Sell Your Tesla Dump Your Stock
That was one of the chants at the #TeslaTakedown event I attended in Chicago last Saturday. But selling your Tesla car is not easy. There isn’t much of a market for used Teslas in this area. There’s a similar problem in Boston. And Seattle. It seems to be a world-wide problem. Perhaps Trump will single-handedly create a market for used Teslas among his cult. That would be great, since only a few years ago they were crazy angry about libtards driving electric vehicles.
If you want to sell your Tesla stock, that’s easy. There’s a robust market in the stock. Over 110 million shares traded on March 17. But there is the problem of figuring out how much $TSLA you own, According to the 2024 Tesla Proxy Statement, after Musk, the two largest holders are Vanguard and Black Rock, both huge in investment funds and pension management. If you have a 401k, an IRA, or a pension plan, you most likely own at least a little of the stock of Tesla. It has the 9th highest market capitalization of US stocks,
This site says there are 517 ETFs that hold stock in Tesla. You probably wouldn’t expect Vanguard Consumer Discretionary ETF to hold Tesla stock. Its largest holding is Amazon at 23%, and it includes MacDonalds, Chipotle, Loews, Booking.com, and similar stocks. The second largest holding is Tesla, at 17%. I do not think of electric vehicles as a consumer discretionary expenditure.
I searched for ETFs with low Tesla holdings for the past year, and almost all of the results were funds with lots of Tesla. There are, of course, investment vehicles that don’t hold Tesla. You could look at industry specific funds like ETFs investing in Pharma or Health Care. But you’d be wise to check the actual holdings. I found some on this site where you can search for several sectors.
If you search for Tesla stock you’ll find plenty of people saying it’s fairly valued, or even undervalued. The Yahoo Finance site says the one year target price is $343. Here’s one that’s not so rosy. if you want to see for yourself, here’s a link to the 2024 10-K. .
Note that the people talking about dumping their Tesla cars don’t take about the car itself, in fact most of them like their Teslas. They’re selling, even at a loss, for other reasons. In the same way, the decision to sell Tesla stock doesn’t necessarily mean there aren’t good reasons to hold it. That decision may nave nothing to do with the fundamentals of Tesla, or its businesses.
The Proxy Statement says that Elon Musk has pledged about 1/3 of his holdings as collateral for loans, probably including loans for the purchase of Twitter. It seems plausible that the lenders will demand additional collateral or even call the loans if the price sinks dramatically. For example, the current PE Ratio is about 116 at market close March 17. If it were selling at the same PE ratio as the information technology sector, approximately 35 at market close March 17, the price would drop from the current $240 to about $75.
Search for the term Tesla meme stock. It’s possible the chanters have a point.
Thankfully I own neither a Tesla car nor any stock.
They’re overvaluing it. He lost more $20 billion after he bought it and shredded it.
Good engineering reasons to suppose Space X’s large booster (the one that just failed two tests in a row, explosively) will never work, so that may ultimately impact their viability as a company.
Something stinky in Denmark!
Tesla is not selling cars, so tell me how this stock can be up almost $10 since yesterday when NO one is buying Tesla’s?
Tesla
$235.17
FINY
+9.86(+4.38%)
As of Mar-19-20252:33:07 PM ET“Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Andres Sheppard upgraded Tesla from Neutral to Overweight and maintained a price target of $425 on Wednesday, a day after visiting Tesla’s Austin Gigafactory and the company’s AI data centers”
And again…
OT, I think:
[my capitalizations]
https://www.kitco.com/news/article/2025-03-19/new-utah-law-allows-state-vendors-be-paid-gold-and-silver
Good luck paying their federal income taxes in bullion. Or buying groceries with it.
‘Perhaps Trump will single-handedly create a market for used Teslas among his cult.’
It’s the most perfect irony.
But maybe they’re just going to use their Teslas for target practice with their military-grade machine guns while huffing fossil fuel fumes. If they were actually going to use them for driving and living that would require – dah, dah, dah – INFRASTRUCTURE. Which needs gubmint to do some shit.
And fossil fuels do not require infrastructure?
Yes, but it’s already there. Has been for decades.
My point was really that Trump will say anything and do anything in the moment if it suits him. If he thinks he can get rich off electric cars, he’ll love electric cars, more than anybody ever loved them before. Like turning the White House into a used car lot.
Since you bring up the military, how come nobody repeats over and over again when they discuss the military, or question his defense chief, WH or military spokespersons, that the Commander-in-Chief has called those that have served (tried to remove some of them from history, including Jackie Robinson), whose lives are in his hands, that is, serving and about to serve “Losers and Suckers”?
Of course that “may” harm the people of the planet during the time he is in that position.
I was at the Vet Rally on the Natl Mall on March 14th. Lots of the Vets there had that quote on their signs, and many of the speakers also repeated it. Again not much coverage in the Natl Media, but these folks had not forgotten those words.
ICYMI: You can trade in your Tesla for a discount on a Polestar 3.
I went to Polestar’s site and per usual there got a little confused.
Not that the deal isn’t good, but it’s for a base single motor Polestar 3 on a lease with a cap cost reduction of $15,000 from Polestar plus an additional $5,000 cap cost reduction to trade in you Tesla which you might be underwater on.
I didn’t bother with the lease details – those things are often hard to dig out – on purpose.
I like the Polestar 3 (and 4) but they are pricey and not a particularly utilitarian EV at a more reasonable price.
I’d like to see Hyundai, KIA, or Chevy do something similar.
I hadn’t thought about this until now. I checked; Tesla is 1.62% of my retirement portfolio (S&P 500 fund). I’ll have to think about whether it’s worth the time and effort of changing investments.
Dr. appt. today. Waiting room TV had Fox News on. Kayleigh MAGAny was crying about some bullshit as usual. No way I was going to put up with that. I asked the receptionist to change the channel. Problem solved.
Have to enjoy the small victories.
Alternative to TSLA and other forms of transportation:
TSLA has been massively overvalued for years. GM, Ford and others in the car business trade at a P/E of ~15-18. As noted other tech stocks trade at a P/E of 35. By these measures TSLA is WAY over its real value. It should be worth more like $50-$75 per share – and that is BEFORE the tremendous loss in “good will” Musk has squandered by his illegal and immoral DOGE shit activities.
I have told my friends to buy put options on TSLA. They have all made real $$$.
TSLA is valued as a “meme stock” like GameStop, but the Wall Street pros are pushing this one, not the amateurs. Makes you wonder who are the bigger fools.
I think a lot of tech stocks (of all kinds) are overvalued. I’ve seen way too many stories about companies once valued at $N billion going broke.
I saw someone on line posting a note saying “We buy junk cars” and putting it on a swasticar. I accidentally parked next to one today. I got a scrap of paper out and wrote a note, put it under their wiper blade. “We buy junk cars. 1-800-382-5358.” I’m going to print little flyers and keep them at the ready for any future opportunity.
One of my friends who bought a Tesla when it seemed like a good idea wants to get rid of it now. Embarrassed to drive it.
Thank you Ed. Good post.
https://apnews.com/article/tesla-vandalism-musk-trump-domestic-extremism-7576c03393a733eaf34b793e86ad1a6f
Saw a protest sign:
D eport
E lon
I mmediately