this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2025
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Value investing is basically dead, isn't it? Am I crazy? How can you objectively evaluate a company's value, notice it is undervalued, and then trade accordingly when price action does not even slightly track the company's value?
I wondered that a while ago when Tesla was worth more than many other car makers combined while producing far less vehicles than any single one of them. And I remember people telling me about projections and expectations and that it’s only a matter of time until everyone drives a Tesla basically. Sounded like mass hysteria to me back then because the rest of the world won’t just sit there quietly and let Tesla have a monopoly. People bought shares because they rose rapidly in value, causing even more people to buy shares. It’s a pyramid scheme like so many things these days and people have no problem with it apparently. They love gambling and playing lottery. Value investing is too boring for them.
It's gambling
The investors are banking on Elon looting the Govt coffers into Tesla. I can’t deny the chances based on the other crap we are seeing.
Exclusive contracts at 20% mark up. Can’t wait for all police vehicles to switch over to teslas.
I'd support that: the new excuses as to why a suspect escaped would be fantastic.
"Well, I would have caught him but my car died for some reason and I couldn't get out."
"Well, I would have caught him but I hit a bump and half my car fell off."
"Well, I would have caught him, but my car caught fire and killed my partner."
"Well, I would haved caught him but it was raining so my bumper fell off and punctured my tire."
Don’t worry, none of these would make the news.
True enough. A bet on any tech stocks right now is probably safe on that basis - but I expect they really do plan to crash the stock market at some point... It would make sense if you wanted to consolidate ownership cheaply.
They're also banking on Elon staying alive for the next 4y which is a risky bet given how he immediately antagonised the MAGA crowd on H1Bs.
The MAGA crowd hates just about everybody. The last time they did anything of note was the 1/6 insurrection, and that was with the help of Dear Leader.
That but also removing green subsidies helps Tesla as it's further ahead than other electric car rivals. Also, less safety regulations likely brings it closer to fully autonomous driving.
There's value investing and there's speculation. If Tesla can make a robot that can mop the floor, even this seemingly ridiculous valuation will look like a bargain. Have to remember, Tesla is not a car company. They are an AI and green tech company. Cars are just their largest activity to date.
I am concerned about Elon though. I think he's a visionary, I think he's valuable, but I also think he's spread far too thin and he's losing it as a result. Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter, xAI, Neuralink, and his political efficiency project. All of these are full-time 100hr/week jobs. Even if you assume he literally never sees his gaggle of children, hell even if you assume he never sleeps, there's literally not enough hours in the day. And I think he is thus blind to the fact that his antics are costing him support for the bigger mission.
So when will he have time to play Path of Exile and Polyopia and oligarch?
That’s not new to Tesla. Avoid bubble stocks. Avoid penny stocks. Buy “stodgy”
I'm not into Tesla stock. I'm not just here to whine about a single stock not doing what I want, it's that I think price action in general is too irrational. I've got an axe to grind here and it goes beyond which stocks to pick.
Huge ETFs and algorithmic trading makes too many tickers move all the same way. This harms price discovery. And don't get me started on off-exchange trading; This month, off-exchange volume exceeded that of lit markets.
Value investing isn't dead. There are tons of value investors, and they aren't the ones buying Tesla.
My point is, if this is how markets react to worsening sales and an actually insane CEO how can you trust a rational bet to pay off?
Value investors don't invest in Tesla, so you should not expect its share price to reflect fundamentals.
But they do invest in stocks like Coca Cola and American Express, so you should expect the share prices of those companies to better reflect fundamentals.
That's just another way of saying buyer sentiment is the only thing that matters, in which case we're back to square one.
Pretty much the definition of bubble stocks. If you don’t want emotion driven stocks, don’t ride the hype train. There are many many more stock opportunities, most of whose value is related to actual facts
If you're a value investor then you believe that the actual value of a company depends on its current and future earnings and the market price will tend towards the actual value in the long run.
But naturally there are other factors that also influence the market price. In fact, the whole point of value investing is to find stocks that are "underpriced". For various reasons, they are currently priced at a discount to their actual value. Those are the stocks you should buy, and you should expect their price to increase.
Conversely, for various reasons some stocks are "overpriced", like Tesla. You should not buy those, because you expect their price to decrease in the long run.
A corollary is that value investors expect seemingly irrational price movements like we see with Tesla. If share prices perfectly reflected fundamentals, then it would be impossible to find a "good deal".
Right. So anyway, the market does often appear oversensitive to buzz and under-responsive to fundamentals. What's your take on market reforms? Are there any changes you'd like to see, regulatory or otherwise?
I don't care if the market is under responsive to fundamentals. That just means some investors are exercising poor judgment by paying too much attention to irrelevant factors. It also gives an opportunity to investors with better judgment.
Do you get why this is starting to feel very circular? If not, please don't trouble yourself to respond. Sincerely.
I'm not sure what you mean.
You seem to be starting with the assumption that market prices should reflect fundamentals, and questioning why they don't. But why do you assume that?
"In the short-run, the stock market is a voting machine. But in the long-run, it is a weighing machine."
You can't ignore or eliminate either machine.