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Comment by throwaway20875 | Hacker News Reader

throwaway20875

>What a sensationalist title. Technically correct, yes, but misleading in spirit. Most people will see the title and not read the rest of the article, which results in the sentiment: "the only reason why Tesla is still afloat is because of XYZ." Would you want to invest in a company like that?

I wouldn't invest in Tesla because it's valued at a price/market capitalization worth more than all other car companies combined. This is before we get into the crypto currency hijinks or Elon's market manipulating tweets.

The valuation is insane and not supported by the current or future business.

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The party may or may not be over. We'll see. WSJ's sentiment on the company has been so negative for such a long time, that at some point between now and 100 years from now, they might finally be proven right. Once they finally get it, they will be looking back at 100s of billions worth of wrong financial advice that they've signaled with their negative titles.

The point I would drive home here is why trust a paper to give future guidance if their past guidance has been so spectacularly wrong? Again, the brand of the company alone was a strong signal that you never saw people write about.

Tesla isn't special. Tesla and all other growth companies benefited from the macro landscape of the 2010's. Zero interest rates drove capital out of (low) interest bearing treasuries and bonds and into tech. Look at foreign purchases of each over the last 10 years. I don't think we'll see this trend continue into the 2020's.

That's a fair argument. That said, I think it's still worth acknowledging that there are other macro forces out there, and the push for renewable energy is one of the stronger ones. Tesla managed to find itself at the intersection of at least those two strong tailwinds, and even if the zero interest tailwind goes away, the renewable energy one is only going to continue to gain momentum.

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