ERICOPOLY

I believe the Superchargers get you 50% of your charge at a fast pace, then the charging time gets considerably longer if you wish to hang around for the complete charge. This I understand to be due to the battery -- similarly, your iPhone battery charges to the 50% point relatively quickly, then slows down. So if you were travelling at 80 mph or so, charging down I5 from Seattle to Los Angeles, you aren't going to like the idea of spending 20 minutes or 30 minutes every 100 miles at a Supercharger station. And much longer possibly as more Model S cars arrive on the road (and all waiting for that free super charge). "I'm in a hurry, my time is valuable, I'd rather have a full charge for 90 bucks". This makes a lot of sense to me.

I've been reading the Tesla Forum on the Tesla company site. It's where a bunch of Tesla owners and fans discuss what it can and can't do, and speculate on what the company will announce next. I read about the fast battery swapping capability a while ago and for the past month several posters there have guessed correctly that the big announcement would be battery swapping at supercharger stations. I guess Elon hinted that it would be something "right under your nose", which is where the battery resides. I believe somebody else pointed out that Project Better Place was headquartered directly across the street from Tesla in Palo Alto.

Is it a negative impact? I should think we would all be happy to spend $11b of capital in order to see such a boost in EPS. You are expressing your disappointment in the lack of that very scenario (lack of larger buyback). The "negative" impact related to 1% jump in interest rates is better for EPS than an $11b buyback with no rate movement. Thompson stating that the hit to capital would be 3x the improvement in earnings is the key statement -- as long as the incremental earnings improvement is awarded more than P/E of 3x by the market, then it's a positive event for the stock (if they have the capital to afford the hit).

Rates fell pretty hard in one direction (down) during the crisis and I'm not sure what happened to the megabanks derivatives books. I don't remember them blowing up from that, it was the other stuff that they were doing wrong that caused the trouble. So if rates go back up, what is the reason why it will be worse than when they go down? I believe very strongly that the drop in rates to these levels would have been the far more surprising scenario -- I mean, it's not like these big banks today can't believe that rates will go back to normal levels again. Everyone believes that rates will at some point reach higher levels again. But surely many were caught completely by surprise when rates dropped to the lows of recent years. So... we now have the scenario that everyone is expecting (rising rates) ahead of us, and the scenario that few expected (falling rates) behind us. The banks are just waiting for their books to blow up from this widely expected event?

The alternative scenario is that interest rates don't go up, and they use that same $11b of capital for share repurchases. Let's say they buy back $11b in stock this quarter (I know they aren't approved to do it, but just suppose...). Does it reduce capital levels by $11b? Yes. That's the same hit to capital levels as the 1% rise in interest rates. Which would improve forward EPS more? I'm betting the rise in interest rates wouldn't be materially different from the same amount of capital spent on share count reduction. I haven't run the math, but I'm leaning towards the rising interest rates being the scenario that would have the greater positive impact on EPS.

This should be a positive event for the stock's valuation. Let's pick some random numbers here. Let's say 60 cents per share is 3x 20 cents per share. What's 10x multiple on 20 cents per share? It's $2.00. That's much larger gain in the stock value than the one time 60 cent hit.

Ralph Nader owns Fannie Mae. from his remarks a couple of years ago, I thought he may have owned the preferred before Fannie went into receivership. Is that the case? If not, when did he buy the common? I couldn't tell either way, but it sounds like he is invested in both Fannie and Freddie.

Ralph Nader owns Fannie Mae.

Regarding the 1491 time period, I'm reading another book at present: Blood and Thunder. One thing I didn't realize is how new the Navajo were to (what we now call today) the United States. Here is the kids version: http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/northamerica/after1500/history/navajo.htm You know, I was under the impression that the US troops had moved the Navajo from their ancestral homeland, but if we're only talking about a Navajo presence not even 100 years old before the Spanish arrived, then that's a little different IMHO.

I remember late last year Moynihan gave a range of 13% to 15%.

Once again they didn't post a presentation on the Investor Relations website. I found a transcript though: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/bank-america-corporations-management-presents-163503678.html

I can see that you are single.

I don't know how to compare Buffett's textile to Lampert's retail. Textile manufacturing simply left the country. It didn't get beat by better US competition. Retail has not left the country. Sears and KMart are just getting whooped. Walmart is doing just fine in the US.

Justification for buying more SHLD in my opinion. I'm going to buy a lot more now. Yeah, I've been buying too, but I started to do that after the quarter was released and the stock tanked. I'm the dummy that paid $60 right before it tanked. My position is only 4% though. I'm going to ratchet it up quite a bit. Yes, I added this week. It seems like you normally make very concentrated bets after you feel comfortable. Would you say this is going to be a 10, 20 or 30% position? Or do you just add more and more as you see more potential positive development coming? I don't have a plan like that. No idea. Might not even have it that long if everything crashes -- the tax loss selling is always quite attractive.

Justification for buying more SHLD in my opinion. I'm going to buy a lot more now. Yeah, I've been buying too, but I started to do that after the quarter was released and the stock tanked. I'm the dummy that paid $60 right before it tanked. My position is only 4% though. I'm going to ratchet it up quite a bit. Yes, I added this week.

The Lifetime Member award is worth much more to young people.

He funded librarys in Winnipeg! http://www.mhs.mb.ca/news/carnegielibrary.shtml Go Jets GO! It's really amazing how many were built with his funding 2,509 libraries! There is even one in Fiji. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Carnegie_libraries_in_Africa,_the_Caribbean,_and_Oceania http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Carnegie_libraries_in_Canada http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Carnegie_libraries_in_Europe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Carnegie_libraries_in_the_United_States

Don't worry, they are so awful at retailing their stores will be the first one through the exits of the burning theater.

BAC was purchased around $14 a little over 2 years ago.

Just a newbie question, but doesn't killing off Fannie/Freddie mean that 30 year fixed rate mortgages would disappear?

I forget exactly when, but in 2007 or 2008 I owned WaMu calls for a day or two. The stock suddenly dropped but even so (due to volatility spike) I sold for a gain. Probably the most unexpected way to make money. May be related to what wescobrk saw today with BAC.

I'm saying that instead of the calls, you purchase the common paired with puts that hedge the common. The puts will normally be short-term duration if you roll them annually. And if your long position is working out with the common, you'll typically be getting losses on those puts -- of course due to wash sale rules the loss won't be useful until you eventually exit the puts altogether, but at least it will be a short term loss. It's worth thinking about this stuff when your tax rate is 52% on short term gains (the top rate in California).

For that tax reason I stopped buying calls in my portfolio margin account. Now I'll just buy the common and hedge it with the put. Then at least you have some expiring puts that you can hopefully take losses on to ease your tax burden on the puts you write.

So a given % of the square footage is getting triaged out of the leased portfolio. I'm glad there isn't a plan to bring in an Apple executive to turn KMart into a Walmart killer.

It looks like they've updated their page with projections for the new supercharger stations at various completion intervals through end of 2015: http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger Tesla Superchargers represent the most advanced charging technology in the world, capable of charging Model S nearly 20x faster than competing EVs. Our second generation Supercharging technology, available soon at all Supercharger stations, reduces charging time by 30% and provides half a charge in just 20 minutes.