Let's address your points, not necessarily in order, Spiral3
First and foremost, is a thank you for bringing together into one reply disparate pieces of company based info which I had not connected the dots between. I found it most illuminating and helpful. I trust ratal lal will find it to be so as well, since your reply sprang from the posted exchange between us.
#2) Since your post was lengthy I guess mine will be as well, as you addressed many things of personal curiousity about me, which I have NO problem responding clearly and cogently, even tho' they were mixed in with your stream of consciousness effort to reply, plus your many appreciated cut and paste quoted material inclusions.
#3) Yes, I'm cynical about ELON's story, buildout, vision, etc., but NOT about whether or not their technology "works." I've made rather clear my claim that they've couched their info disemination in what I'd loosely call "engineer speak." Most of that goes right over my "goldbug head" since GOLD is my speciality and NOT tech head stuff. I've made prior reference to the fact that ELON's story has NOT been told in plain English, which is for us ordinary, non-classically trained engineers laity, a pre-requisite to:
#3.A.1 commit funds to a new story stock that has no earnings, and
#3.A.2 commit funds prior to hoped for institutional participation beyond what is currently visible to the best of my understanding, let alone pre-tornado.
Equities either must provide long term stock appreciation, OR pay dividends. ELON has demonstrated neither to date. By your own admission, the run from $40's to $113 was a TRADER'S move not an investors move, which you "missed out on capitalizing upon" if I read your reply correctly, yes?
I'm not "lamenting" missing that run/move, however, you seem to be...another difference in our investment philosophies... or at least our investing "styles/goals/time-horizons."
I personally am more comfortable watching the "pros get the first move" and waiting for the retracement, EVEN if it looks like the ELON train has left the station, which it certainly did appear to do. Therefore, my interest waned and shifted to observation status, until I noticed its SEVERE retracement to the level in which I said I'd be interested in acquiring the stock provided it still offered either LongTerm S/H stock appreciation or dividends.
Since, it is a growth company, Long Term price appreciation is the most likely "reward" for anyone allocating capital into ELON.
As the result of my patience, and steadfast, unwavering price target of $28 or lower, I have studied what info was available--to me anyhow,--which is obviously not the same caliber as the filters with which YOU and others, such as Auric, etc., view ELON. I don't apologize for my filters, I just own them and regularly sein a universe of stocks with my investment goals to see which fit and which don't.
I ran across a certain "survey" which I felt provided an "ah HA" experience, as I sought to understand what ramped the stock price, through an unsustainable degree of entropy move, which in MY Trader Skillset said was doomed. The assumed networth of said herd of individuals intuited by examining SI profiles as one sein, who each told at LEAST 3 golf-buddies in their foursome, was enough of an explanation for me, in a thin float stock, to explain the unsustainable spurt.
I continued to wait patiently for my entry point, a source of some good natured hooting and hollering on this thread. At one point, I believe a couple of threadmates threatened to "hold me down and make me purchase ELON" STILL at levels much higher than my clearly defined target price of interest @$28, a well advertised and well diseminated in earlier thread posts target.
I have made ABUNDANLTY CLEAR that I now use my 20 some year Trader Skillset to establish initial positions in stocks which interest me, as opposed to "Hail, Mary! Buy and Fly" short-termers' game.
Why I've become more cautious now, 20 years later than I was for the last 20 years, I can't fully address. It undoubtedly has to do with my intense personal preparation for Y2K which has benefitted me financially and geographically, but NOT necessarily in the personal networth appreciation by playing the internet techstock sector of the last 2 years with any great enthusiasm. By the time I concluded in early DEC that we, globally, were going to make it through CDC w/out much havoc, I'd already lost almost 2 years of keeping step w/this G&K sector except for fortuitous holdings acquired much earlier in the likes of UNPH/JDSU in particular to name one I've admitted to owning elsewhere on these boards, I am now involved in a networth catch-up mitigation, planning and execution. I apologize to no one for my choices in any regards.
I reject your outright declaration that I was "wrong" to not trade the rush to $113 from $40. Not from my perspective.
And from the vaunted position of your tech-head filtering process, I don't see, by your post that you made a better choice, having ridden it all the way up and back down as well. That's rough, no fun, been there-done that. You said you chose not to play the bounce short-term, either. SO why you throwing stones at me?
Your "regret at not selling" statement is a hindsight utterance. My call for the stock to return to $28 or lower was always a forward looking statement, and one which clearly spelled out that I was NOT going to chase ELON. Therefore, I have NO regrets, contrary to you, spiral3.
One final point here before I move on: institutional participation will and does lift all s/hlders equity values "boats," providing said retail shareholder gets to step infront of said institutional buying. I didn't see it then, I don't see it now. This tells me that for anyone who IS afraid they've missed the ELON train, that there is still time for them to buy, incase any of them are interested. And, if memory serves, one of ELON's "plain English" mgmt goals is to get more than one "analyst" to follow the stock, which of course is "street speak" for more institutional involvement in buying and holding their shares.
Therefore, spiral3, not only was my patience rewarded, by way of my anticipated BUZZCUT in share prices occuring, but said sell-off exceeded my $28 target. The velocity and ferocity of said sell-off put ELON BACK ON MY radar screen as an equity of interest for LT capital appreciation again. This 2nd leg, which I have dubbed as catching the "awake and alert "second leg higher" in many seminars I've given for other traders in my laity circles, this is a MUCHO PREFERRED sweet spot I prefer when making my allocation decisions for short, intermediate AND longer-term equity appreciation goals.
Whether or not I have purchased ELON is of no concern to anyone except myself [and the IRS,] frankly. I feel no need to reveal the makeup of my personal portfolio in regards to ELON. However, readers can draw their own conclusions any way they chose to measure my interest and tenacity wrt ELON thread.
RE: You comment about sarcastic tone is simply not true, altho' I can see why you might take it that way. I supposed defensiveness could be construed as sarcasm, but I do NOT feel sarcastic re: ELON. I certainly feel wary toward some ELON'ers, but that does NOT influence my personal portfolio allocations decision. One is an emotional reaction, the other is a disciplined response. I make financial decisions as impassionately as I can and would advise all to try to behave similarly in their investment decisions.
Now if we can move to some specifics you address re: ELON and mgmt utterances, I'd like to pursue:
A) You stated: I [spiral3] have followed the
company for some time and management has never suggested that control networks in the home market were in the mass adoption phase. In light of this, wrt the home mkt I believe your characterization cranking out these 'LonWorks' installs is flawed. Where I come from "cranking out" would imply a high/ fast rate of adoption and this is currently not the case in the home mkt. Assuming you read the thread, surely the CFO's guidance would have made this clear.
Yes, I have read the thread, and yes, I believe I absorbed correctly the "non-mass home market adoption" statements. That is why it has been such a puzzle to me that it was seized up by other threadmates as THE growth market of the future. To me, that indicated a couple of things: one is that ELON mgmt wasn't communicating their story to the potential or current retail investor if MASS MARKET home was all the retail investors I was reading could grasp/conceptualize.
This is why I asked my "64 nodes" question, frankly. Try as I could with my limited understanding of where ELON was going with their product, I couldn't come UP with anywhere close to a need for 64 nodes in MY home that needed remote controlling, and I DID make a list, and I did spend some time thinking about it from that angle, and it did NOT compute. Therefore, I concluded we non-tech heads are missing the message somehow. And I also concluded, that since we are the recepients of the message, then some of the responsibility for lack of conveying vision clarity rested upon the message SENDER, i.e., ELON mgmt.
Clearly ELON has managed to convey to you and others of your genre their message. But not to me and others of my genre who are as interested in making money as you are I presume.
Therefore, we either continue to bat our heads against unclear vision modality communications from ELON HQ or we find guys like you who DO understand where they are going and what they are trying to do, and ask your genre to "translate," hopefully to shorten our learning curve. Does laying out this explanation and my logic behind it help?
For the most part, ELON speaks a foreign language, and I'm still trying read with understanding and translate that into stock price appreciation.
Now, Balance Sheet analysis...I've got that one pretty wired, as well as all of its offshoots, ratios and FCF such as so excellently laid out by Pirah on G&K thread. But by their very nature, BS's are a BACKWARDS snapshot. I want to understand where ELON is going, not just where they have been. I DO understand WHO they are going about doing business with, but that is only part of the forward picture.
I'll say it again as simply as I can...if ELON used GOLDSPEAK, I'd be right there with them. But since they talk TECHSPEAK, I'm working harder and understanding less most of the time, until people like you step up. Must be why Peter Lynch advocates only investing in what you can illustrate with a box of crayolas.
However, since high-tech telephony, networking, internet stuff is where big money is to be made, I work hard to "color within the lines" as a goldbug. Somedays I don't do it so good, so I rely upon my Trader Skillset filters to help level the playing field for me as I continue to read and learn and ask questions, regardless of the sarcasm directed back at me on any specific investment thread of my interest, both here as well as on RB, etc.
B) You wrote: "re: where to go for a "nearby" residential installation?... not sure I understand your question...do you mean where would one go to see one or where would one go to get one....again I find the choice of your words a little strange when it's been made quite clear by the CFO that the home market has not yet begun to approach mass market adoption. The word "nearby" would imply that you understand the implementation to be ubiquitous...where do you get this idea ?
My error. I was trying to restate ratan's desire to go see an installation, not speak to MY desire to "visit an installation." I wouldn't know what the hell I was looking at if it sat next to me on the City Center Tram. It might make more sense if someone of your caliber or even a talking head Bob Villa were to squire me around said installation, but I'd still go home overwhelmed and unsure as to how it was going to appeal to enough people in enough quantity to make ME any money in my portfolio. Better now?
C) You wrote, albeit sarcastically, "WOW..didn't find it in 5 homes. CFO must be right: no mass market yet." I appreciated the "other companies listed and hyperlinks provided" to buttress your postulate that home automation is being addressed by them, and not necessarily ELON. That was helpful, sarcasm notwithstanding. I assure you, I'll be clicking in each and everyone of them in my effort to get my arms around this market vision/direction. SOme of them I recalled reading and clicking through earlier, but it won't hurt to visit them again in light of your efforts. Thank you.
D) You wrote: when these thrusts tornado... I wish to have a potful of the stock(s) pre-tornado. I consider myself to still be of the younger set, as far as being a benefactor of said tornadoing yet to come, both as a consumer a/w/a an investor. I will not be the "old fogey" rejecting added convenience for an affordable price with recouped cost savings, i.e., utilities. We agree here.
E) You ask: What's in it for me
Asked and answered; asked and answered...as the "funny little man on Ally McBeal" likes to say in the courtroom when objecting to direct or re-direct testimony gathering.
Off to enjoy my day. I've got some new hydrometallurgy experiments slated to round out my day as I perfect a new technique for inclusion in an upcoming book I'm writing. I will be moving to that arena shortly.
Thank you again, sincerely, for your time, your answers, and frankly for giving a shit about a cyberthreader who seems to have stirred up a hornets nest simply ...
by not only having an opinion ...
but by not delivering it in some previously non-ordained manner
...which fits hearers' sensibilities as to the way it "should be voiced, or even that it is voiced at all."
Permit me this particular invective, especially after the week I've had on the G&K threadS!!! The following sentiments are what I try to overcome inorder to secure information that I CAN grasp in dissimilar fields of personal endeavor:
Screw the ubiqutious closed minded, executive washroom keyholders, the cigar club smoking elitists. Screw'em all!
I'm doing the best I can with the filters and skillsets I have developed over the years. I'm striving to make solid bucks via the High Tech equities markets, same as everyone else on here, be they long, short, straddled, strangled, delta hedged, or naked...ELON that is<g>
Thanks again, and sincerely hoping I haven't just re-offended you because you have a set of washroom keys or prefer a good Havana, I am...
Ole "One and only" /49r
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