on additional reciprocal tariffs but also crushed China in the process. Enter stupidity. Apple is so dependent on China for its supply chain its sick. To be honest during that super rally yesterday they should have cratered on that news. But not to the "smart" amateurs. Instead a stock that is already overvalued....even AFTER the 4 day route, getting the worst news possible, managed to rally harder than the broader market by an extra 5%. But thats what makes investing so profitable. Peoples mistakes have allowed me to live in a 12% world when it should be a 7% world. If everything were priced perfectly it would be easier though.

[call_me_ishmael]

I've just been busy. I don't recall ever being busier in my life than the past 6 months. What are some of the big dividend stocks you're doing? At a high, I had about 3.3M in stocks, so I wouldn't mind putting ~1M of it into something that will generate a solid low risk return like that

I'm down a lot right now, damn tariffs and deepseek. Sitting at 2.3

[bobblehead]

You're still sitting pretty. I'll give you two big names, one is an ETF. PFFA is a fund of preferred stocks. Its taken a beating and paying about 10.4% at cost. Its not sexy. It won't go up by more than 20% long term almost no matter what. But man that dividend is on as safe of grounds as a 10% dividend can be. I have levered up about an extra 100k in it during this weakness.

MPLX is a pipeline that was sponsored by Marathon oil. They get paid to move/store oil and natural gas around. They don't care what the price of oil is. I've owned it forever and keep adding more. Pays over an 8% dividend at current price, gives raises every year and I don't see a scenario where that doesn't continue (in fairness I didn't see closing the entire planet for 3 months because of a virus that wasn't near as bad as they made it out to be though).

How about a single preferred stock. REXR/PRC is going for about 21.5 and paying a 6.5% dividend at cost. Its callable next month at 25 (they won't call it, but if they do...yay). They are an industrial REIT that is 100% in SoCal infill market. Their assets are as necessary as any out there. The underlying company has raised its dividend for 15 years (they can't suspend a preferred dividend without suspending the common). This stock WILL pay 6.5% annually and someday be called at 25. Thats a nice drip in any environment. Again, it will NEVER go over 25 again as the company will be allowed to buy it for 25 in less than 30 days, but a totally safe grind.

[bobblehead]

Ouch. I see no coming back from this, so get out while you can.

Seems you need some glasses. Imagine if someone had taken your sage "stock" advice and got out while they could!! Would have missed out on 41% rally.

[wootah]

Seems you need some glasses. Imagine if someone had taken your sage "stock" advice and got out while they could!! Would have missed out on 41% rally.

Now, myself....I've been saying Tesla is overvalued for years. I pointed out that they had no possible path to justify a price of $250 back in 2020ish. Based on fundamentals it should be a $100 stock right now, but leftist told me I was stupid back then cuz elon would change the world.

You & me both, brother

[Fosco33]

Palantir hit $130 today. 10x on that for me. Super over valued but whatever.

[Bretsky]

Palantir hit $130 today. 10x on that for me. Super over valued but whatever.

DITTO. Did great on that one