Bill Gates is more into mRNA, than Microsoft these days.
KidHorn
1 year ago
Most likely tesla. They have a lot of competition in the pipeline.
Bhakta
1 year ago
I have not been a buyer of any Apple products. They are over-priced, and everyone who buys their products, is locked into their system. That is not for me. I have shares of MSFT, and have done well, but obviously this year is very bad. I should probably sell them with the 700 percent profit that remains. META disgusts me. It is a pretty useless company. While ten years ago, it was interesting to try and reconnect with old friends and family, the censorship, and shadow banning have made it useless for me. I hardly look at it now. Amazon, I do not use, because they are not in Thailand where I live. Most of what they sell cannot be shipped to Thailand. I can usually find what I want elsewhere for less too. Google, is another company I dislike. I try to avoid them and their products, but have to access YouTube daily to listen to a couple of blogs that I follow. I agree with you, Exxon is a more valuable company that any of those mentioned here.
These companies, while earning many billions, really give little back in dividends. The oils companies at least pay you a decent amount to own their shares.
But you can make money from both tech and oil if you know when to own them. Which makes me think back; tech was great for close to a decade; after which oil was great for close to a decade; then tech again; now oil again. Interesting.
At different times of the bull/bear cycles, different industries lead the way.
8dots
1 year ago
People are depressed, but VIX don’t care, so not yet !
worleyeoe
1 year ago
Hopefully, it will be Tesla. Elon has got to get his head out of his butt and start appealing to the broad public at more affordable prices. Dump the CyberTruck and release a small car & SUV that’s priced aggressively. That’s how you’re going to stay in the game, long-term. And for God’s sake start shipping 4680 batteries ASAP in large quantities. You announced this innovation over two years ago. If you wait much longer, dang QuantumScape will have pre-production solid state batteries in demo vehicles.
And finally, go against the grain and stop acting like people want nothing power in their vehicles. Go engineer a four wheeled car that models the super high mileage of the Aptera. Give me a small EV SUV that has say a 30-40 KW battery and goes 300+ miles on a charge. For example, the Chevy Bolt has a 60+ KWH battery because the’ve stuck a 200 HP electric motor in it. A 4680-based comparable EV from Tesla could get away with a 40 KWH battery pack if it only had 150 hp electric motor in it and weighed 25% less.
Instead of being another woke activist demanding that “they” build the gadget you want, how about YOU go build it yourself?
What’s that? Majoring in social justice doesn’t give you the skills to fix a lawn mower, much less develop new technology? Have you tried throwing a temper tantrum and screaming “HOW DARE YOU?!?!” Oh, another activist already did that and it accomplished absolutely nothing? I am shocked.
There are at least a half dozen EV companies in the USA, and all of them have done marketing studies. Most vehicle buyers need to haul a spouse, luggage, kids, dogs, golf clubs, soccer kleets, and groceries — and a feeble underpowered go-kart with Fisher-Price batteries isn’t going to cut it. One EV company might have messed up their marketing survey, but not all of them.
The battery in the Apollo Spacecraft in the 1960s was the size of a minivan. The battery in Michael Douglas’ cell phone in movie Wall Street in the 1980s was the size of a shoe box. Today’s iPhones are the size of a hand. There has been LOTS of development in battery technology over the last 60 years… but the energy density still isn’t there. It will take 2-3 decades longer… more if Biden politicizes the process.
The US electrical grid cannot make up for the power lost from gasoline engines. Not even close. Even if the USA suddenly builds 100 nuclear power plants (in who’s backyard?), the transmission system cannot handle it. Not even close. There is an abundance of worthless, whining activists throwing temper tantrums; there is a shortage of electricians, welders and nuclear physicists to make any of this happen. Not to mention the government is buried deep in debt; the financing isn’t there either. The copper (or whatever metal) for wiring is not available, and no one wants a mine in their neighborhood.
Musk has no control over the advancement of battery technology. Musk has no control over the power grid. Musk cannot fix the disaster that is the US education system. None of that is in his control. If we get better leadership (I don’t see it in either party), it will take 20-30 years to develop the tech, train the workers, and pay down some of the outstanding debt.
I have gone through the numbers in the past. Electrifying every car would not stress the power grid in general. I am not presently inclined to repeat the numbers, partly because I don’t think the Kool Aid guzzlers on either side would be influenced by facts anyway. We are in a post-factual world, at least for a while.
Excuse you Jack, but the power grid is already stressed with a mere 2% of cars electric. There are brown outs all over the country. California’s brown outs are in the news regularly, not sure how you missed that. And there are brown outs in several parts of New England and upstate NY, but they only made local news for media reasons. There were brown outs on Long Island, which the regulators solved by running a new cable under Long Island sound from Connecticut — taking advantage of New Haven’s economic malaise / less electrical use… but then CT and RI started having brown outs, so basically they just moved the brown outs around.
Maryland and Pennsylvania. Nevada, Oregon…. local brown outs all over the place.
They are caused (depending on the locale) by A/C, electric heaters, factory shutdowns/restarts, military base changes, and population shifts. But they are a problem already.
Further, many of the same areas also have generation shortages… which they “solved” by maxing out transmission lines from Canada. Canada no longer has a surplus — they are discussing building another generation plant just to export hydro power to New England states (bypassing Montreal). Its a politcal mess in Canada.
Oh, and for those of you keeping track: the current system is NOT ENOUGH. They need to build more to keep up with current demand and anticipated growth. Never mind if all the cars were to go electric.
PS — if you need to install smart meters to make your idea work (ignoring generation shortages) — you are saying the current grid can’t handle it.
PPS (back to Jack) — have you seen the water levels behind the Hoover dam (in Lake Mead)? and the other dam upstream of it? The Hoover dam basically powers Vegas, plus a lot of power from it gets transmitted to other states.
The water problems in the area — note the conflicts between ranchers/farmers and the city of Las Vegas. Its not just Lake Mead.
Guess what happens if Hoover dam is forced to restrict power output?
PPPS — I suppose the state government in California telling EV owners not to charge their vehicles last month was an example of the grid being OK now, with few EVs on the road:
I just checked the NERC (North American Electricity Reliability Corporation) website to make sure my information is up to date. They issued a new reliability report earlier this month. If you pull up their report, and look on page 6, you will see Figure-1 which shows two thirds of the country is in yellow (elevated risk) or red (high risk).
They clarify that the grid is “ok” assuming favorable weather conditions. The danger is if weather is too hot or too cold or too dry (depending on the region).
— New England is elevated. No more electricity available from Canada. Stressed natural gas system means they cannot generate emergency supply from NG
— California (which is in the news with power problems regularly) is high risk. So is Louisiana, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin (plus a big chunk of Canada which is linked into US power grid)
— Almost everywhere else west of the Mississippi River is elevated risk
NERC is the non-profit tasked with monitoring the North American power grid. The nation’s utilities report directly to them.
Sorry JackWebb … I don’t think you did your research on this at all. The current grid is barely OK if we get favorable weather. if — really when — there are weather issues, we have problems right now. The notion that we are going to shift gigawatts of energy from gasoline engines to a grid that is barely keeping its head above water is absurd. The nations regulators and utility companies are saying the same
An Aperta? Ha ha ha ha ha! ROTFLMAO. A three-wheeled motorcycle with weirdo wheel skirts that give it what, 3″ clearance? Are you nuts? Wait, don’t answer that. By the way, I’ve owned an EV for a decade. Unlike you, I actually know anything about them. And I’ve followed Aptera for a long time, and laughed for a long time.
A BEV with a 35 kWh battery will be lucky to go 100 miles on a charge. If you think you will cut the weight of a Tesla (or any other EV) by 25% by installing a smaller electric motor, all you’ve done is show how little you know. The motor in the typical Tesla car weighs 100 pounds. Bolt motors weigh about 165 pounds. Now go look at the specs of these vehicles and then stop with your foolishness.
And quit it with the different battery cells. And let me head something off at the pass: The salt (instead of lithium) batteries touted by the stupid are even less energy dense than lithium-ion. Seriously, you don’t know ANYTHING, and it shows.
The EV Honda Fit had a 20 KW battery and got 189 miles to a charge. Leap forward to the 4680 batteries plus an extra 10 KWH, smaller motor, engineered for long distance, and you have a Bolt competitor that Tesla could make money off of. And BTW, what part of 4-wheeled car did you miss? I’m not talking about making an Aptera clone but a real car whose focus is more on mileage than HP.
The weight savings comes from the smaller batter back. 35 / 66 is actually 53%, so my using the 25% is being extremely conservative.
The 4680 batteries are not salt based. Their main advantage is the tab-less design for the anode / cathode along with better overall lithium-based chemistry.
The EV sweet spot is about 45 mph. At some point, this or that manufacturer will add an overdrive gear for highway travel. I have seen varying estimates of the increase in fuel economy. Electric motors have a much broader torque band than gas or diesel, which is why EVs are one-speed at least until now. It’s a trade-off: fuel economy for less maintenance and more simplicity.
As much of an ignorant, Kool Aid-drinking fool as worleyeoe is, I do agree that Tesla makes overpowered cars. It’s understandable, given the nature of electric motors. But it’s not a big deal. The big deal is trying to reduce charge times too much. The faster the charge, the more stress on the battery, and the higher the chance of unintended fires. To the degree that Tesla or anyone else plays games with this, they’ll make an EV that’s less safe and doesn’t last as long.
All of that has worked at the bottom of the S-curve, but it won’t endure absent a battery chemistry breakthrough. A real one, as opposed to the latest press release aimed at credulous cultists and the on-line EV promoters dedicated to blowing hot air up California high tech pant legs. And I haven’t even started on Tesla’s laughable semitrucks. The average glassy-eyed, stupid eco-naut EV sucker believes in magic. I’ve had one for a decade, and I laugh.
Charge time improvement is a tradeoff. No one wants to mention it because the cult believes in magic. Capacitors have been studied and rejected, quite a while ago.
“As much of an ignorant, Kool Aid-drinking fool as worleyeoe is, I do agree that Tesla makes overpowered cars. It’s understandable, given the nature of electric motors. But it’s not a big deal.”
Damn! A bit mean & condescending. You can’t say Tesla makes overpowered cars and then say that doesn’t matter, especially when you go on to lament lengthy charge times. That’s my entire point! What’s needed are more affordable cost cars that that are built more towards relative high EV range with a smaller battery packs. Being able to charge a smaller battery helps solve the charging issue, especially in cases where people can afford a level 2 charging, 8-11 KWH. The car I’m proposing would charge in something like 3 hours. The Ford F-150 Lightening, for example, has a 200 KWH battery which will take most of a 24-hour period to charge at home with a level 2 charger.
There’s absolutely nothing that I’m saying that’s wrong in any way. It’s just a matter of perspective & priority. The latest Chevy Bolt is the perfect example. Chevy has lowered the price. All they would have to do is reduce the HP down from 200 to say 150, which would reduce the battery pack from 66 KWH down to under 50. In addition, the battery weight reduction would help offset the cost. And the specific type of cars I’m taking about are simply an effort to broaden appeal. Outside of the Chevy Bolt & Leaf, there are virtually no affordable EVs. And to drive the cost of say a car, not an SUV, down to sub $23K, then my approach makes a lot of sense. The Nissan Leaf is a great example that Tesla needs to produce. Give consumers an affordable, fun to drive, not overpowered with a couple of reasonable range options like 150 to 225 miles.
And virtually every modern BEV uses a single, fixed gear ratio. Tesla for example is something like 9:1. Like yourself, I’ve been scratching my head wondering why EV manufactures haven’t added that 2nd gear, but for now with batteries being so expensive, it probably comes down to added cost & complexity. Here’s a great YT video on the subject.
Me too, and don’t want to own one again. Arthritic hands in waiting…
Rbm
1 year ago
Mish all that covid money is floating around the economy. Seems it would make corporate profits and the economic numbers seem better. Also might keep the stock market from falling as far. Probably havent worded my thoughts right. But comments are welcome.
Mouse
1 year ago
>>> Will it be Tesla, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, or Apple?
A: Yes
Facebook is AOL. Same idea. Same outcome.
Google used to make some decent utilities (eg maps) but they couldn’t figure out a good way to monetize it, so they became a defacto ad agency. Search and youtube are now hobbled by partisan censorship, and they might not survive. Google search isn’t the first (or 2nd or 3rd) search to become dominant and then implode. Advertising is overdone and intrusive. There is enough advertising revenue to support a scaled back Google, but no growth (I doubt there is enough ad revenue to support Google’s current size, much less growth).
Tesla makes nice golf carts. The auto-drive feature has a tendency to crash. Batteries do not have high enough energy density, and the US power grid cant charge them anyways. Government Motors, Toyota, and Mercedes have superior EV technology — but they aren’t viable either. EV will be viable without subsidies some day, but that day is 25-30 years away. Battery tech must improve, and the electrical grid needs complete overhaul… Neither of those roadblocks are within Tesla’s control.
Apple has moved the iPhone camera from the front to the back to the front to the back. But since Steve Jobs’ death, they haven’t made anything new. No innovation, no premium price. Tim Cook = John Sculley v2.0. Put a fork in it.
Amazon makes all its money off AWS (3rd party websites). The e-shopping part struggles to break even selling low quality Chinese knock offs. It is the next JC Penny, Macys, Marshal Fields, G Fox, etc. AWS is just another web hosting service in a very crowded field.
Zoom blew their big entrance, they needed to capitalize by expanding services, they apparently thought no other companies offer video conferencing. Woopsies.
Captain Ahab
1 year ago
Mish, I think you are being very mean to Cathy. So, she gets a few predictions wrong. It’s just money. It’s the thought that counts. She’s not perfect, even if she thinks she is.
Almost two years ago, an old colleague gave me a credible bull case on TSLA. But not completely, because he claimed there was no risk. I identified some risks to the stock, one being inflation (I was thinking what happens to high-flyers when inflation causes the Fed to tighten), and he angrily replied (and I quote, verbatim) “Inflation is impossible.”
Only later did I realize that he was quoting Woods. In any case, I made my 50% on the $680 spring ’23 calls before dumping them because, well, inflation’s impact on the Fed. Cathy Woods was always a joke.
Six000mileyear
1 year ago
Tesla is in crash mode. The price is knifing right through potential support of $140.
AAPL has a price support based on strong volume near $20
GOOG also has a price support on strong volume near $20
Facebook has a price support on strong volume near $50, but Elliot waves are hinting at a possible consolidation at present levels.
Amazon has been in a bubble for 15 years. Most volume occurred at less than $10 / share, so its downside target is around $10.
MSFT spent 10 years forming a base between 2001 and 2011 before entering bubble dynamics. $25 is a clear price support and where most volume occurred below those prices. So look for $25.
It’s a coin toss between AAPL and MSFT. Both have already lost close to $800M, and have $2T remaining, so it will only take another 10% drop. TSLA and META would have to pretty much go bankrupt if it lost $1T of market cap.
$5T of market losses will clearly negate the wealth effect, and that is from only 5 stocks!
It was always predictable without Elliot waves , and the recession has barely started. I suspect 2023 will be the year from economic hell. Maybe gold at the end of the tunnel.
Only later did I realize that he was quoting Woods. In any case, I made my 50% on the $680 spring ’23 calls before dumping them because, well, inflation’s impact on the Fed. Cathy Woods was always a joke.