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2021-02-11

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How Tesla Options Can Hedge Against A Market Meltdown

Summary Tesla's trillion dollar valuation reflects the irrational exuberance sweeping through finan

How Tesla Options Can Hedge Against A Market Meltdown

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{"i18n":{"language":"zh_CN"},"data":{"magic":2,"id":388060500,"tweetId":"388060500","gmtCreate":1613002541000,"gmtModify":1703768207814,"author":{"id":3567421169138052,"idStr":"3567421169138052","authorId":3567421169138052,"authorIdStr":"3567421169138052","name":"kllam10","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/cd60979a45a0d23d552d964a9014b51b","vip":1,"userType":1,"introduction":"","boolIsFan":false,"boolIsHead":false,"crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"individualDisplayBadges":[],"fanSize":1,"starInvestorFlag":false},"themes":[],"images":[],"coverImages":[],"extraTitle":"","html":"<html><head></head><body>👍🏻🙏</body></html>","htmlText":"<html><head></head><body>👍🏻🙏</body></html>","text":"👍🏻🙏","highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":1,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"favoriteSize":0,"link":"https://laohu8.com/post/388060500","repostId":1113849351,"repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1113849351","kind":"news","pubTimestamp":1612948278,"share":"https://www.laohu8.com/m/news/1113849351?lang=&edition=full","pubTime":"2021-02-10 17:11","market":"us","language":"en","title":"How Tesla Options Can Hedge Against A Market Meltdown","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1113849351","media":"seekingalpha","summary":"Summary\n\nTesla's trillion dollar valuation reflects the irrational exuberance sweeping through finan","content":"Summary\n<ul>\n <li>Tesla's trillion dollar valuation reflects the irrational exuberance sweeping through financial markets.</li>\n <li>The bulls argue Tesla is a \"tech company\", but objective reality says Tesla is a structurally unprofitable car company.</li>\n <li>Even assuming flawless execution from here, Tesla shares face over 90% downside.</li>\n <li>This extreme downside risk makes Tesla an excellent candidate for hedging against today's mania.</li>\n <li>I detail an options trade on Tesla designed to hedge against a broader bear market.</li>\n</ul>\nIf you had any doubts before, thememe stock frenzyof the last few weeks should make one thing abundantly clear...\nYes, it's a mania.\nIn late December, I wrote about thespeculative excessesbubbling up in the financial markets. Things have only accelerated so far this year, with coordinated short squeezes sending the stocks of distressed businesses like GameStop (GME) and AMC (AMC) into the stratosphere,new record highs in margin debt,or my personal favorite - the relentless buying spree in speculative options among retail traders:\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/3ed1ad33fcdca94e8598947008f34056\" tg-width=\"785\" tg-height=\"586\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">\nOf course, no one knows when this ends... but we all know how it ends. The recent U-turn in meme stocks thatwiped out $167 billion in a matter of daysis a preview for what awaits the broader financial markets. That's why it's never been more important to have a plan in place for hedging the downside. Some investors prefer cash or government bonds - both fine options. But for those willing to get a little more exotic, buying put options on overvalued stocks provides another alternative.\nFirst, we must identify a company with enough downside to make the bet worthwhile. And for my money, no better stock meets that criteria than electric vehicle maker Tesla (TSLA). From 2014 through mid-2019, Tesla shares traded in a range between $30 - $80 (split-adjusted). Then, starting in the fourth quarter of 2019, Tesla shares entered ludicrous mode - rallying 1,700% from $50 to a recent price of around $850.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/a9b909a9b8f4b39d30a319177076aeab\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"354\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">\nIn today's article, I'll show that virtually nothing changed in Tesla's core business to justify this 17-fold increase in value since Q4 2019. I'll then make the case for why Tesla shares risk revisiting $50, even assuming an aggressive bull case in its future earnings trajectory.\nGiven this 95% downside risk in Tesla's share price today, it makes for an excellent candidate to hedge a portfolio against the inevitable unwinding of today's mania. I'll detail a basic put option trade with more than 1,000% upside should this risk materialize going forward.\nLet's begin by first addressing the core thesis bulls use to justify Tesla's stratospheric valuation...\nTesla, More than a Car Company?\nThere's one simple reason why Tesla bulls need the stock narrative to reflect more just a car company: your average car company trades for less than 0.5x sales. Even Toyota, the world's most profitable mass market automaker, trades at just 0.7x sales. And then, there's Tesla...\nBased on a fully diluted 1.2 billion share count, Tesla currently commands a $1 trillion valuation at $850 per share. This valuation reflects a more than 30x sales multiple, or more expensive that many of the most dominant, and most profitable tech companies on the planet. The bulls argue that this valuation is justified, because Tesla is, in fact, a tech company. Why? Here's one explanation fromCleanTechnica:\n<blockquote>\n What Makes Tesla a Tech Company?Tesla is creating software, a lot of software. Software is at the essence of Tesla’s unique infotainment system, user experience, and autonomous-driving features. Tesla has implemented over-the-air updates for years, while other automakers are just about to try this.\n</blockquote>\nOf course, no one will deny that Tesla vehicles contain a lot of cool software and other technology (just like every other modern-day automobile). There's just one problem: each piece of software Tesla sells has a car attached to it. Examining Tesla's financials reveals no standalone software segment. In fact, 94% of Tesla’s revenue last year came from automotive sales, leasing and service. That, dear readers, makes it a car company:\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/a4d1d7eb8b41fba5e2fbeb67c89ec10f\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"443\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">\nI'll save the analysis of Tesla's energy business for future articles, except to note that this battery/solar segment suffers even lower margins than Tesla's unprofitable car business. Back to the original point...\nThe narrative of Tesla as a \"tech company\" is exactly that - an empty narrative, divorced from financial reality. Tesla is only a tech company in the same way that Toyota or Volkswagen are - they all produce vehicles that contain software and other advanced \"technology\". But this alone doesn’t magically transform the economics of manufacturing automobiles.\nAnd the truth is, the car business suffers from pretty dismal economics, especially compared with the software business. Perhaps more than any other single factor, it's this basic financial reality that explains why Tesla shares face 95% downside risk, even assuming perfect execution going forward. So let's explore this point in greater detail, by comparing the economics of making cars versus making software...\nSoftware vs Autos: A Tale of Two Industries\nThe reason why dominant software companies trade at rich valuation multiples of 10-20x sales has nothing to do with so-called \"disruption\" or even innovation. Instead, it's all about the basic business fundamentals of margins, capital requirements and competitive dynamics. Let's consider the case of Microsoft, focusing on the simplified example of its Office software product (ignoring the growing cloud business and other segments for simplicity).\nFor starters, a software product like Microsoft Office enjoys tremendous margins. After the upfront investment of developing the software code, the incremental costs of selling each additional unit are miniscule - especially in today's world of downloadable software. Compare this with producing an automobile, which comes with massive variable costs - including both input materials and labor. This critical difference in unit economics explains why software companies like Microsoft earn 30 - 40% net margins versus carmakers like Tesla that suffer from razor thin, single-digit profitability:\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/4c083675b47070a5e8bd130702a838e4\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"394\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">\nNext, let's talk competition. Given the fat margins in a product like Microsoft Office, why has no competitor emerged to steal away any meaningful market share in the last 25 years? After all, we're not exactly talking rocket science to replicate the basic Office software code. The answer is all about network effects and switching costs. The world already runs on Office products, like Excel. So if you want to share your spreadsheets with the outside world, for example, you have no choice but to use Excel. Meanwhile, who wants the hassle of learning a new spreadsheet interface, and for what upside? To save maybe $20 per year?\nIn short, Microsoft's profitability has nothing to do with narratives like innovation or disruption. It's all about excellent unit economics combined with a virtually impenetrable moat insulating the business against competitors. This moat means Microsoft doesn't need to constantly invest money reinventing the wheel - it merely needs to maintain the status quo functionality of the Office product. So instead of diverting a big chunk of profits back into new product development, those profits instead flow back to shareholders.\nThe mass market car business operates on the exact opposite dynamics, where consumers constantly shop around for the latest vehicle features and designs, delivered at the lowest cost. There are no meaningful competitive moats that prevent consumers from switching brands, or from competitors replicating the latest vehicle designs and technology. That's why, instead of the monopoly-like powers enjoyed by the big tech companies, the car business trends towards commoditization over time. We see evidence of this in the brutally low margins, and in the fact that no single car company owns more than 15% of global market share.\nMany of the bulls mistakenly view Tesla's \"first mover\" status in the EV market as some kind of fundamental competitive advantage, but that ignores the basic competitive dynamics of the car business. First mover advantage doesn't really exist in the commoditized world of auto manufacturing, and Tesla is already providing a perfect case study for those who car to look. In the world's largest EV market - Europe - Tesla's market share has collapsed from undisputed leader as recently as 2019 to third place today, thanks to a flood of new EV competition from legacy auto makers:\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/5c2ce6fbcf99c716e30ea76507893618\" tg-width=\"435\" tg-height=\"535\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">\nAs the world's largest and most competitive EV market, Europe is a bellwether for the future competitive pressures Tesla will face in the U.S. and China. The success of the recently launchedFord Mustang Mach-Eshows that legacy automakers can and will produce compelling EVs on par with, or perhaps even better than Tesla's current offerings. The growing competition is showing up in another key metric:Tesla's relentless price cutsacross all vehicle models, including a$3,000 cut in the Model Y priceonly a few months after initial production.\nClearly, Tesla does not enjoy any meaningful competitive moat, or else it wouldn't be surrendering market share and slashing prices across the board. That means Tesla will need to constantly invest huge sums of money just to keep its head above water earning razor thin margins, as it fights for market share in what is already becoming a highly commoditized EV industry.\nSo to summarize...\nTesla: It's a Car Company\nDespite the bullish narrative about the tremendous \"technology\" Tesla produces, the objective reality in the financial statements shows that Tesla is a car company which happens to produce software. It doesn't enjoy any of the economic benefits that a pure play software producer, like Microsoft enjoys - things like excellent unit economics and a monopoly-like competitive position.\nThe reason companies like Microsoft command valuation premiums of 10x sales or more, is simply because of the high returns on invested capital the business generates. Conversely, even the most profitable car company on the planet - Toyota - trades at less than 1x sales. That's simply a reflection of the brutal economics of high operating costs and intense competitive pressures, which translate into fundamentally low returns on capital. Tesla is not immune from this basic economic reality. If you strip away the hype and just examine the numbers, Tesla looks exactly like your average car company:\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/05782c8583b26edd51aeb769b32ced1d\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"408\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">\nBut here's the thing - Tesla actually suffers far worse unit economics than your average car company. The chart above reflects the financials of a one-time outlier year of profitability. Before 2020, Tesla lost money in every year of its existence:\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/07426fdf2d4f750a787924e8bc48775f\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"416\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Tesla's 2020 financial results led many bulls to believe the company had finally turned the corner towards sustained profitability. But here again, the objective reality in the financials tell a different story.\nTesla Still Loses Money Making Cars\nThe truth is, Tesla lost money making cars in 2020 - just like every other year in its existence. Tesla only managed to manufacture a one-time profit thanks to a bonanza in government-mandated wealth transfers from the very legacy automakers Tesla seeks to \"disrupt\". Let me explain...\nGovernments around the globe have established regulations designed to move the auto industry away from the internal combustion engine (ICE) towards zero emission vehicles. These regulations establish a maximum emissions threshold associated with ICE vehicle sales. So companies that sell too many ICE vehicles incur fines if they exceed the emission threshold. Conversely, companies that produce zero emission vehicles - like Tesla - earn regulatory credits, which they can then sell to other manufacturers to offset the emission tallies from ICE vehicle sales.\nThe key point here is that Tesla incurs virtually zero costs when selling these regulatory credits. This 100% pure profit margin revenue provides a major boost to Tesla's otherwise dismal financials. Last year, Tesla earned a whopping $1.6 billion in regulatory credits, up more than 150% from the $600 million earned in 2019. Now here's the thing - Tesla only grew its vehicle sales by less than 40% last year. So how do we explain the pace of emission credits massively outpacing its vehicle sales growth?\nOne potential answer lies in Tesla's mushrooming accounts receivables balance, which grew by about half a billion dollars last year. In Tesla's10Q filing from Q3 2020, the company describes a large transaction involving regulatory credit sales that contributed to its account receivables balance:\n<blockquote>\n As of September 30, 2020, one entity represented 10% or more of our total accounts receivable balance, which was related to sales of regulatory credits. As of December 31, 2019, no entity represented 10% of our total accounts receivable balance.\n</blockquote>\nUnfortunately, Tesla provides few additional details explaining what's going on with the accounts receivable balance - a subjectDavid Einhorn has publicly questioned Elon Musk about. But if I were to speculate, it looks like Tesla pulled forward a substantial sum of regulatory credit sales associated with future vehicle sales into the 2020 fiscal year, allowing it to print a one-time profit of $721 million. But if we take away these credit sales (including backing out the estimated taxes paid), Tesla's \"profit\" in 2020 transforms into a $568 million loss:\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/ac66da8f996eb6f7089a2c90e7dda12c\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"428\">(Source: Author, using Tesla filings)\nIn other words, Tesla's core manufacturing business remains structurally unprofitable. 2020 was not a turning point, but merely an outlier driven by a $1.6 billion bonanza in regulatory emission credits. And the language in its SEC filings indicate that at least some portion of these regulatory credit sales were pulled forward from future years and booked into the accounts receivable balance.\nIn any event, the bottom line is clear: instead of disrupting the legacy automakers, in my view Tesla essentially relies on wealth transfers from its profitable competitors to offset the endless red ink flowing from its own manufacturing operations. Of course, the bulls might argue that it doesn't where the money comes from - profit is profit, right? But here's the problem - Tesla's corporate welfare gravy train will soon hit a brick wall, with nearly every major automaker introducingdozens of new EV modelsthis year and next. And that's just the start. By 2025, hundreds of billions of dollars will have been deployed into new EV models by legacy automakers:\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/05cf0587c2addcd549edab52ba39f82f\" tg-width=\"594\" tg-height=\"386\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">\nThe coming tsunami of new EVs offerings means regulatory emission credit supply will soar and demand will plunge, and thus killing their value. Within a few short years, Tesla will no longer be able to paper over the losses from its core business with regulatory credit sales. That's not just my opinion - Tesla CFO Zach Kirkhorn confirmed the temporary nature of Tesla's credit sales during the company'sQ2 2020 earnings call:\n<blockquote>\n ...we don't manage the business with the assumption that regulatory credits will contribute in a significant way to the future... eventually, the stream of regulatory credits will reduce.\n</blockquote>\nThat means no, not all profit is created equal. An ongoing profit stream from a viable business deserves a valuation multiple. Conversely, a temporary profit stream should be looked through when assessing the long-term value of a business. Since Tesla investors can not count on regulatory credits continuing beyond the next few years, it only makes sense to strip out their impact from the income statement. When you do that, you see that virtually nothing to justify Tesla's manic share price rally in 2020 - the core manufacturing business remains structurally unprofitable:\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/35bc24f3b93c083529b291bfa499d17c\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"404\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">\nMeanwhile, it's not just the rearview financials in the core business that remain unchanged.Jim Chanos recently notedhow the forward analyst estimates for Tesla's 2022 - 2023 earnings are the same as in mid-2019, back when shares traded for $50:\n<blockquote>\n That kind of tells you a little bit about what's happened in the marketplace in that valuations have just gone parabolic for basically a company that's still, in the eyes of analysts, earning at or below where they thought it would be earning two years ago. That's kind of incredible.\n</blockquote>\nSo if neither the trailing business fundamentals nor the forward earnings outlook changed, that leaves only one variable left to explain what sent Tesla shares from $50 to $850: investor psychology. More specifically, manic psychology, fueling a mad scramble for unprofitable companies across the board:\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/92ddc266e80382c1f5544c7bf8e51828\" tg-width=\"1280\" tg-height=\"954\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">\nThus, Tesla's parabolic price appreciation is merely one of the countless cases of speculative excess playing out across the financial markets. Make no mistake, the coming unwind of this excess is a question of when, not if. When that day comes, the fallout will likely spread throughout financial markets, taking down the innocent bystanders as collateral damage. That's why I'm betting against Tesla as a hedge against this coming unwind. And the reason Tesla makes such a compelling candidate for a price re-rating is, well... how many other trillion dollar companies do you know of that don't make money in their core business?\nTake away the regulatory profit stream - which will start happening this year - and there's no reason why Tesla should trade for anything above the net cash on the balance sheet - which currently sits at around $7 billion, or about $6 per share on a fully diluted basis. Meanwhile, what's the upside case in the scenario where Tesla transforms itself into a profitable car company? Let's briefly consider that scenario...\nTesla Shares Face 90% Downside, Even with Perfect Execution\nLet's suspend disbelief for a moment and give Tesla full credit for flawless execution on both top line growth and bottom line profitability going forward. For the top line growth assumption, let's simply use the forecast fromTesla's most recent earnings release, where the company guided for 50% annual growth rate in vehicle deliveries going forward. Before moving on, I'll simply note that this projection seems wildly optimistic given Tesla's depleted product pipeline. Both the Tesla Semi and Roadster have missed their original production deadlines by over a year, with no clear timeline yet on when production will begin. Meanwhile, the CyberTruck - Tesla's only mass market vehicle in the pipeline -also appears delayeduntil sometime between 2022 - 2023.\nBut even if we give Tesla full credit for this growth, one thing is clear - it will require massive capital investment. That means significant future equity issuance. Meanwhile, Tesla pays a significant portion of its employee salary expense via stock compensation, including Elon Musk's record shattering$56 billion stock bonus plan(saving the planet ain't cheap, apparently). The bottom line: equity dilution is a real issue for Tesla shareholders. Over the last five years, Tesla shareholders have suffered more than 50% dilution. Given the healthy cash pile currently on the balance sheet, let's conservatively assume the dilution rate slows to 5% annually going forward, starting from today's 1.2 billion fully diluted share count.\nNext, let's talk earnings. Remember, this is our aggressive bull case... so let's hold nothing back. We'll assume that Tesla transforms from a structurally unprofitable automaker into one of the most profitable car companies on the planet - matching the 6% net margins earned by Toyota, the mass market industry leader in profitability.\nFinally, let's give Tesla a best-in-class 25x earnings multiple. That's a more than 300% valuation premium over the industry average of roughly 8x earnings, and more than twice the earnings multiple on Toyota. Putting it all together, the table below shows the key assumptions and annual price targets out to 2025:\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/381ad84108e848b2bfe8fc2001b57800\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"158\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">\nIn other words...\nTesla shares face more than 90% downside risk through 2022, even in the aggressive bull case scenario.\nIn future articles, I'll dive deeper into the weeds to show why there's very little chance of Tesla achieving anything close to the targets outlined above. For now, the key takeaway is that even these fantasy fundamentals barely justify a $50 price target.\nBefore wrapping up this analysis and moving on to the trade idea, let me address the final key talking point bulls use to justify Tesla's trillion dollar valuation...\nWhat About the Robotaxis?\nStarting in late 2016,Elon Musk has promisedthe imminent release of Level 5 full self driving capability in all Tesla vehicles. The promise all along has been that, every Tesla rolling off the assembly line contained the necessary hardware for full self driving, and it was only a matter of developing the software to achieve Level 5 autonomy.\nAs a brief bit of background, Level 5 is the highest of6 SAE-defined levels of vehicle autonomy(ranging from 0 to 5). A level 5 vehicle can fully navigate through all environments with zero human supervision. Over the last several years, Musk has made a series of autonomy promises to both consumers and investors which have so far failed to materialize. This includes a2019 capital raise, during which Musk promised a future \"robotaxi\" network that would include a million autonomous Tesla's on the road by 2020. Musk has even claimed that Tesla owners could lend their vehicles out to this future robotaxi network andearn as much as $30,000 per year.\nThose were the promises, but here's the reality... more than four years after making the original promise, Tesla is still stuck at Level 2 autonomy. As described in the graphic below, Level 2 autonomy is nothing more than a basic driver assistance feature, which many other automakers currently offer:\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/f7a572a2cdf3f9b0161fb7fef5abce9f\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"415\">Source (notations by author)\nDespite the endless string of autonomy promises that have gone unfulfilled for more than four years, Musk remains undeterred in continuing to make aggressive projections to investors. On the company's latest earnings, Musk talked up a forecast of $50 billion in future earnings from the non-existent robotaxi network,as CNBC reports:\n<blockquote>\n On the company’s earnings call on Wednesday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the valuation makes sense if you assume that billions of dollars worth of cars become robotaxis.He said $50 billion in car sales could produce another $50 billion in “incremental profit” with software margins.\n</blockquote>\nIn other words - ignore the broken autonomy promises over the last four years, and just assume this non-existent robotaxi network will become one of the world's most profitable businesses in the future. I'll save the full autonomy analysis for the future, except to say - if you buy into this projection, then sure, a trillion dollar valuation for Tesla stock can make sense. I'll happily take the other side of that bet.\nAnd without a miracle windfall from robotaxis, there's nothing to stop Mr. Market from repricing Tesla as the unprofitable automaker that it is when today's mania unravels. Which brings us to the final point of this article - the Tesla options trade I'm using to hedge against the unraveling of speculative excess in today's market.\nA Tesla Hedging Trade with Over 10x Upside\nThe full discussion of put option mechanics goes beyond the scope of today's article, but for a high level overview, think of put options as the stock market's version of an insurance policy. Just like your monthly car insurance premiums, most put options expire worthless... but during a crash, they can pay off in a big way.\nPut options achieve this pay off structure by providing short exposure to 100 shares of an underlying stock at the option strike price, up until the expiration date. You pay a premium for the privilege of gaining this short exposure, in the form of the upfront price of the option contract. The reason most options expire worthless is because the stock price must move far enough below the strike price to offset the cost of the option, within a limited time frame (i.e. before the expiration date).\nAnd that brings us to the two key elements of selecting a put option: a target price and a time frame. I just explained the fundamental case for a downside target of $50 in Tesla shares. And from a technical perspective, Tesla based at around $50 in the fourth quarter of 2019 before launching into a parabolic melt-up. The history of parabolic advances says that, when they end, the stock price often revisits the launch pad - which would bring Tesla back to around $50. Meanwhile, in order to give this trade plenty of time, I'm looking out to January 2022 as a rough time frame.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/3ca705542b208fa6c8afca0795f80259\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"354\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">\nSo this time frame gives a straight forward decision on the option expiration date of January 21, 2022. Meanwhile, in order to give the position plenty of room to be wrong and still pay off, I'll select a strike price of $300. There's a delicate balance when selecting strike prices - a lower strike would provide a higher return, but also come with a lower probability of pay off. As I'll show below, selecting a $300 strike price still provides the chance of earning a decent return even if my $50 downside target proves too aggressive.\nBut before considering the return potential, we have to know the price of the option. At the close of trading on Monday, the $300 strike Tesla put option expiring on January 21, 2022 traded for around $15.75, as shown below:\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/f18b6b326a4fadbe5a0dae10c0355ac6\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"38\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">\nGiven the 100-share multiplier, the $15.75 quoted price translates into a total cost of $1,575 (plus fees/commissions). With this information, we can determine the return potential of the option for a range of scenarios. In the case where Tesla closes at or above $300 by the expiration date, the option expires worthless, resulting in a 100% loss. Alternatively, if Tesla closes below $300, then the option gains $100 in value for every $1 below the $300 strike price. The table below summarizes this range of scenarios:\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/33d0ec6d30e3088aad23b0bf644728ab\" tg-width=\"453\" tg-height=\"244\">(Note: for simplicity, I assume the option is held until just before the expiration date, and then closed out without exercising the contract).\nSo in the downside scenario outlined earlier, where Tesla trades down to $50 by the January 2022 expiration date, the option value grows from $1,650 to $25,000 - for a gain of about 1,400%. However, even if this downside target proves too aggressive, there's still scope to make a reasonable return. If shares only fall to, say $200, the option still returns roughly 500%.\nAs you can see, it only take a small allocation within an overall portfolio to gain substantial hedging exposure with a trade like this. Of course, recency bias might make $50 or even $200 per share seem outlandish for a stock trading near $850 today. But let's not forget that Tesla was within“single digit weeks” of bankruptcyas recently as 2018. And in May of 2019, topTesla analyst Adam Jonasdescribed the company as “a distressed credit and restructuring story”, with a $10 downside price target (or $2 pre-split).\nThe core business remains virtually unchanged from 2018 and 2019 - when terms like \"bankruptcy\" and \"restructuring\" were on the table. The only key difference is that Tesla now enjoys a positive net cash balance, which takes an immediate bankruptcy scenario off the table. But with less than $10 per share in net cash, this should provide little consolation for the bulls as a valuation floor.\nAll that really needs to happen is for Tesla to continue on its current path of losing money in its core business, and catastrophic downside is in store for the stock. And that's not just my opinion - Elon Musk himself fully recognizes this risk, as he noted in a recentemail to employees:\n<blockquote>\n Investors are giving us a lot of credit for future profitability but if, at any point, they conclude that’s not going to happen, our stock will immediately get crushed like a souffle under a sledgehammer!\n</blockquote>\nGoing forward, my money's on the sledgehammer, not the soufflé.","source":"seekingalpha","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>How Tesla Options Can Hedge Against A Market Meltdown</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nHow Tesla Options Can Hedge Against A Market Meltdown\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2021-02-10 17:11 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4404670-how-tesla-options-can-hedge-against-market-meltdown>seekingalpha</a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\nSummary\n\nTesla's trillion dollar valuation reflects the irrational exuberance sweeping through financial markets.\nThe bulls argue Tesla is a \"tech company\", but objective reality says Tesla is a ...\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4404670-how-tesla-options-can-hedge-against-market-meltdown\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{"TSLA":"特斯拉"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4404670-how-tesla-options-can-hedge-against-market-meltdown","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/5a36db9d73b4222bc376d24ccc48c8a4","article_id":"1113849351","content_text":"Summary\n\nTesla's trillion dollar valuation reflects the irrational exuberance sweeping through financial markets.\nThe bulls argue Tesla is a \"tech company\", but objective reality says Tesla is a structurally unprofitable car company.\nEven assuming flawless execution from here, Tesla shares face over 90% downside.\nThis extreme downside risk makes Tesla an excellent candidate for hedging against today's mania.\nI detail an options trade on Tesla designed to hedge against a broader bear market.\n\nIf you had any doubts before, thememe stock frenzyof the last few weeks should make one thing abundantly clear...\nYes, it's a mania.\nIn late December, I wrote about thespeculative excessesbubbling up in the financial markets. Things have only accelerated so far this year, with coordinated short squeezes sending the stocks of distressed businesses like GameStop (GME) and AMC (AMC) into the stratosphere,new record highs in margin debt,or my personal favorite - the relentless buying spree in speculative options among retail traders:\n\nOf course, no one knows when this ends... but we all know how it ends. The recent U-turn in meme stocks thatwiped out $167 billion in a matter of daysis a preview for what awaits the broader financial markets. That's why it's never been more important to have a plan in place for hedging the downside. Some investors prefer cash or government bonds - both fine options. But for those willing to get a little more exotic, buying put options on overvalued stocks provides another alternative.\nFirst, we must identify a company with enough downside to make the bet worthwhile. And for my money, no better stock meets that criteria than electric vehicle maker Tesla (TSLA). From 2014 through mid-2019, Tesla shares traded in a range between $30 - $80 (split-adjusted). Then, starting in the fourth quarter of 2019, Tesla shares entered ludicrous mode - rallying 1,700% from $50 to a recent price of around $850.\n\nIn today's article, I'll show that virtually nothing changed in Tesla's core business to justify this 17-fold increase in value since Q4 2019. I'll then make the case for why Tesla shares risk revisiting $50, even assuming an aggressive bull case in its future earnings trajectory.\nGiven this 95% downside risk in Tesla's share price today, it makes for an excellent candidate to hedge a portfolio against the inevitable unwinding of today's mania. I'll detail a basic put option trade with more than 1,000% upside should this risk materialize going forward.\nLet's begin by first addressing the core thesis bulls use to justify Tesla's stratospheric valuation...\nTesla, More than a Car Company?\nThere's one simple reason why Tesla bulls need the stock narrative to reflect more just a car company: your average car company trades for less than 0.5x sales. Even Toyota, the world's most profitable mass market automaker, trades at just 0.7x sales. And then, there's Tesla...\nBased on a fully diluted 1.2 billion share count, Tesla currently commands a $1 trillion valuation at $850 per share. This valuation reflects a more than 30x sales multiple, or more expensive that many of the most dominant, and most profitable tech companies on the planet. The bulls argue that this valuation is justified, because Tesla is, in fact, a tech company. Why? Here's one explanation fromCleanTechnica:\n\n What Makes Tesla a Tech Company?Tesla is creating software, a lot of software. Software is at the essence of Tesla’s unique infotainment system, user experience, and autonomous-driving features. Tesla has implemented over-the-air updates for years, while other automakers are just about to try this.\n\nOf course, no one will deny that Tesla vehicles contain a lot of cool software and other technology (just like every other modern-day automobile). There's just one problem: each piece of software Tesla sells has a car attached to it. Examining Tesla's financials reveals no standalone software segment. In fact, 94% of Tesla’s revenue last year came from automotive sales, leasing and service. That, dear readers, makes it a car company:\n\nI'll save the analysis of Tesla's energy business for future articles, except to note that this battery/solar segment suffers even lower margins than Tesla's unprofitable car business. Back to the original point...\nThe narrative of Tesla as a \"tech company\" is exactly that - an empty narrative, divorced from financial reality. Tesla is only a tech company in the same way that Toyota or Volkswagen are - they all produce vehicles that contain software and other advanced \"technology\". But this alone doesn’t magically transform the economics of manufacturing automobiles.\nAnd the truth is, the car business suffers from pretty dismal economics, especially compared with the software business. Perhaps more than any other single factor, it's this basic financial reality that explains why Tesla shares face 95% downside risk, even assuming perfect execution going forward. So let's explore this point in greater detail, by comparing the economics of making cars versus making software...\nSoftware vs Autos: A Tale of Two Industries\nThe reason why dominant software companies trade at rich valuation multiples of 10-20x sales has nothing to do with so-called \"disruption\" or even innovation. Instead, it's all about the basic business fundamentals of margins, capital requirements and competitive dynamics. Let's consider the case of Microsoft, focusing on the simplified example of its Office software product (ignoring the growing cloud business and other segments for simplicity).\nFor starters, a software product like Microsoft Office enjoys tremendous margins. After the upfront investment of developing the software code, the incremental costs of selling each additional unit are miniscule - especially in today's world of downloadable software. Compare this with producing an automobile, which comes with massive variable costs - including both input materials and labor. This critical difference in unit economics explains why software companies like Microsoft earn 30 - 40% net margins versus carmakers like Tesla that suffer from razor thin, single-digit profitability:\n\nNext, let's talk competition. Given the fat margins in a product like Microsoft Office, why has no competitor emerged to steal away any meaningful market share in the last 25 years? After all, we're not exactly talking rocket science to replicate the basic Office software code. The answer is all about network effects and switching costs. The world already runs on Office products, like Excel. So if you want to share your spreadsheets with the outside world, for example, you have no choice but to use Excel. Meanwhile, who wants the hassle of learning a new spreadsheet interface, and for what upside? To save maybe $20 per year?\nIn short, Microsoft's profitability has nothing to do with narratives like innovation or disruption. It's all about excellent unit economics combined with a virtually impenetrable moat insulating the business against competitors. This moat means Microsoft doesn't need to constantly invest money reinventing the wheel - it merely needs to maintain the status quo functionality of the Office product. So instead of diverting a big chunk of profits back into new product development, those profits instead flow back to shareholders.\nThe mass market car business operates on the exact opposite dynamics, where consumers constantly shop around for the latest vehicle features and designs, delivered at the lowest cost. There are no meaningful competitive moats that prevent consumers from switching brands, or from competitors replicating the latest vehicle designs and technology. That's why, instead of the monopoly-like powers enjoyed by the big tech companies, the car business trends towards commoditization over time. We see evidence of this in the brutally low margins, and in the fact that no single car company owns more than 15% of global market share.\nMany of the bulls mistakenly view Tesla's \"first mover\" status in the EV market as some kind of fundamental competitive advantage, but that ignores the basic competitive dynamics of the car business. First mover advantage doesn't really exist in the commoditized world of auto manufacturing, and Tesla is already providing a perfect case study for those who car to look. In the world's largest EV market - Europe - Tesla's market share has collapsed from undisputed leader as recently as 2019 to third place today, thanks to a flood of new EV competition from legacy auto makers:\n\nAs the world's largest and most competitive EV market, Europe is a bellwether for the future competitive pressures Tesla will face in the U.S. and China. The success of the recently launchedFord Mustang Mach-Eshows that legacy automakers can and will produce compelling EVs on par with, or perhaps even better than Tesla's current offerings. The growing competition is showing up in another key metric:Tesla's relentless price cutsacross all vehicle models, including a$3,000 cut in the Model Y priceonly a few months after initial production.\nClearly, Tesla does not enjoy any meaningful competitive moat, or else it wouldn't be surrendering market share and slashing prices across the board. That means Tesla will need to constantly invest huge sums of money just to keep its head above water earning razor thin margins, as it fights for market share in what is already becoming a highly commoditized EV industry.\nSo to summarize...\nTesla: It's a Car Company\nDespite the bullish narrative about the tremendous \"technology\" Tesla produces, the objective reality in the financial statements shows that Tesla is a car company which happens to produce software. It doesn't enjoy any of the economic benefits that a pure play software producer, like Microsoft enjoys - things like excellent unit economics and a monopoly-like competitive position.\nThe reason companies like Microsoft command valuation premiums of 10x sales or more, is simply because of the high returns on invested capital the business generates. Conversely, even the most profitable car company on the planet - Toyota - trades at less than 1x sales. That's simply a reflection of the brutal economics of high operating costs and intense competitive pressures, which translate into fundamentally low returns on capital. Tesla is not immune from this basic economic reality. If you strip away the hype and just examine the numbers, Tesla looks exactly like your average car company:\n\nBut here's the thing - Tesla actually suffers far worse unit economics than your average car company. The chart above reflects the financials of a one-time outlier year of profitability. Before 2020, Tesla lost money in every year of its existence:\nTesla's 2020 financial results led many bulls to believe the company had finally turned the corner towards sustained profitability. But here again, the objective reality in the financials tell a different story.\nTesla Still Loses Money Making Cars\nThe truth is, Tesla lost money making cars in 2020 - just like every other year in its existence. Tesla only managed to manufacture a one-time profit thanks to a bonanza in government-mandated wealth transfers from the very legacy automakers Tesla seeks to \"disrupt\". Let me explain...\nGovernments around the globe have established regulations designed to move the auto industry away from the internal combustion engine (ICE) towards zero emission vehicles. These regulations establish a maximum emissions threshold associated with ICE vehicle sales. So companies that sell too many ICE vehicles incur fines if they exceed the emission threshold. Conversely, companies that produce zero emission vehicles - like Tesla - earn regulatory credits, which they can then sell to other manufacturers to offset the emission tallies from ICE vehicle sales.\nThe key point here is that Tesla incurs virtually zero costs when selling these regulatory credits. This 100% pure profit margin revenue provides a major boost to Tesla's otherwise dismal financials. Last year, Tesla earned a whopping $1.6 billion in regulatory credits, up more than 150% from the $600 million earned in 2019. Now here's the thing - Tesla only grew its vehicle sales by less than 40% last year. So how do we explain the pace of emission credits massively outpacing its vehicle sales growth?\nOne potential answer lies in Tesla's mushrooming accounts receivables balance, which grew by about half a billion dollars last year. In Tesla's10Q filing from Q3 2020, the company describes a large transaction involving regulatory credit sales that contributed to its account receivables balance:\n\n As of September 30, 2020, one entity represented 10% or more of our total accounts receivable balance, which was related to sales of regulatory credits. As of December 31, 2019, no entity represented 10% of our total accounts receivable balance.\n\nUnfortunately, Tesla provides few additional details explaining what's going on with the accounts receivable balance - a subjectDavid Einhorn has publicly questioned Elon Musk about. But if I were to speculate, it looks like Tesla pulled forward a substantial sum of regulatory credit sales associated with future vehicle sales into the 2020 fiscal year, allowing it to print a one-time profit of $721 million. But if we take away these credit sales (including backing out the estimated taxes paid), Tesla's \"profit\" in 2020 transforms into a $568 million loss:\n(Source: Author, using Tesla filings)\nIn other words, Tesla's core manufacturing business remains structurally unprofitable. 2020 was not a turning point, but merely an outlier driven by a $1.6 billion bonanza in regulatory emission credits. And the language in its SEC filings indicate that at least some portion of these regulatory credit sales were pulled forward from future years and booked into the accounts receivable balance.\nIn any event, the bottom line is clear: instead of disrupting the legacy automakers, in my view Tesla essentially relies on wealth transfers from its profitable competitors to offset the endless red ink flowing from its own manufacturing operations. Of course, the bulls might argue that it doesn't where the money comes from - profit is profit, right? But here's the problem - Tesla's corporate welfare gravy train will soon hit a brick wall, with nearly every major automaker introducingdozens of new EV modelsthis year and next. And that's just the start. By 2025, hundreds of billions of dollars will have been deployed into new EV models by legacy automakers:\n\nThe coming tsunami of new EVs offerings means regulatory emission credit supply will soar and demand will plunge, and thus killing their value. Within a few short years, Tesla will no longer be able to paper over the losses from its core business with regulatory credit sales. That's not just my opinion - Tesla CFO Zach Kirkhorn confirmed the temporary nature of Tesla's credit sales during the company'sQ2 2020 earnings call:\n\n ...we don't manage the business with the assumption that regulatory credits will contribute in a significant way to the future... eventually, the stream of regulatory credits will reduce.\n\nThat means no, not all profit is created equal. An ongoing profit stream from a viable business deserves a valuation multiple. Conversely, a temporary profit stream should be looked through when assessing the long-term value of a business. Since Tesla investors can not count on regulatory credits continuing beyond the next few years, it only makes sense to strip out their impact from the income statement. When you do that, you see that virtually nothing to justify Tesla's manic share price rally in 2020 - the core manufacturing business remains structurally unprofitable:\n\nMeanwhile, it's not just the rearview financials in the core business that remain unchanged.Jim Chanos recently notedhow the forward analyst estimates for Tesla's 2022 - 2023 earnings are the same as in mid-2019, back when shares traded for $50:\n\n That kind of tells you a little bit about what's happened in the marketplace in that valuations have just gone parabolic for basically a company that's still, in the eyes of analysts, earning at or below where they thought it would be earning two years ago. That's kind of incredible.\n\nSo if neither the trailing business fundamentals nor the forward earnings outlook changed, that leaves only one variable left to explain what sent Tesla shares from $50 to $850: investor psychology. More specifically, manic psychology, fueling a mad scramble for unprofitable companies across the board:\n\nThus, Tesla's parabolic price appreciation is merely one of the countless cases of speculative excess playing out across the financial markets. Make no mistake, the coming unwind of this excess is a question of when, not if. When that day comes, the fallout will likely spread throughout financial markets, taking down the innocent bystanders as collateral damage. That's why I'm betting against Tesla as a hedge against this coming unwind. And the reason Tesla makes such a compelling candidate for a price re-rating is, well... how many other trillion dollar companies do you know of that don't make money in their core business?\nTake away the regulatory profit stream - which will start happening this year - and there's no reason why Tesla should trade for anything above the net cash on the balance sheet - which currently sits at around $7 billion, or about $6 per share on a fully diluted basis. Meanwhile, what's the upside case in the scenario where Tesla transforms itself into a profitable car company? Let's briefly consider that scenario...\nTesla Shares Face 90% Downside, Even with Perfect Execution\nLet's suspend disbelief for a moment and give Tesla full credit for flawless execution on both top line growth and bottom line profitability going forward. For the top line growth assumption, let's simply use the forecast fromTesla's most recent earnings release, where the company guided for 50% annual growth rate in vehicle deliveries going forward. Before moving on, I'll simply note that this projection seems wildly optimistic given Tesla's depleted product pipeline. Both the Tesla Semi and Roadster have missed their original production deadlines by over a year, with no clear timeline yet on when production will begin. Meanwhile, the CyberTruck - Tesla's only mass market vehicle in the pipeline -also appears delayeduntil sometime between 2022 - 2023.\nBut even if we give Tesla full credit for this growth, one thing is clear - it will require massive capital investment. That means significant future equity issuance. Meanwhile, Tesla pays a significant portion of its employee salary expense via stock compensation, including Elon Musk's record shattering$56 billion stock bonus plan(saving the planet ain't cheap, apparently). The bottom line: equity dilution is a real issue for Tesla shareholders. Over the last five years, Tesla shareholders have suffered more than 50% dilution. Given the healthy cash pile currently on the balance sheet, let's conservatively assume the dilution rate slows to 5% annually going forward, starting from today's 1.2 billion fully diluted share count.\nNext, let's talk earnings. Remember, this is our aggressive bull case... so let's hold nothing back. We'll assume that Tesla transforms from a structurally unprofitable automaker into one of the most profitable car companies on the planet - matching the 6% net margins earned by Toyota, the mass market industry leader in profitability.\nFinally, let's give Tesla a best-in-class 25x earnings multiple. That's a more than 300% valuation premium over the industry average of roughly 8x earnings, and more than twice the earnings multiple on Toyota. Putting it all together, the table below shows the key assumptions and annual price targets out to 2025:\n\nIn other words...\nTesla shares face more than 90% downside risk through 2022, even in the aggressive bull case scenario.\nIn future articles, I'll dive deeper into the weeds to show why there's very little chance of Tesla achieving anything close to the targets outlined above. For now, the key takeaway is that even these fantasy fundamentals barely justify a $50 price target.\nBefore wrapping up this analysis and moving on to the trade idea, let me address the final key talking point bulls use to justify Tesla's trillion dollar valuation...\nWhat About the Robotaxis?\nStarting in late 2016,Elon Musk has promisedthe imminent release of Level 5 full self driving capability in all Tesla vehicles. The promise all along has been that, every Tesla rolling off the assembly line contained the necessary hardware for full self driving, and it was only a matter of developing the software to achieve Level 5 autonomy.\nAs a brief bit of background, Level 5 is the highest of6 SAE-defined levels of vehicle autonomy(ranging from 0 to 5). A level 5 vehicle can fully navigate through all environments with zero human supervision. Over the last several years, Musk has made a series of autonomy promises to both consumers and investors which have so far failed to materialize. This includes a2019 capital raise, during which Musk promised a future \"robotaxi\" network that would include a million autonomous Tesla's on the road by 2020. Musk has even claimed that Tesla owners could lend their vehicles out to this future robotaxi network andearn as much as $30,000 per year.\nThose were the promises, but here's the reality... more than four years after making the original promise, Tesla is still stuck at Level 2 autonomy. As described in the graphic below, Level 2 autonomy is nothing more than a basic driver assistance feature, which many other automakers currently offer:\nSource (notations by author)\nDespite the endless string of autonomy promises that have gone unfulfilled for more than four years, Musk remains undeterred in continuing to make aggressive projections to investors. On the company's latest earnings, Musk talked up a forecast of $50 billion in future earnings from the non-existent robotaxi network,as CNBC reports:\n\n On the company’s earnings call on Wednesday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the valuation makes sense if you assume that billions of dollars worth of cars become robotaxis.He said $50 billion in car sales could produce another $50 billion in “incremental profit” with software margins.\n\nIn other words - ignore the broken autonomy promises over the last four years, and just assume this non-existent robotaxi network will become one of the world's most profitable businesses in the future. I'll save the full autonomy analysis for the future, except to say - if you buy into this projection, then sure, a trillion dollar valuation for Tesla stock can make sense. I'll happily take the other side of that bet.\nAnd without a miracle windfall from robotaxis, there's nothing to stop Mr. Market from repricing Tesla as the unprofitable automaker that it is when today's mania unravels. Which brings us to the final point of this article - the Tesla options trade I'm using to hedge against the unraveling of speculative excess in today's market.\nA Tesla Hedging Trade with Over 10x Upside\nThe full discussion of put option mechanics goes beyond the scope of today's article, but for a high level overview, think of put options as the stock market's version of an insurance policy. Just like your monthly car insurance premiums, most put options expire worthless... but during a crash, they can pay off in a big way.\nPut options achieve this pay off structure by providing short exposure to 100 shares of an underlying stock at the option strike price, up until the expiration date. You pay a premium for the privilege of gaining this short exposure, in the form of the upfront price of the option contract. The reason most options expire worthless is because the stock price must move far enough below the strike price to offset the cost of the option, within a limited time frame (i.e. before the expiration date).\nAnd that brings us to the two key elements of selecting a put option: a target price and a time frame. I just explained the fundamental case for a downside target of $50 in Tesla shares. And from a technical perspective, Tesla based at around $50 in the fourth quarter of 2019 before launching into a parabolic melt-up. The history of parabolic advances says that, when they end, the stock price often revisits the launch pad - which would bring Tesla back to around $50. Meanwhile, in order to give this trade plenty of time, I'm looking out to January 2022 as a rough time frame.\n\nSo this time frame gives a straight forward decision on the option expiration date of January 21, 2022. Meanwhile, in order to give the position plenty of room to be wrong and still pay off, I'll select a strike price of $300. There's a delicate balance when selecting strike prices - a lower strike would provide a higher return, but also come with a lower probability of pay off. As I'll show below, selecting a $300 strike price still provides the chance of earning a decent return even if my $50 downside target proves too aggressive.\nBut before considering the return potential, we have to know the price of the option. At the close of trading on Monday, the $300 strike Tesla put option expiring on January 21, 2022 traded for around $15.75, as shown below:\n\nGiven the 100-share multiplier, the $15.75 quoted price translates into a total cost of $1,575 (plus fees/commissions). With this information, we can determine the return potential of the option for a range of scenarios. In the case where Tesla closes at or above $300 by the expiration date, the option expires worthless, resulting in a 100% loss. Alternatively, if Tesla closes below $300, then the option gains $100 in value for every $1 below the $300 strike price. The table below summarizes this range of scenarios:\n(Note: for simplicity, I assume the option is held until just before the expiration date, and then closed out without exercising the contract).\nSo in the downside scenario outlined earlier, where Tesla trades down to $50 by the January 2022 expiration date, the option value grows from $1,650 to $25,000 - for a gain of about 1,400%. However, even if this downside target proves too aggressive, there's still scope to make a reasonable return. If shares only fall to, say $200, the option still returns roughly 500%.\nAs you can see, it only take a small allocation within an overall portfolio to gain substantial hedging exposure with a trade like this. Of course, recency bias might make $50 or even $200 per share seem outlandish for a stock trading near $850 today. But let's not forget that Tesla was within“single digit weeks” of bankruptcyas recently as 2018. And in May of 2019, topTesla analyst Adam Jonasdescribed the company as “a distressed credit and restructuring story”, with a $10 downside price target (or $2 pre-split).\nThe core business remains virtually unchanged from 2018 and 2019 - when terms like \"bankruptcy\" and \"restructuring\" were on the table. The only key difference is that Tesla now enjoys a positive net cash balance, which takes an immediate bankruptcy scenario off the table. But with less than $10 per share in net cash, this should provide little consolation for the bulls as a valuation floor.\nAll that really needs to happen is for Tesla to continue on its current path of losing money in its core business, and catastrophic downside is in store for the stock. And that's not just my opinion - Elon Musk himself fully recognizes this risk, as he noted in a recentemail to employees:\n\n Investors are giving us a lot of credit for future profitability but if, at any point, they conclude that’s not going to happen, our stock will immediately get crushed like a souffle under a sledgehammer!\n\nGoing forward, my money's on the sledgehammer, not the soufflé.","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"tweetType":1,"viewCount":278,"commentLimit":10,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"symbols":[],"verified":2,"subType":0,"readableState":1,"langContent":"EN","currentLanguage":"EN","warmUpFlag":false,"orderFlag":false,"shareable":true,"causeOfNotShareable":"","featuresForAnalytics":[],"commentAndTweetFlag":false,"andRepostAutoSelectedFlag":false,"upFlag":false,"length":6,"xxTargetLangEnum":"ORIG"},"commentList":[],"hasMoreComment":false,"orderType":2}