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Tesla is a Technical Analysis Gap Lover’s Paradise, What’s Going On?

Chart courtesy of StockCharts.Com, annotations by Mish

Chart Notes

  • Gaps occur when a stock opens below the low of the previous day or above the high of the previous day, then stays there for a period of time.
  • Island reversals occur when there are open gaps in two directions. The right side island reversal is still intact.

I am a firm believer that gaps close sooner rather than later. Indeed, that is the case for all of the gaps between October 2021 and August 2022. 

For mid-term traders, shorting gap breakdowns or buying gap breakouts and holding them them is usually a mistake. 

Breakaway Gaps

Breakaway gaps can stay open for years. I suspect the October 2022 gap is a breakaway gap.

If so, forget about that top green box unless and until resistance at the 215 level is taken out. If that happens, look for the 265 level to act like a magnet.

The Gaps at 150 and 180

The gap at 150 is begging to be filled. But will the gap at 170 close first? 

I don’t know, but I do know that anyone who chased that gap up in January of 2023 and held just gave back a 47 percent profit. 

Tesla’s Profit Margins Take a Huge Plunge and It’s Not Over Yet

Fundamentally speaking, Tesla faces weaker demand, rising interest rates, more completion, and stiffer rules for tax credits.

For discussion, please see Tesla’s Profit Margins Take a Huge Plunge and It’s Not Over Yet

Self-Inflicted Wounds?

Bloomberg called the wounds self-inflicted, but that’s not entirely true. To get Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act energy credits, Musk had to cut the price on Teslas.

Yet, sales are skidding despite the price cuts.

The economy is weakening and there is more competition in the EV space coming up. Those are not self-inflicted wounds. 

Whether self-inflicted or not, Tesla’s market cap is down 50 percent from the peak and its forward PE is a lofty 51. And forward PEs don’t always pan out.

Mystery Nonsense

On March 2, Wired commented on The Mystery Vehicle at the Heart of Tesla’s New Master Plan.

NEARLY FOUR HOURS into Tesla’s marathon Investor Day, someone in the audience tried again to bring Elon Musk, the Tesla (and Twitter and SpaceX) CEO back to the present day. From a stage at the Gigafactory in Austin, Texas, Musk had announced an ambitious “Master Plan 3” to save the world. For $10 trillion in manufacturing investment, Musk said, the world could move wholesale to a renewable electricity grid, powering electric cars, planes, and ships.

“Earth can and will move to a sustainable energy economy, and will do so in your lifetime,” Musk proclaimed. More details will be revealed in a forthcoming white paper, he said. But the presentation was short on specifics on the one part of the electric transition that is in Tesla’s gift: the next-generation vehicle it has been teasing for years, promising something that is more affordable, more efficient, and more efficiently built than anything in its current lineup. The vehicle, or group of vehicles, will be crucial to hitting Tesla’s goal of selling 20 million vehicles in 2030; it sold 1.3 million in 2022.

What, an investor asked the company’s executives, would that vehicle be? Musk declined to share. “We’d be jumping the gun if we answered your question,” he said, explaining that the company would hold a separate event to roll out the mystery vehicle somewhere down the line. Slides shown during the presentation just showed images of car-shaped forms under gray sheets.

Mystery Vehicle Ghostware 

The mystery vehicle is vaporware, more accurately ghostware. “Slides shown during the presentation just showed images of car-shaped forms under gray sheets.”

 It does not exist and may never exist. 

There is not even a white paper on Musk’s save the world solution. 

Market Share Plunges 

Tesla got 59.6% of the California EV market from January to March, down from 72.7% for all of 2022 and the lowest since 2017, according to Reuters calculations based on data from the California Energy Commission.

That’s still an incredible market share but how much profit? 

Doubling Down on Price Wars

Musk said that Tesla can cut profit margins to zero and no other manufactures can follow.

The idea is that Tesla can make a fortune by charging for self-driving software down the road.

“Tesla is in a uniquely strong strategic position because we’re the only ones making cars that technically we could sell for zero profit for now and then yield actually tremendous economics in the future through autonomy. No one else can do that. Not sure how many of you will appreciate the profundity of what I’ve just said, but it is extremely significant,” said Musk

That assumes Tesla can beat Waymo (Google), something I highly doubt.

Meanwhile, what is a car manufacturer that makes no profit worth?

Waymo vs Tesla

Ark’s Cathie Wood Sets $2,000 Price Target

Cathie Wood bets on Musk’s “robo-taxi” idea that may happen later this year. 

Her target is $2,000 by 2027.

With that out of the way, let’s return to the technical picture.

Tesla Weekly Chart 

TSLA Chart courtesy of StockCharts.Com, annotations by Mish

If you have a large enough crayon, Tesla is sitting right on weak support, but with an open gap above on the daily chart. More accurately though, Tesla broke weekly support.

The next support level is 120 with strong support at 100. But there is an open gap below at the 80 level that is begging to get filled. 

$80 or $2,000?

I suggest 80 is far more likely than what I consider a preposterous target of $2000.

Tesla has  3,160,000,000 shares outstanding. At $2,000 per share, Tesla’s market cap would be $6.32 trillion. US 4th-quarter annualized GDP in 2022 was $26.14 trillion. 

Wood estimates the valuation of Tesla will be between an fifth and a quarter of US GDP.

Yeah, right. 

ARKK Innovation Fund

ARKK Chart courtesy of StockCharts.Com, annotations by Mish

ARKK is Cathie Wood’s flagship innovation fund. It’s down 76.68 percent from its all time high. 

Three days ago Cathie Wood bought bought 219,810 shares of Tesla in its flagship Ark Innovation ETF and another 36,213 shares of Tesla in its Next Generation Internet ETF.

Good luck with that.

This post originated at MishTalk.Com

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38 Comments
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BillinCA
BillinCA
3 years ago
Tesla / Musk did indeed release the “white paper” titled “Master Plan Part 3”
It’s quite a provocative proposal.
PeterEV
PeterEV
3 years ago
@PapaDave
Exxon (and others) are forecasting the peaking of Natural Gas around 2050. CNG is a stop gap while EV truck batteries are under development. Current batteries such as those in the Model 3 are around 250 wh/kg while some manufacturers are tauting 360 wh/kg. Lab energy densities are up around 685 wh/kg. Argonne National Lab announced a breakthrough with their Lithium Air batteries: “With further development, we expect our new
design for the lithium-air battery to also reach a record energy density
of 1200 watt-hours per kilogram,” said Curtiss. “
That’s almost 5 times the density of the batteries in a Model 3. From lab to production is going to take awhile – if it can be done. Still, 685 and a way to 1200 wh/kg are very impressive.
KidHorn
KidHorn
3 years ago
Reply to  PeterEV
Battery technology is advancing rapidly. In a few years, batteries will need far fewer rare earths. Production costs will be a lot lower.
The same can be said with solar panels. They won’t even be panels. They’ll be self adhesive plastic rolls. They can go anywhere you can put a sticker. Even on cars.
KidHorn
KidHorn
3 years ago
There is so much wrong with this post.
The only cut needed to get the 7500 credit was the initial cut for the model Y performance version. Everything else already qualified.
The so called mystery car, isn’t a mystery at all. It’s a car that will be made in Monterrey Mexico in a new plant that’s going to be built. It will start at around $25k. it will be their biggest plant. And they’re going to start selling their Cybertruck in the fall. Another supposedly vapor product that would never materialize.
When Musk stated he could sell cars at no profit, what he meant was he could make money selling future upgrades and insurance. I.e. you can add full self driving for 15k any time you want. It’s a software upgrade. It’s no different from dealerships not making money selling cars and making all their profit from service. I don’t think he going to have to break even. He was just making a point.
I don’t know when robotaxi’s will exist or if they’ll ever exist, but Tesla has had self driving in their cars for years and it works really well. You still need to have your hands on the wheel, just in case. But comparing it to anything else that has maybe 10% of their real world experience is nonsense.
How are you concluding Tesla has weaker demand? They sell more cars every year. This year will be no exception. They have 2 of the 10 best selling vehicles in the US and the world. They’re facing more competition, which was going to obviously happen.
They cut costs and it will obviously eat into margins, but they still make thousands off every vehicle sale, while everyone else loses money. Most of their competition has tens of billions in debt used to build factories that produce cars that will be obsolete in a few years. Tesla has none of that. And in China, ICE sales are going to collapse. Leaving other car makers, like GM, Ford, Chrysler, Honda, Toyota, Mercedes, and BMW in serious trouble.
And Woods predicted they would eventually be worth $2k/share. Not now. So comparing their future value to current GDP makes no sense. 10 years ago, anyone who said Apple would be worth $3 trillion one day would have had the same counter argument.
PapaDave
PapaDave
3 years ago

Tourmaline is building 20 CNG stations for transport trucks in Alberta Canada. The Mullen Group signed a contract to use them as they convert their transport trucks to CNG.

This is a drop in the ocean as far as lower emissions go, but CNG is much cleaner than diesel. And building out more CNG stations and trucks that use them is a tiny step in the right direction.
There are 175k CNG vehicles in the US already (mostly fleets of trucks). The US and Canada are blessed with abundant supplies of natural gas. Whereas the US is already running out of easily accessible oil.
It will be interesting to see how quickly Tesla’s electric transport truck is adopted.
8dots
8dots
3 years ago
The do nothing Dow futures close is still > Mar high. If it drop below Mar low TSLA will close Jan 25/26 gap. If the Dow close above Dec high TSLA might close Sept 26/Oct 3 2022 open gap, before rising to the 350 area, for a fun fun ride. TSLA might import Chinese EV low end under TSLA name plate.
8dots
8dots
3 years ago
Reply to  8dots
low end have by far a much higher volume than the high end. The low end can have a decent markup if the models are accurate. Batteries might have the highest markup. TSLA, with a whole spectrum of products, might sell dealership franchises in US and all over the world, for billions and employment. He might not be able to mgt it.
His first hurdle is a deep recession. If the Fed raid in, TSLA might lose it’s best customers.
Doug78
Doug78
3 years ago
Tesla has no debt and the best margins by far and the legacy car makers have more debt than equity. In a price war you know who will win. I like electric cars not because they are green, they aren’t really, but because they are much more efficient to manufacture and to operate. Additionally the technology is relatively new and has decades of refinement before them. Thermal engines are pretty much tapped out and the improvements are only incremental now while electric cars, batteries and infrastructure have a long time ahead of them till they run out of steam. Not to mention that it is much easer and cheaper to set up recharging stations than to build and especially maintain gas stations. Gas stations from an ecological point of view are a nightmare. Charging stations can be installed almost anywhere, are clean and once installed require little maintenance.
Tesla’s advantage is in the manufacturing process and the legacy car makers still have a long way to go and to get there they will have to spend a lot of money that they will have to borrow at high rates. Musk besides being an exceptional engineer is a very good businessman as well. Putting the squeeze on competitors at this time is not a tactic, it is a strategy. Tesla started out as a luxury car, then added the midrange and probably soon will move into the compact segment. This is only the beginning. When to buy the stock depends on valuation, the state of the market, your tolerance for volatility and your time horizon. Those who made the decision years ago are very happy now.
Lisa_Hooker
Lisa_Hooker
3 years ago
Reply to  Doug78
Yup, building a charging station downtown is cheaper than a gas station.
Way out in the countryside miles from power lines not so much.
Of course many don’t want folks living out in the countryside.
Doug78
Doug78
3 years ago
Reply to  Lisa_Hooker
Most people live in high enough concentrations to make it worthwhile. If you are way out in the countryside then you have land for enough solar panels that you would never have to pay any money for electricity to anybody ever again. That’s true freedom.
Lisa_Hooker
Lisa_Hooker
3 years ago
Reply to  Doug78
Being enabled to spend $20,000 on solar is real freedom.
Being enabled to spend more than $20,000 on replacement solar in 20 years is even more freedom.
Of course the batteries will need to be replaced sooner than 20 years.
Apparently you can rationalize almost anything.
Oh, and I didn’t realize that living in the countryside somehow got you more land for free.
Doug78
Doug78
3 years ago
Reply to  Lisa_Hooker
All gas station need electricity to operate so being far away isn’t really a problem.
KidHorn
KidHorn
3 years ago
Reply to  Doug78
When the power goes out, you can’t pump gas.
Doug78
Doug78
3 years ago
Reply to  KidHorn
They also can run out of gas. If the tanker truck doesn’t come on time then that is too bad. Charging stations don’t need trucks to fill them up.
Lisa_Hooker
Lisa_Hooker
3 years ago
Reply to  Doug78
OMG
What if the power substation is flooded and shorts out?
What if the electrician calls in sick?
😉
Actually, what if the substation transformer blows up and it takes 6 months to get a replacement from Taiwan?
Doug78
Doug78
3 years ago
Reply to  Lisa_Hooker
You hook it up to your bicycle generator and start pedaling. Alternately if you have a stream nearby you can hook up the generator to a waterwheel. Electricity can come from many different sources while hydrocarbons come from only one and is hard to get to.
Zardoz
Zardoz
3 years ago
Reply to  Lisa_Hooker
You’ll be astonished at what I’m going to tell you:people in rural areas actually have 220v service right in their homes!
8dots
8dots
3 years ago
The 3M – 1M is +1.66%. The 10Y – 3M is (-)1.68%. The 10Y – 1M is zero. Those numbers might osc for a while, before the 10Y rise. The regional banks might sell their “hold to maturity” , cutting their losses, or without a loss.
8dots
8dots
3 years ago
A plastic kit of model 3 to glue with 133 parts, a great gift for 10Y -13Y kids, for $19.99 . The elite pay for a similar car $40K after a discount. Our woke navy can sail on a $159.99 aircraft carrier plastic kit, level 4.
Lisa_Hooker
Lisa_Hooker
3 years ago
If enough folks would learn and religiously follow technical analysis the markets would become much more predictable.
Doug78
Doug78
3 years ago
Reply to  Lisa_Hooker
When everyone follows the same technical analysis the patterns self-destruct.
Lisa_Hooker
Lisa_Hooker
3 years ago
Reply to  Doug78
No, they self reinforce.
Doug78
Doug78
3 years ago
Reply to  Lisa_Hooker
When everyone has already bought the pattern then there is no one left to buy. What happens next?
Zardoz
Zardoz
3 years ago
Reply to  Lisa_Hooker
And what happens to an undamped feedback loop?
Lisa_Hooker
Lisa_Hooker
3 years ago
Reply to  Zardoz
It always, always, gets bigger and bigger, before it blows up.
Haven’t we been having an undamped feedback loop for a decade?
Only being damped in the past year or so.
PapaDave
PapaDave
3 years ago
In spite of Elon, Tesla, and all other electric car makers, its going to take a long time to replace the 1.4 billion ICE vehicles currently in use. In 2022, about 1 in 7 vehicles sold worldwide were EVs while 6 of 7 were ICE. That’s from a total of over 60 million vehicles sold worldwide. So the number of ICE vehicles will keep growing until 2030, when it is optimistically expected that the majority of vehicles sold (up to 4 in 7) will be EVs.
So sometime between 2030 and 2040, the total number of ICE vehicles will finally start to decline. Until then, the total number of ICE vehicles will keep growing (to perhaps 1.6 billion) as will the demand for the fossil fuel that powers them.
I am not interested in investing in the automakers like Ford or Tesla, but I like the prospects for the oil and gas companies.
Zardoz
Zardoz
3 years ago
Elon wounded the brand, in the US at least, with his performative jacka$$ery. I doubt it will recover.
Mish
Mish
3 years ago
Maximus_Minimus
Maximus_Minimus
3 years ago
Reply to  Mish
Some links there are hilarious, granted not all Waymo related, like this:
An unappreciated consequence of universal self-driving is that everybody will drive at the official speed limit, and maybe next step will be no street posted speed limit, but will be centrally controlled, and beamed to all self-driven cars. Teslas can already do some of the trick.
The future is bright.
Lisa_Hooker
Lisa_Hooker
3 years ago
Will I hafta wear shades?
Maximus_Minimus
Maximus_Minimus
3 years ago
Reply to  Lisa_Hooker
TV screen instead of windshield, option to switch to sight-seeing, but why bother when the fav soap opera is on?
Doug78
Doug78
3 years ago
Reply to  Lisa_Hooker
And sunscreen.
tractionengine
tractionengine
3 years ago
Like so many, you entirely miss the point. Universal self driving means NO ONE will drive and that means no signs, lights, limits. The government will determine everything including locking the doors and delivering you to jail. It also means an end to general car ownership, garages at your home, body repair shops, traffic cops, lower medical expenses from crashes, and on. The job losses throughout will be enormous – why own a car when there’s no benefit? You don’t either want to see, or think this through.
Lisa_Hooker
Lisa_Hooker
3 years ago
Reply to  tractionengine
But think of the children!
Maximus_Minimus
Maximus_Minimus
3 years ago
Reply to  tractionengine
Like so many, your sarcasm meter is badly in need of repair.
StukiMoi
StukiMoi
3 years ago
“Tesla is in a uniquely strong strategic position because we’re the only ones making cars that technically we could sell for zero profit for now and then yield actually tremendous economics in the future through autonomy. No one else can do that. Not sure how many of you will appreciate the profundity of what I’ve just said, but it is extremely significant,” said Musk
Of course, the only thing which, in reality, is unique about Tesla, is that the clueless Fed Loot Crowd believes that sort of nonsense; just because Musk is the one spouting it.
And to think, people used to say Steve Jobs was surrounded by a reality distortion field. Musk’s field is on a different planet (Mars, I guess…) altogether. Of course, he’s got a much easier and more naive audience, but still. No wonder the dude’s as rich as he’s ridiculous.
HippyDippy
HippyDippy
3 years ago
So is Cathie Kramer’s protege?
Billy
Billy
3 years ago
Why does anyone give Cathie Wood the time of day?

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