Elon Musk Moves Markets
The big market news Monday morning was Elon Musk nailing a deal between Tesla and Baidu to facilitate full self driving (FSD) capability in China. That led Morgan Stanley's Adam Jonas to argue that Elon Musk, the industrial titan, is back.
Adam Jonas on Musk pic.twitter.com/SIJYUzBA2e
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 29, 2024
Markets agreed with Jonas, pushing Tesla shares to their highest one-day gain in three years. TSLA closed up 15.31% at $194.05.
Looks Like Buying The Dip In Tesla Will Pay Off Again
Readers may recall we placed a bullish bet on Tesla before its earnings last week, when the stock was languishing in the $140s.
Cashing In On Tesla's Post-Earnings Bounce
— Portfolio Armor (@PortfolioArmor) April 24, 2024
Benjamin Graham would understand. $TSLAhttps://t.co/NljnySw19b
We exited that trade the next day for a 173% gain.
We also placed a longer-term bullish bet on Tesla earlier this month, when the share price was in the $160s.
As we wrote there,
The first one is the most obvious one, Tesla (TSLA 0.00%↑). Its shares are down about a third year-to-date (YTD). First it missed its Q4 earnings, and then it posted an 8.5% year-over-year decline in 1st quarter deliveries, driven in part by shutdowns of its Giga Berlin factory. Tesla shares were trading at close to $250 at the end of 2023; our bet below is that they’ll be trading at over $205 next January, and if we’re right, we’ll make a ~200% gain.
$205 seems a low hurdle for Tesla at this point. We may have to add another bullish bet on it after the next FUD-driven correction.
Incidentally, one of the other EV-makers we mentioned in that post, a Chinese company, will likely benefit from Tesla's FSD tech, as Chinese companies seem to eventually when it comes to Western tech.
Elon Musk Moves Minds
Markets weren't the only place where Elon Musk made an impact on Monday. He also vaulted one of our friends and their shared interest in raising the birthrate to newfound prominence.
Regular readers may recall the name Kevin Dolan, whose guest posts we've shared here recently, including this one on Restarting The Engine Of Civilization.
Restarting The Engine Of Civilization@extradeadjcb on how the systems that got your grandfather educated, employed, married, & raising a family no longer exist--and how we can rebuild them. https://t.co/JgOjdtfQlS
— Portfolio Armor (@PortfolioArmor) April 6, 2024
Last year, Kevin founded Natalism to find ways to raise birth rates, and over the weekend, Politico wrote a somewhat critical piece about his organization's Natal Conference last December. Politico's piece caught the eye of Elon Musk, who shares Kevin's concern about falling birthrates, and Musk shared Kevin's keynote address from the Natal Conference on X.
If birth rates continue to plummet, human civilization will endhttps://t.co/9PqnUW0QoG
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 29, 2024
As of this writing, Elon's post has been viewed more than 24 million times, and it made the top of RealClearPolitics as well.
Right at the top. You need to be the Rufo of natalism. pic.twitter.com/mEZ7NF3Ezc
— Helot 🚩 (@Helot_) April 29, 2024
If only we could have invested in Kevin Dolan as well as Tesla before today's moves.
In Case You Missed It
On our trading Substack over the weekend, we updated the performance of our weekly top ten names, since we launched the Substack. Their average 6-month returns are 22.03% versus 12.07% for SPY.
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