John, what a refreshing post. Let me address 5 specific points you made:
First your comment:...and your price calls have been right on target for the short term trades in this volatile market, for that personally I'm grateful, but are they really relevant to a long term investor here other than timing an entry that may be of little consequence 5 years down the road?
In a word, John, YES they are really relevant, whether your timeframe is 5 weeks, 5 months, 5 years or 5 decades. Everyone has an "entry point" and to maximize return on investment, the lower the better, agreed?
Since this is a "new story stock," I submit for your consideration that looking for an 'initial entry point" in this stock is very much of consequence 5 years down the road.
If you recall, that was the whole purpose of my looking for $28 bucks per share in the first place, which I was jeered and hooted at as the stock soared to $113 in about the space of what 3 - 4 weeks AFTER I stated my initial buy target?
If you further recall, this thread became inundated with those crowing about purchasing at $80ish and being so very "grateful they got it that low"...who knows if they were "momo players" or initial position "investors." I certainly drew my conclusions from their contextual appearance, but cannot say for sure.
I would further submit, from some of the private eMail I have received that there are plenty lurking in this stock who purchased at or about $100 per share that are still holding. THOSE "investors" are pretty sick about the share price right now. They, TOO, have been asking me how I arrived at my $28 initial buy point target, I assume seeking assurance that "$28ish" is the point of relative maximum painful exposure for them so that they can hang on and not "take the horrendous loss" for their haste, or as you put it "of little consequence in 5 years" point of entry.
I guess, John, the above is another way of saying, it is all about perspective, yes?
SECONDLY;
I have stated on this thread many times that I USED TO BE a stock trader, but have since changed that modus operandi to being one of an "investor" in certain issues, of which I was entertaining ELON being one of those long term positions I wanted to INITIATE.
I further stated that I was using my trader skillset to assess an entry point I could live with inorder to maximize MY CAPITAL ALLOCATION to ELON. MY NUMBER ONE FOCUS ON MY DECISION MAKING IS FOR MY PERSONAL AGGRANDIZEMENT AND ENRICHMENT" and not some arrogant altruistic idealism to other threaders' financial benefit motive.
Furthermore, I was faithful to my "prescient, initial position assessment" by re-visiting that $28 buy point, in full view of this thread, PRIOR TO THE MONDAY PLUNGE TO $21. I clearly stated as plainly and publically as I made the $28 buy point call prior to the parabolic run-up, that $28 would not hold the downside in this stock's price, and in effect "pulled my personal buy target of $28" until the picture cleared as I fully anticipated ELON's share price sagging even further.
I gave my reasons why I thought so, in that last weekend series of posts. Sure 'nuff, come Monday last, down ELON went and hit $21ish, making me look like a hero again, but more importantly, PRESERVING MY CAPITAL ALLOCATION by sticking to my guns.
I also preserved not only personal capital allocation, BUT ALSO MY PERSONAL INTEGRITY by pre-posting my PULLING of my $28 buy point target BEFORE that TA level of support was to be decisively penetrated 3 CALENDAR DAYS LATER. My personal integrity re: my TA calls on ELON for the purpose of MY PERSONAL ENTRY as an investor into this stock must be of no interest to anyone other than myself, a point I'm now fully apprised of. I will NOT be making the mistake of sharing PUBLICALLY or PRIVATELY any ELON targets again.
You all have UnclWest as your preferred indicator now, as he stated $20ish shares of ELON were a free as far as he is concerned. I suggest you and others ask HIM why, since he did NOT stick his neck out and pre-advertise anything that might have been considered useful to Long Term Investors looking for a specific price point of Entry as I did.
Thirdly, you write:
In the following excerpt from the recent company press release it seems to me that the picture is improving across the board for the company. Net losses are decreasing, revenues are increasing, while operating expenses have only slightly increased, margins are expanding, not decreasing, and the company is now shipping a Cisco certified and branded revenue generating product that I consider to be a step or two above a widget... and FWIW I think ELON products and patents are about a whole lot more than "saving electricity". Also, am I correct that these #s account for apx, 1 million more shares outstanding?
Now we find some further points of agreement, John.
WIDGET is an old Accounting 101 illustration used in many colleges and universities across this land to differentiate between those business models we were assessing "in cathedra" who made PRODUCTS for resale, aka WIDGETS, as opposed to SERVICE provider business models. For the life of me, those who think I'm insulting their precious ELON product stream by calling them "widgets" are totally off their feed, and are nit-picking. In my mind they are just plain scared, and, I submit, "ignorant money," totally freaked out by the current plunge in their stock's capital value.
Furthermore, we agree that ELON's products are about more than Saving electricity! AND the indisputable fact that this "electricity angle" is the ONLY thing that threaders on here seem to have focused on, and I have drawn attention to that remarkable singularity of mindset...
well, John, said "tangent" has been a personal and private indicator to me that ELON has NOT told their story well-enough for their shareholders to even understand what they are buying.
And as long as that "electricity saving tangent" was the only concept that seemed to ganner comment and understanding, and allowing for VERY LITTLE INSTITUTIONAL INTEREST AND FOLLOWING, I perceived and used this "electrical barometer" as it were, in regards to this stock as a "SENTIMENT INDICATOR" and correctly assessed ELON to be in very weak hands. This only further buttressed my personal assessment: my downside targets were not only still very reasonable, but that they were very VERY like to be met and THEY INDEED were.
It is my understanding that ELON management follows this thread, primarily due to the efforts of a couple souls on here, and...even tho' I have no proof other than the fact that ELON hasn't been talking in PLAIN ENGLISH in their press releases about what it is they DO make and how it is going to be USED...
...ELON COULD conceiveably improve the stability of their THIN FLOAT, VOLATILE share price, should that even be a priority, simply by clearing up this little "electricity only" matter in future P/R which I presume are put out for consumption by others besides the "analysts' community." Let's hear it for "plain English product descriptors and future applications."
Plain English is not just the new pervue/court mandated writ of "insurance contracts" and "legal referendum languaging at election time," but should also be a mandate in ELON Press Releases as well, agreed? Furthermore, it wouldn't hurt if they asked a John or Jane Doe to review the content of their "vaunted website" for some Plain English interpretation application as well...but since Press Releases and Websites are written by Legal Departments for SEC viewing only, I presume this is a vain hope...<sigh>
Or let me put it another way: Congratulations, John, for picking up on my highlighting this narrow viewpoint tanget by my constant tattoo in the last few series of posts, even to the point of absurdity, ---i.e., prison electricity as opposed to factory electricity comes to mind---and seeing it for what it truly was...a tangent. Whether or not ELON will start writing press releases that don't need an interpreter for anyone less than an engineer remains to be seen, but I can assure you that long term holders in this stock have many skillsets and are NOT just engineers. ALL TYPES OF SHAREHOLDERS are needed to buy and hold ELON for this to make some decent folks some decent money.
It goes without saying that it appears that revenues are increasing, and losses decreasing, but one or two innings do not a championship ballgame make. As an investor, there is NO hurry to climb into a stock just because it moved from $7 to $113 and therefore "I gotta hurry." That's ridiculous.
Now to my 4th and 5th points, and I will go back to lurker status and let the ELON inanities swirl without me, as I did during the parabolic rise...
You wrote: While your calls were prescient, literally hundreds, if not thousands, of stock valuations have reacted within the parameters you've outlined here for the ELON share price...
Thank you, John, that is indeed correct, and no one has asked me for what my downside targets were in other stocks which I follow. Fascinating, yes? Wouldn't this thread LOVE TO KNOW what form of Technical Analysis I used SO THAT THEY could determine many many weeks in advance of the March 18 current top in tech stocks and could apply that same rudimentary TA in determining a buy point in the recent brutal sell-off, in "hundreds, if not thousands of stocks" as you so graphically pointed out???
In Point of Fact, no one even bothered to comment, let alone say, "Thank you," for the tremendous body of comparative work upon which I spent hours that I offered this thread last weekend regarding the tech sector w/out ELON. I even then thoughtfully provided ELON'ers with their proscribed price points so that ELON could be incorporated into those 3 tremendous comparative spreadsheets/SI TRACKING PORTFOLIOS which I made public, --and maintain for the time being-- posted on this very thread.
So, while I have given ELON specifics to ELON'ers, I've also made substantiated downside buy points calls in other TECH stocks of interest to me, (no, I'm not personally interested in all 19) but my rav favs are included in those 3 spreadsheet listings I assure you.
I submit, John, that ELONers aren't interested in anything but where is the "bottom" in THEIR stock, and all that work was just me "casting pearls before swine"...something that I seem to continue to do and have decided to learn NOT to do so in the future.
...which brings me to my 5th and final point.
You wrote: Given your classical accounting training, would it be possible to offer some valuation analysis to explain to many of us what you believe to be a fair share price now, and going forward, and how future revenues might impact the share price given said market saturation with said "widgets"?
Sure, John, anything is possible I suppose, but...
In this lifetime?
On this thread?
NOT A CHANCE IN HELL!
I gave some TA lessons and received some nodding acquaintance and plenty of hooting when I first joined this thread. While not totally unexpected, it is still MISTAKE #1 on my part.
I gave specific tax and FEB options expiry advice, based upon my considerable options experience, to a greedy bastard on this thread. Cost me a valued friendship... MISTAKE #2 on my part.
I gave MY CAPITAL ALLOCATION downside, LONG TERM buy point of interest/entry to this entire thread, for which I've been publically and privately pummelled. MISTAKE #3 on my part.
I posted untold hours of Quant work to this thread last weekend. MISTAKE #4.
If you think for a NEW YORK second, your polite request that I step up and cast more pearls, aka my number crunching analysis, to benefit ANYONE ELSE on this thread...so don't take it personally, John,---you are sadly mistaken.
I will NOT be making MISTAKE #5.
Oh, I'll be around this thread a long time, make no mistake about that, as I'm very much PERSONALLY interested in ELON. I've found this thread elicits some very valuable commentary ENGINEERING types who can translate ELON's convoluted stream of press releases. These threaders offer extremely valuable URLs to trade rags and other associative/relevant "field reports from Honeywell techies" for example.
Or to put it another way, if ELON's PR department would just talk "widgets" instead of/as well as "routers" to people who still think that a router is a "woodworking tool"...<g>
Thank you again for both the substantive, summation nature of your post as well as your courteous tone albeit containing lefthanded compliments ... if that is indeed what you intended to do in the first place. Did you really mean to acknowledge my rather remarkable contribution to this thread in particular, or what that just a contextual accident?
Have a nice weekend, John |
