> The real difference I see this time is a perceived closeness with Trump and general misbehavior on twitter
Financial markets aren't known to be sensitive to leaders' political proclivities. Yet the bonds are down and stock's volatility up.
Could part of the negative coverage be motivated by Elon's personality and politics? Sure. But the risk profile of the company changed with the SolarCity acquisition and Model 3 announcement in 2016, bond issuance in 2017 and CAPEX and production delays in 2018. One representation of this risk profile is runway, i.e. TTM operating burn + CAPEX / Cash on hand. It is compressed. That concerns existing investors, excites bankers (who might get a stock or bond offering out of it) and entices new investors. Increased attention + narrow envelope leads to concerned/cautious/negative coverage.
(It is also difficult to disentangle the increased `general volatility in the markets post-tariffs from Tesla's inherent volatility, which is also linked to the tariff discussion.)
It's interesting that there's been a massive delay between risk profile change in 2016 and 2017 and the recent drop - a drop that it appears may be temporary. I know a lot of people that have been shorting Tesla for years and have been continuously surprised by its seemingly irrational rise in stock price.
If you look at their cash burn in Q4 2016 and Q2-Q3 2017, it doesn't fit with the press on the company or its stock performance at the time. Instead, the price hit all-time highs over that period and press was glowing.
I get that as the production numbers didn't increase along with capex there's a crunch in Q1-Q2 2018, but it doesn't seem to me that this is the reason behind tech news' change of heart.
Financial markets aren't known to be sensitive to leaders' political proclivities. Yet the bonds are down and stock's volatility up.
Could part of the negative coverage be motivated by Elon's personality and politics? Sure. But the risk profile of the company changed with the SolarCity acquisition and Model 3 announcement in 2016, bond issuance in 2017 and CAPEX and production delays in 2018. One representation of this risk profile is runway, i.e. TTM operating burn + CAPEX / Cash on hand. It is compressed. That concerns existing investors, excites bankers (who might get a stock or bond offering out of it) and entices new investors. Increased attention + narrow envelope leads to concerned/cautious/negative coverage.
(It is also difficult to disentangle the increased `general volatility in the markets post-tariffs from Tesla's inherent volatility, which is also linked to the tariff discussion.)