Musk considering taking Tesla private.

[Saracen]

Elon Musk hates shorters?

What is a shorter and how do I become one?

Not sure if that question is rhetorical, but on the off-chance it isn't, it's a kind-of .... stock market bet.

If most people, probably you and certainly me, want to buy shares in a company, you contact a broker, say "Here's £100k, (or whatever), buy me shares in (for example) Tesla".

Once the broker has your/my money, they buy however many shares that gets. When you sell, they sell at prevailing price, and then (after fees) remit you the proceeds.


But regular investors with whom the broker has a history and hence a degree of trust in the credit of, will do all that on account.

In other words, you issue the instruction to buy, and they buy immediately, and you then settle up at the end of the account period, which is when you need to produce that £100k.

So far, so good?

Right, "shorting" is selling on account, a stock you don't own. If you like, you sell "borrowed" stock, but then later on have to return what you borrowed. Such as, sell £100k of Tesla. But at the end of the account period, you'll need to own the stock you sold, because you have to transfer them to someone else to replace "borrowed" stock, so, within that period, you have to buy that number of Tesla shares.

So in effect, you sell sonething you don't own, and then have to buy it when time comes to deliver. Thus, you are effectively placing a bet that Tesla shares will have gone down in the meantime.

So, sell 1000 shares at £10 today, and you are in for £100k. In two days time, those shares are now £9 each, and you need 1000 because that's what you sold but didn't have, so it costs you £90k to buy them. But you got £100k for the 1000 you sold, meaning you have £10k (less fees) profit.

So, it's basically a bet that a company's stock will fall in price before you have to settle the account and transfer shares. Of course, get it wrong and you still have to provide the 1000 shares you sold, so if they're £15 ech now, it'll cost you £150k, meaning aa £50k loss on the bet.

Most companies don't like large scale shorting because volumes of "sell" orders don't do the stock price any good, and it distorts the usual market signals.

[philehidiot]

Ah I getcha, thanks for taking the time.

Time for me to annoy Musky baby. He's still CEO and hyper stressed with a Tw****r account so plenty of stupidity to make the price plunge to come .

EDIT: I got banned from the Twitter for "hate speech". As you may have noticed I'm actually one of the least hateful people you could ever meet and said nothing hateful so the irony is hilarious. As a result, I do now genuinely hate Twitter. I would also love to see Musk buy Facebook so he could rm -rf the thing for the benefit of us all.

[Saracen]

Ah I getcha, thanks for taking the time.

Time for me to annoy Musky baby. He's still CEO and hyper stressed with a Tw****r account so plenty of stupidity to make the price plunge to come .

EDIT: I got banned from the Twitter for "hate speech". As you may have noticed I'm actually one of the least hateful people you could ever meet and said nothing hateful so the irony is hilarious. As a result, I do now genuinely hate Twitter. I would also love to see Musk buy Facebook so he could rm -rf the thing for the benefit of us all.

I suspect that in 'annoy Musk' ranks, that comes significantly below a 3-yr ban on his chsirmanship and millions of dollars in fines for two words. "Funding secured".

Or arguably, actually, one word .... "secured".

At ten million bucks for 7 characters, it makes me wonder how much trouble he could get in with a full 140 characters. Oh, and don't forget the cave-submarjne lawsuit. That could yet get expensive.


It does bring a cautionary note to us all though - the internet is not as much a rules-free zone as it used to be .... or at least, as we all believed it was.

Anyone with an IQ higher than a shrimp needs to bear risks in mind, so :-

- be very careful what you do say, and
- given 50m Facebook user's getting hacked, and countless other examples think carefully about what infirmation you entrust to whom, because the ONLY way to be sure is to not disclose anything you absolutely don't have to.

[philehidiot]

Oh you should see the level of disinformation I feed Farcebook.... I take great pride in it. They have me down as working in the 7th Circle of Hell (which I got it to recognise as a legitimate place suggested to me in a drop down menu) and the advertising I get sometimes is so wrong, crazy and just plain weird it's sublime. I just enjoy toying with it. Anything I actually want to do without being tracked by Gargle, Farcebook or the Tw****r (censored due to my newly acquired hatred of the bird), I use TOR for - I have it on almost every device I use. I make the assumption I'm being tracked. Not very well as Google has my home (never gave them my address overtly) about 20 miles from where I actually live.

I also have an Amazon Alexa which I regularly toy with. I'm currently trying to get her to recommend "Mein Kampf" to me on Amazon to see if she's actually spying or not. So far, it doesn't seem she is (that or she doesn't understand German). Last selection of things advertised to me by Amazon included 3 razors and a large wound dressing, which was nice.

I have nothing to hide, my name is plastered over multiple websites listing various professional registrations and so on and I'm easily found. I just enjoy playing with these companies. I recently uploaded a picture to Farcebook to really wind up their AI.... they'll look at the metadata, pick out the faces and logos and wonder just why there's a transgender Nazi training camp where they do PT in sexy underwear with poorly concealed melons in Yorkshire. Thank 'Allo 'Allo for the source material.

[Saracen]

Classic.

And it's a sound approach, but quite a lot of work. But hiding a needle in a very large needlestack is sneaky. I love it.

Personally, I just don't put very much online at all, and don't have Facebook, TW, etc accounts.

I concede, however, that I xan get away with that because I don't need any such accounts, don't need to provide business contact details, etc, or to build "a profile". But lots of things these dsys, including employment prospects, pretty much take it for granted that you do.

That's partly what worries me - the world has come to rely on these services without really thinking through the privacy/security implications .... or the accuracy of the data due to many people playing similar gsmes.

The other thing that worries me is that while, clearly, you've thought about it and have to nous to play their game against them, I wonder what proportion of FB or social media users generally either have never considered the implications, or have but don't give a damn. My bet is that it's uncomfortably high.

[aidanjt]

I wonder what proportion of FB or social media users generally either have never considered the implications, or have but don't give a damn. My bet is that it's uncomfortably high.

My money is on overwhelmingly the former.

[TeePee]

Profitable this quarter? Place your bets!

[Saracen]

My money is on overwhelmingly the former.

Me too, but I've come across more thsn a handful in the "don't care" camp.

Of course, it might be they don't care because they don't fully understand.

[badass]

Profitable this quarter? Place your bets!

If you did, I hope you bet on profit! https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45971786

[TeePee]

If you did, I hope you bet on profit! https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45971786

It's way too risky a bet for me...

Of course, there's now an FBI investigation too, and once again promises for a $35k Model 3.

[philehidiot]

I missed the replies to this thread. There are some serious security concerns with the new smart energy meters where the type of load can be analysed to figure out what you're doing and when. But the scary part is that the data is sent in the clear and is trivial to decode / hack. As a result any thief with limited kit and knowledge that is readily available can use your smart meter's broadcasts to get a good guess as to whether you're in or not or if you have a good idea as to what kind of load you're looking for when you're in the shower, etc.

As for providing disinformation to Farcebook, etc. it's not as hard work as you may think. Set it up properly and then the occasional amusing misdirection can yield some hilarious results.

I have fallen down a little of late. They've offered me a cheap chinese lathe after I took the... micky out of someone using one.

Time to break out TOR and browse for shee-wees. Relentlessly.

[Fahad78]

What musk really needs to do is get off Twitter.

[Zak33]

What musk really needs to do is get off Twitter.

actually.. I agree.

but I'd expand it to "everyone in the world ever should get off twitter"

My £0.02

[MrRockliffe]

actually.. I agree.

but I'd expand it to "everyone in the world ever should get off twitter"

My £0.02

I'll expand further - everyone in the world ever should get off all social media :-)

It appears to do more harm than good (not inc forums, of course)

[Zak33]

(not inc forums, of course)

of course... agreed utterly.

[b0redom]

I missed the replies to this thread. There are some serious security concerns with the new smart energy meters where the type of load can be analysed to figure out what you're doing and when. But the scary part is that the data is sent in the clear and is trivial to decode / hack. As a result any thief with limited kit and knowledge that is readily available can use your smart meter's broadcasts to get a good guess as to whether you're in or not or if you have a good idea as to what kind of load you're looking for when you're in the shower, etc.

Citation required please. I worked on the smart metering program and can tell you information sent over the Internet is very secure. Are you talking about Zigbee local device communications? As for the load analysis that's what these are for. The eventual idea is actual load planning for more efficient energy production. All the blather about saving you money is just the carrot.