Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) keeps dominating the headlines and it is hard to ignore what is going on over there.
Shares exploded 20% yesterday and you’d think the company made a huge breakthrough. Nope. An anonymous analysist upgraded the stock. While an upgrade is definitely better than a downgrade, the thing to remember about analysts is if they knew how to trade, they wouldn’t be analysists. Think about that the next time you feel the urge to trade based on their opinions.
As for my opinions, I got a fair amount of criticism for my post last week when I said people need to be careful chasing TSLA at these levels. While I’m sure my critics are strutting around today, this pop doesn’t change anything. This is an incredibly dangerous place to be buying the stock and I have no doubt it will end in tears for many people.
I’ve been doing this a long time and could cite countless examples from Walmart (NYSE:WMT), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), PALM, AOL, BlackBerry (NYSE:BB), oil, Gold, Bitcoin, or any of the thousand other investments that made explosive moves. But if I did, no doubt my critics would complain that TSLA is different. Okay fine, I can work around that. Let’s compare TSLA to TSLA.
TSLA came public in 2010 at $17 and obviously it’s been a great ride since then. But it hasn’t been all up. In fact, there has been a whole lot of down along the way. Everyone knows the market moves in waves, but somehow they always forget that basic fact when the market is at the top and the bottom of a wave.
Last year people were writing TSLA’s obituary. Now we have other people claiming it will take over the world. Who is right? Easy. Neither! Don’t fall for this extreme thinking. In fact, when the extremists take control of the conversations is when we need to be the most afraid.
In the attached chart, you see the five different occasions TSLA stock fell nearly 40% and on three of those, the losses exceeded 50%. Owning a stock that’s tripled over the last few months is great, but don’t mistake serendipity for skill. Remember, if we are in this to make money, the only way we do that is by selling our favorite stocks. While the fools are spending all of their time daydreaming about what they will buy when the stock breaks $1,200, smart money is selling their stock to those greedy dreamers.
As I said in my last post:
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not calling today a top and I most definitely wouldn’t short something just because it is “too high.” But I do know for certain at some point soon this stock is going to come crashing back to earth and anyone who is patient will be able to buy all the TSLA they want at lower prices.
That is even more true today than it was last week. But feel free to ignore me because without a doubt “this time is different.”