Hey, a lot of folks are wondering what's going on with Tesla stock today at least at the time of this recording, and who knows it could be up by the time the market closes because the market has been so maniacal, The market presently is pricing Tesla down 3.2% and people are wondering why the first and most logical explanation has to do with this existing inventory. Price: Cuts But this is not the only explanation. so we'll get through the news here. So first, price Cuts obviously lead to the impression that Tesla is going to have lower margin.

Therefore, less profit, and ultimately less margin. Lower EPS means a higher valuation for Tesla. Then you get valuation compression and oopsy doopsy. Not only do you attract more short sellers who load in shorts when news like this breaks, but it does hurt some of Tesla's free cash flow now.

I Personally thought we were going to see negative free cash flow in the last quarter. We actually did not. Thankfully, knock Gunwood and hopefully we don't in this fourth quarter. This fourth Quarter is going to be particularly challenging for two reasons.

Number one: you've had the highest interest rates in this quarter. If you look at a 10-year treasury chart, you'll see high The highest interest rates were in October for essentially the whole year. Now they've come down since then, but they're only back to really what we saw during Q3. So that means much of Q4 has been exposed to unfortunately higher interest rates.

which is not great because that directly affects people's ability to afford a new car. so that's not great Combine that with discounting of existing inventory and the second issue that I wanted to bring up. So not just the discounting of inventory because of rates, but also the second part, what could be driving the discounting of inventory? See this Federal Tax Credit says here: the $7,500 tax credit can be redeemed between now and December 31st. That's fantastic, But that means you redeem that on your 20 24 tax return.

Which means let's say theoretically you buy December 31st. You're going to see that as a tax credit if you actually owe $7,500 in taxes, right? So you have to owe 7,500 in taxes and you have to qualify for the credit. So let's say both of those things are true. You're not going to see that money until probably when you do your taxes.

So like somewhere between March and May and then you actually get you know, any kind of, uh, tax payment or you make your payment. or if you're on extend men, you won't actually see it until October. The downside of that is we actually have a catalyst. Jan One Jan One Dealers are going to start being able to give this a discount this tax credit as a point of sale discount.

which means if you just wait a day longer to Jan One, Ironically, you'll actually get that tax credit immediately versus waiting for it. So those are two big catalysts that are hurting here. The interest rates of this Q4 and the fact that you're going to get this rollover and again, that is the dealer EV tax credit. So you could fact, uh, fact check that if if you want to, uh, search for it.

uh, you'll see articles like this: Car buyers can get their EV tax credits upfront at the dealership. Now, it's unclear exactly how given that that's a dealership will affect Tesla Presumably that'll apply to Tesla as well. But under new guidance, those purchasing electric vehicles or plugins that qualify under treasury hybrids or Treasury guidelines rather, uh, will be able to start getting these credits starting Jan one. Uh, Jan one.

So it's essentially what we've said here: Uh, there's a 27 page guidance on this. Uh, that. uh, breaks down the procedures for dealers or essentially manufacturers selling the vehicle. Uh, so we expect Tesla will be eligible for this, which again delays people's desire to buy because again, rates and you're incentivized to wait until January which it's holiday time I Don't know how many people are gifting Teslas for the holidays.

budgets are tighter now. people are spending on other things and gifts for their family and such and so as a result, available cash is a little lower and so what's happening? Well, the hedge funds are eating it up. Not only is hedge funds eating it up at the mainstream media, which we'll talk about that in just a moment. Here you go: Tesla Still hedge funds favorite short stock after heavy losses in October and so I think what you're finding is every time there's a price cut or any kind of bad news on Tesla it's very easy for the short sellers to load on the shorts you can see here: The Magnificent Seven Have Been Loved by hedge funds, but there's one notable exception they love to bet against Tesla according to Goldman Sack's latest hedge fund, Trend report Tesla Remains The most popular position amongst hedge funds as of Halloween despite the stock having risen more than 90% year to date.

but then again, that only does you good if you actually bought the stock January 1st if you bought it anything before that, you're probably not at a 90% gain right now on Tesla unless it was quite a while before that. Anyway, beyond that, there is also the Elon Factor So uh, you know I'm not here to bag on Elon you know I have my criticisms of Elon but I want to be very clear I Love Elon I'm inspired by Elon you know I think he's great but I do have my criticisms of him. Uh, that's I Think one of the things that people like to come to my channel for is I'm not afraid to speak my mind and I'll tell you what I think I'm not holding back I'll tell you what I like and what I don't like and uh, this is a Business Week article, so it's like, you know, very classic. Our mainstream news here, right? How Elon spent three years falling down a redpilled rabbit hole.

This is gaining a lot of attention right now. Uh, and it could be another reason institutional sellers or institutional you know fund managers are trying to distance themselves from Tesla because it's not just people who might not want to buy a Tesla because they're offended by elaw, but it's also fund managers who have to justify investing in Elon when companies like Lionsgate Apple Disney IBM are cutting their ad spending at the same time. as there is this belief that Twitter is very right-wing focused and potentially some people are now describing it Twitter brain. Wherein: uh, the Twitter platform actually ends up narrowing your world viw.

So uh, I have a comment on that. H I've actually kind of been just complaining about Twitter for a while. I use Twitter Don't get me wrong, and it's X I Know that it's just hard for me to make that switch. So I use x regularly.

Uh, but uh, I I I have to go on X and then I have to balance my usage on X with looking at other sources because if I only go on X I will believe we are going into a Great Depression that Democrats are the greatest fraud ever and I know half of you listening to this are going to be like that's right, but I don't believe that you know I I believe that there are definitely extremist Democrats just like there're extremist Republicans But I I don't I believe the majority of people are or uh, you know voters are are terrible people I think 80% of our country is is is you know, relatively the same wavelength I think 80% of us can sit down for a beer and go hey, let's talk stocks. let's you know, talk business, whatever right? I don't care if you're a Democrat or Republican So, but I do find that when you spend time Twitter Uh you you do generally get like you are incentivized basically to engage with content that uh removes a lot of context. Longer threads, longer context, longer form video does not do well. The average view duration of a meet Kevin video on YouTube for example is like 9 to 10 minutes.

The average view duration of a me Kevin video on Twitter is like 30 seconds. Uh, and that's like scrolling mentality. It's very much like Tik Tok right? It's it's you're scrolling. You watch for a little, get aead line.

keep going. So I think sort of a warning to people would be there. There is a real aspect to Twitter brain and I'm not saying that's necessarily bad. I like like you get some good quick news from Twitter you get some good quick perspective.

but there's definitely a balancing aspect that's required. But anyway, mainstream media is going after Musk for basically uh, his his thermonuclear lawsuit against Media Matters. We covered this in detail already. the Media Matters lawsuit we went through the actual lawsuit by Elon and X against Media Matters.

Uh, It's worth noting that the lawsuit they filed basically agrees that what Media Matters said was true, which is really bad because the only way you can win a defamation case is if you prove that what the other person said was false Elon and X alleged that well they presented manipulated data. Okay, well, that just dropped the odd substantially of success. But there were a lot of attorneys who replied to my analysis and they're like Kevin Isn't it a little ironic that Mr free speech is getting upset about somebody pointing out hey, you know, when we scrolled for 15 hours straight or whatever, we ended up finding a Hitler post next to an Apple ad is that not a form of silencing that form of free speech which then is similar to the belief that if Twitter if Elon is just reacting to uh, you know, individuals who promote uh, sort of red pilling so to speak and then Elon blocks people who have a contrarian point point of view, then does that narrow Elon's worldview. That's a risk, right? And so I'm not saying that I think Elon is narrow-minded I'm saying institutions have to defend investing in Elon to other people.

and if institutions think he's becoming narrow-minded or only looking at one side or having Twitter brain, then that is a near-term short-term downside. Catalyst of the stock I don't think it matters at all in the long term. you know the article goes on to talk about this sort of like red pill and what I think was interesting is this line Here these interactions boost Elon's standing with the far right or just the right in general and this was interesting and create incentives for those accounts to try to get his attention. That I thought was really interesting is this idea that oh Elon replied now you're incentivized to do more things that Elon might like which kind of gets you down potentially One Direction But anyway, look in the short term, those those are legitimate bad Catalyst In the long term is my long-term thesis really affected by any of this? No, not at all.

I haven't sold a single Tesla share. Uh, in 2023 uh, we have increased our allocation to Tesla We went uh from about 10% cash in the summer which I wish was 100% cash, but then again, hindsight is 2020. uh and we allocated that 10% cash uh to uh pricing power style stocks uh I uh still hold Tesla as a number one position personally. an interactively managed ETF big fan I think longterm, all of the short-term mindedness of Institutions will end up burning them, but in the short term the shorts could be right with Q4 Like Q4 is going to be tough, so there is.

There are definitely some real headwinds. I Think what we need for not having a disaster of a January Q4 earnings call which will probably be like what January 19th or 20th or whatever we really need rates to fall going into January and then Elon being like yo Q4 was hard, but that was the bottom. That's probably what you're going to need. So yeah, definitely shortterm paining ahead.

But I think a year from now, we could be in a substantially better place. Substantially better. Kind of like, you know, a year ago what? November 22nd year I wonder what our one-ear return is on? Tesla Right now? 37% interesting. The stock was $169 a year ago.

uh, and of course it fell to $109 I Do think there's still a little bit of that short short terness? uh to to worry about those. So if you're shortterm, heads up. now. another thing that's very interesting is there's been a lot of talk about Toyotas Uh, you know, solid state battery and I thought this was so interesting.

This was a, uh, a piece published. Who published this? The Drive published this. Look at this snapshot right here: Toyota Previously promised to launch its first solid state battery in the mid 2020s and now has a timeline for manufacturing. Two pilot or two companies will begin pilot production in 2027 and they'll produce seven, several hundred tons of the new electrolyte needed and they expect to enter mass production in 2030 to be able to supply over 10,000 vehicles.

And they suspect that these batteries will be used in some kind of super high performance EV Car not like Toyota Corollas So in other words, this whole solid state battery push is probably just Toyota clickbait. Uh, very interesting, but we already believe that and uh again, long run believer in Tesla shortterm. though we do have some headwinds. uh, it might end up being a buy the dip opportunity I don't know that today is that buy the dip opportunity.

you know I think uh you know you drop to like I don't I don't see us going back to 101 but you know you go to like a 175 on bad q1 earnings. probably buy the that might end up being the the local bottom. uh but there are plenty of reasons as especially the the recent discounting and that jam. One catalyst is big for short-term bearishness.

Anyway, thanks for watching. We'll see you the next one Bye Do not advertise these things that you told us here I Feel like nobody else knows about this? We'll We'll try a little advertising and see how it goes. Congratulations man, you have done so much People love you people look up to you Kevin PA there financial analyst and YouTuber meet Kevin Always great to get your take even though I'm a licensed financial adviser, real estate broker, and becoming a stock broker. This video is neither personalized Financial advice nor real estate advice for you.

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