Tag: finance

Submitted by Investing In Chinese Stocks

Pizhou, Fujian has a solution to falling home prices: ban them. They’re not alone in using this strategy. Other cities have told developers to reverse price cuts and one went so far as to punish a developer’s creditors.

iFeng: 房企“恶意降价”被紧急叫停，房价到底能不能降

On the finite price, the price can not rise. And the property market environment is so cold, the price of the house is not good to sell. It is not easy to cut prices. After the new term “price reduction attempt” was born, a new word appeared in Zhangzhou City, Jiangsu Province, “malicious price cuts.”

This is really an anecdote. Developers who have such a big hatred, do you have to carry “malicious” to cut prices? Who is going to be malicious?

A developer was warned about cutting prices to move inventory:

At the beginning of February 2018, the Real Estate Chamber of Commerce of Zhangzhou City, Jiangsu Province issued a “Circular on the recent sales chaos in the real estate market in Zhangzhou”, which was circulated on the Internet. It has attracted many onlookers.

The announcement states:

There are some properties in Zhangzhou that have disrupted the market with low prices and unfair competition. The sales price is seriously lower than the filing price. The individual properties have dropped by 2,000 yuan/square meter. This kind of behavior has seriously disrupted the order of the real estate market.

The Zhangzhou Real Estate Chamber of Commerce requires housing companies to sell according to the record price, and must not provoke a price war.

Neither the public nor the developers are amused.

The price cut is to disrupt the market order. This wave of operation not only makes the developers of price cuts a bit confusing, but also makes the masses of people somewhat shocked. When the housing enterprises raised their prices, they never saw someone saying “malicious price hikes” and “disturbing the market order.” When the house prices fell, the market order was disrupted.

Coincidentally, just a few months before the “bad price cut” in Ganzhou, the neighboring Anhui Province had a joke about the developer’s “price reduction attempt”.

In November 2018, a property in Hefei, Anhui Province, reported a price reduction of 6,000 yuan / square meter, the results did not take long, the local real estate director personally went to the investigation, and the price back went up again. Immediately after the price reduction of a real estate in Lushan, the local government organized a symposium on “the attempt to reduce the price”, suspended the pre-sale permit for the relevant real estate, and imposed penalties on the four cooperative banks.

Propping up home prices isn’t only a strategy for keeping the people content. The main goal may be supporting land sales that fund local governments. Cities are racing against the credit impulse though.

If inflation arrives in time, nominal prices can rebound. If not, developers are going to be stuck will immobile inventory as debt comes due. And then it will be the bond market’s problem.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2SMRJ6U Tyler Durden

Back in December, when the S&P was breaking down and taking out every support level, the financial press was flooded with cheesy headlines warning of “bad breadth” as decliners steamrolled advancers.

What a difference two months makes, because with the largest stock market in the world – the $30 trillion NYSE Composite – having recently broken above its 200DMA if finding some resistance near the level where the last three break outs failed as the NYSE hit the dreaded Triple Top (as a reminder, there is no such thing as a Quadruple Top)…

… it is time to roll out the Mentos, i.e., “good breadth” commercials, because as of Friday’s close, Bloomberg notes that NYSE company breadth – advancing stocks over than declining – just hit a record, joining the S&P 500 cumulative advance-decline line and NYSE Composite A-D line at new highs.

Meanwhile, as buying begets buying, more optimism can be gleaned from trading patterns because as Nomura noted last night, when looking at historical price patterns when the S&P500 breaches above its 200-day simple moving average (SMA) while its 20-day SMA is below 200-day SMA as is the case currently, suggests a case where S&P500 is likely to make shallow dips before heading higher.

Now if only we knew who was buying, this rally would make sense. Alas, as discussed extensively over the past month, the big question with the current rally is that aside for short covering and stock buybacks, investors have been patiently dumping stocks the higher the market goes, begging the question who throws in the towel first, shorts and CFOs buying back their stock, or the general public, which refuses to trust this ongoing rally, despite 8 straight weeks of gains.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2Xl1qYW Tyler Durden

In his second interview with a western media outlet in as many months, the typically reclusive Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei shared his thoughts on the US’s crackdown on the company he built, the charges against his daughter (Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou) and allegations about the company’s ties to China’s state security apparatus.

Ren Zhengfei

When it comes to the US’s campaign to convince its western partners to outlaw or discourage the use of Huawei equipment – a campaign that has so far met with mixed success, as foreign telecoms companies have been forced to reckon with the reality of just how dependent they are on Huawei’s technology – Zhengfei pointed out that America only represents a small portion of its business, and no matter what Washington does, the fallout can only be so bad.

“If the lights go out in the West, the East will still shine. And if the North goes dark, there is still the South. America doesn’t represent the world. America only represents a portion of the world.”

[…]

“There’s no way the US can crush us,” he said. “The world cannot leave us because we are more advanced. Even if they persuade more countries not to use us temporarily, we can always scale things down a bit.”

He also reiterated that Huawei won’t install any “backdoors” to allow the Chinese government to monitor traffic over its networks.

Huawei, which is China’s largest private company, has been under scrutiny for its links to the Chinese government – with the US and others expressing concern its technology could be used by China’s security services to spy.

Under Chinese law, firms are compelled to “support, co-operate with and collaborate in national intelligence work”.
But Mr Ren said that allowing spying was a risk he wouldn’t take.

“The Chinese government has already clearly said that it won’t install any backdoors. And we won’t install backdoors either.”

“We’re not going to risk the disgust of our country and of our customers all over the world, because of something like this.”

“Our company will never undertake any spying activities. If we have any such actions, then I’ll shut the company down.”

Echoing the official line from Beijing, Zhengfei said he believes the prosecution of his daughter is a politically motivated act.

Mr Ren’s daughter Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s chief financial officer, was arrested on 1 December in Vancouver at the request of the US, and is expected to be the subject of a formal extradition request.

In total, 23 charges are levelled against Huawei and Ms Weng. The charges are split across two indictments by the US Department of Justice.

The first covers claims Huawei hid business links to Iran – which is subject to US trade sanctions. The second includes the charge of attempted theft of trade secrets.

Mr Ren was clear in his opposition to the US accusations.

“Firstly, I object to what the US has done. This kind of politically motivated act is not acceptable.”

“The US likes to sanction others, whenever there’s an issue, they’ll use such combative methods.”

“We object to this. But now that we’ve gone down this path, we’ll let the courts settle it.”

Of course, Zhengfei has a point about the US’s inability to hurt Huawei. Even the UK, which is a member of the US-led “Five Eyes” intelligence alliance, has concluded that using Huawei equipment in 5G networks is a “manageable risk.” Meanwhile, German media reported Tuesday that officials are leaning toward allowing Huawei to participate in the construction of its 5G network.

Watch a clip from the interview below:

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2SYIrEb Tyler Durden

Roger Stone has been ordered to appear in a D.C. courtroom on Thursday to explain an Instagram photo of the judge overseeing his case next to what appear to be crosshairs – in what many interpreted as a veiled threat.

The photo of Jackson is accompanied by a caption which reads: “Through legal trickery Deep State hitman Robert Mueller has guaranteed that my upcoming show trial is before Judge Amy Berman Jackson , an Obama appointed Judge who dismissed the Benghazi charges again [sic] Hillary Clinton and incarcerated Paul Manafort prior to his conviction for any crime.” 

Jackson dismissed legal action against Clinton by the parents of two of the four Americans killed in the 2012 Benghazi attack, as well as a related claim that Clinton had defamed the parents by lying about them in the press. 

Stone, who was arrested in a January pre-dawn raid at his Florida home in connection with Robert Mueller’s Russia probe, is at risk of losing his bail just days after U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson issued a gag order preventing Stone from saying anything that might bias potential jurors. He was charged with lying to Congress, witness tampering and obstructing the Russia investigation. 

NEW: Judge Amy Berman Jackson has scheduled a “show cause” hearing in the Roger Stone case after his Instagram post yesterday.

She says she wants to see if his post violated the gag order and / or his conditions of his release which could be modified or revoked.

— Tom Winter (@Tom_Winter) February 19, 2019

The longtime Trump adviser issued an apology for the post, writing “Please inform the court that the photograph and comment today was improper and should not have been posted.”

Stone also posted on Instagram: “A photo of Judge Jackson posted on my Instagram has been misinterpreted,” adding “This was a random photo taken from the internet. Any inference that this was meant to somehow threaten the judge or disrespect court is categorically false.”

He will have to explain on Thursday how his post did not violate his gag order. 

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2XcBC11 Tyler Durden

Submitted by Mish Shedlock of MishTalk

Some economists were in disbelief regarding the huge collapse in retail sales in December. Other indicators now confirm.

Here is a tweet on the subject.

Last week everyone said retail sales numbers had to be wrong because Redbook survey hadn’t declined.

This chart answers that question. https://t.co/lYeLPITsjT

— Jonathan Tepper (@jtepper2) February 18, 2019

That chart is weekly. Ideally, we need to see monthly and it wasn’t posted.

Redbook

The Johnson Redbook Index is a proprietary indicator of growth in retail sales, and provides advanced estimates of trends in retail sales ahead of official releases and company reports in an easy-to-read four-page report. The weekly indicator is made public every Tuesday morning, with clients receiving notice via conference call, e-mail or fax prior to public release.

The Johnson Redbook Retail Sales Monthly is a comprehensive report of same-store sales data reported monthly by general merchandise and apparel retailers. Analysis is given on current month sales, year-on-year, quarterly and annual sales, historical sales data and company rankings. Retailers are tracked across categories: Apparel Specialty, Books, Toy & Hobby, Department, Discount, Footwear, Furniture, Drug, Home Improvement, Home Furnishings, Electronic, Jewelry, Sporting Goods, and Miscellaneous. The Johnson Redbook Same-store Sales Index (SSI), an index of year-on-year same-store sales growth is reported in each edition.

Shockingly Weak Retail Sales

Redbook ties in with my report Shockingly Weak Retail Sales: Down 1.2% in December, Sharpest Decline Since 2009

And its not just retail sales either.

Other Confirming Indicators

1. Autos: Surge in Auto Loan Delinquencies: Auto Loans in High Gear
2. Credit Card Stress: Household Debt Up 18 Consecutive Quarters to a New Record, Card Stress Rising
3. Falling Imports: Trade Deficit Shrinks in November Primarily Due to Falling Imports
4. Industrial Production: Industrial Production Dives, Wiping Out a Strong December and Then Some

Very Recessionary

Add it all up and it looks very recessionary. And the EU is already there. Eurozone Recession: Right Here, Right Now!

There is no reason to believe the US will be immune to a global slowdown. People thought that China would decouple in 2008. It didn’t. The US won’t either.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2XaM5Km Tyler Durden

While there has been much disagreement among the financial elite about the ultimate consequences of central bank activism and market manipulation, with some – usually those who do not manage money for a living and are not paid by investors – predicting fire and brimstone, while a separate, far more optimistic group expects the world’s greatest experiment in monetary policy to somehow have a happy ending, when it comes to socialism disguised as monetary policy, besides a certain, politically-influenced fringe, the condemnation against “helicopter money” wrapped in a convenient political wrapper has mostly been uniform.

We are talking, of course, about MMT, which stands for Modern Money Theory, but would make far more sense if it stood stand for Magic Money Tree, as the theory effectively espouses unlimited money printing and skipping central banks as intermediaries in money creation which, however, the theory claims does not result in hyperinflation because, somehow, taxation manages to limit the amount of money in circulation and the result is monetary utopia.

It is therefore hardly a surprise that MMT has emerged as the pet financial theory for such socialist politicians as Bernie Sanders and Alexandra Ocasio-Jones (the biggest proponent of MMT is finance professor Stephanie Kelton who previously worked on Sanders’ presidential campaign and was a “chief economist for the Dems on the Senate Budget Committee”), who get to promise their potential voters pretty much everything while also vowing not to worry about the insane costs that delivering “everything” would entail (AOC’s Green New Deal is said to cost over $6 trillion and according to some, the bill would be north of $20 trillion).

And while MMT’s occasional appearances on the official economic arena result it in getting laughed off the stage unceremoniously and quickly, this time it appears to have some sticking power, perhaps as a result of a collapse in deficit funding concerns as both republicans and democrats havegiven up on keeping US spending under control (the fiscally conservative Tea Party is now a distant memory). As such it was inevitable that the MMT discussion would extend to its logical, and absurd, extreme where one or more politicians apply it to funding every possible spending request by politicians.

And at a time when the electorate is especially angry at the growing wealth divide between the ultra rich and everyone else- an outcome of decades of flawed monetary policy and central banks blowing ever greater asset bubbles, there is no faster way to get elected for political office than promising everything. Indeed, woe to the pol whose campaign is based on austerity and reduced spending when most now promise Magic Money Trees and unlimited funding for everything.

Well, not so fast. Because as MMT gains popularity, and in fact MMT has never been more popular according to google trends…

… the establishment is starting to get worried. To wit, last week it was one of the world’s richest men, Bill Gates, who slammed MMT as “Crazy talk” saying that the theory’s core principle of “not worrying about the deficit” and that “we’ll just print the money and do it” is “Well crazy. I mean, in the short run actually because of macroeconomic conditions, it’s absolutely true that you can get [debt] even to probably 150 percent of GDP in this environment without it becoming inflationary. But it will come and bite you. The people you owe the money to, you will have a problem.”

And now, it’s the turn of former NY Fed president Bill Dudley, who has written a Bloomberg op-ed which while espousing the benefits of deficit spending, especially in recessions, which “can also be self-funding, because it engages unused resources — for example, by employing people whose abilities and skills would otherwise be wasted”, lashesout at Modern Monetary Theory, which “goes one big step further” as it “suggests that a government like the U.S. needn’t worry about debt at all. As long as it borrows in its own currency, there is no risk of default or bankruptcy. It can spend as much as it wants on any projects, such as education and health care, and just create additional IOUs to cover the cost.”

There is just one problem with this “theory”:

Alas, there is no free lunch. For one, the economy might not have enough resources — in the form of workers and industrial capacity — to meet the combined demand from the government and the private sector. The result would be inflation, as too much money chased too few goods and services.

And not just inflation, but hyperinflation. However, to the socialists who pitch MMT, the fact that inflation hasn’t broken out yet – largely due to the relentless monetization of debt by central banks which has kept inflation in check so far, taking the experiment to its surreal extreme should not result in any dire outcome. And yet, that’s nothing but lunacy for two reasons. First, assume the current model remains in place indefinitely – the outcome would be as follows:

America as a whole consumes considerably more than it produces — and depends heavily on foreign investors to lend it the money needed to keep doing so. But they don’t have to make dollar-denominated loans or buy U.S. Treasury securities. If U.S. debts were to keep growing, at some point the Fed would face a dilemma. It could increase interest rates to maintain foreign (and domestic) demand for dollar assets, at the cost of damping U.S. economic growth. Or it could keep interest rates low and allow the dollar to weaken, which would push up inflation as imported goods and services became more expensive. Neither outcome would be pleasant.

And then there is the historical record of money printing, chartalism, ‘helicopter money’, MMT, or however one would like to call it, which is hardly encouraging:

MMT hasn’t worked out well for other countries. Consider Germany in the 1920s, or Venezuela and Zimbabwe more recently. The U.S. tried a milder version in the 1960s and 1970s, when the government tried to pay simultaneously for the Vietnam War and Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs. The result was inflation, America’s withdrawal from the gold standard and the demise of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates. The Fed had to increase interest rates to double digits in the late 1970s and early 1980s, at great economic cost, to get inflation back under control.

MMT insanity aside, Dudley does point out a key issue: when it comes to political slogans, it is far easier to promise everything, than demanding austerity or cutting spending. In fact, as Ron Paul so vividly recalls, anyone who takes on a realistic approach to the US economy now and in the future sees their political aspirations ended quickly and mercilessly. Here’s Dudley:

It’s no fun to be a budget scold. If you worry about deficits, you have to choose between increasing taxes or cutting spending. Desirable social goals such as better roads and universal health care are much more attractive if you can argue that they don’t need to be paid for. But the constraints are real. The U.S. economy is operating pretty close to capacity — especially in the labor market — and the government is already running a sizable deficit that is projected to keep getting bigger.

His conclusion: MMT is nothing more than a crackpot theory…

So, if we want to spend more and, at the same time, keep our economy in good health, we need to find sustainable sources of revenue to do so, not engage in wishful thinking.

… which however in a time of great populist upheaval and social discontent makes it all the more attractive to the greater population, and is the reason why it is only a matter of time before “helicopter money” disguised as MMT becomes the norm. For what happens next, keep a close eye on gold.

Read Bill Dudley’s full op-ed here.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2BIaZrA Tyler Durden

Five Star Movement lawmakers overcame their reservations about impeding investigations into politicians and on Tuesday voted to block an investigation into Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini – the leader of M5S’s coalition partner – over allegations that he “kidnapped” 177 undocumented migrants last summer when he refused to let them disembark from a ship in a Sicilian port for five days.

The Senate’s Immunity Committee would have needed to lift Salvini’s immunity for the investigation to proceed. Instead, it voted to back immunity for Salvini. The vote resolves what had become a serious source of tension between the two coalition partners, even prompting some of Salvini’s allies to publicly push their leader to call for fresh elections to try and oust M5S and take advantage of the League’s rising popularity.

The investigation into Salvini was initiated in August by a Sicilian prosecutor. Salvini has publicly mocked the probe, saying it would be “an honor” to go to prison for defending Italy’s borders.

“If he wants to interrogate me or even arrest me because I defend the borders and security of my country, I’m proud…Being investigated for defending the rights of Italians is a disgrace,” Salvini said at the time.

The Diciotti crisis, named in reference to the rescue vessel that carried the migrants, began on Aug.15 when 190 migrants fleeing Eritrea were rescued from an overcrowded boat off the Italian island of Lampedusa. Salvini refused to allow them to disembark at a Sicilian port. After allowing 43 unaccompanied minors and some in need of urgent medical care off the ship, Salvini and his ministry refused to allow the rest to disembark, purportedly violating EU rule stipulating that migrants detained for more than 48 hours should be released and allowed to apply for asylum.

Now that the dispute, which had blossomed into a serious threat to political stability in Italy, has been resolved, investors have one more reason to pile back into Italian after data released Tuesday showed money managers sold $68 billion in Italian debt last year amid Rome’s showdown with Brussels over its budget deficit, according to Bloomberg.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2GOM7lj Tyler Durden

A bizarre story has emerged out of the mass anti-government protests and unrest that have engulfed Haiti for nearly two weeks. Five heavily armed Americans have been arrested and are being detained by the Haitian government, according to Haiti’s Foreign Minister Bocchit Edmond.

They were caught in possession of automatic weapons, pistols, satellite phones, and drones according to a CNN after police pulled over their vehicles for not having valid license plates. Among the group were three others, including two other foreign nationals — a Serbian and Russian — and one Haitian. Crucially the names released by local Haitian reports indicate all of the Americans have US military and special forces backgrounds, and appear to be career private security contractors. 

The strange circumstances of heavily armed Americans traveling through a nation in political turmoil after the US State Department last week issued a US travel ban and non-emergency personnel evacuation have led some reports to speculate that they could be part of a mercenary group hired to quell protests.

Indeed, according to the BBC, “A police source told Le Nouvelliste newspaper that the men had said they were working for the Haitian government.” The US State Department has confirmed the Haitian authorities have detained a group of Americans. 

Local authorities initially said the group was being held on conspiracy charges, however, Haiti’s foreign minister later did not confirm such charges. Instead Haiti’s police chief Michel-Ange Gédéon, confirmed to CNN that the group of eight were being held for possessing illegal weapons.

8 hommes lourdement armés- 7 étrangers et un Haïtiens- ont été arrêtés ce dimanche 17 février par la PNH. Leurs armes automatiques, leurs moyens de communication et leurs véhicules ont été saisis. Pour le moment ils sont au Commissariat de Port-au-Prince à appris Le Nouvelliste pic.twitter.com/YKRoqLKPY4

— Frantz Duval (@Frantzduval) February 18, 2019

CNN claimed the group’s identities could not immediately be confirmed, but independent researchers quickly linked a number of names released through local Haitian reports with US-based private security firms. The local newspaper Le Nouvelliste reported their identities as Burton Talon, Christopher Osman M, Daniel Dustin, Estera Michael, Kroeker Kent Leland, Danilo Bajavic, and Vlad Jankovic. One of them is a Serbian national and another is said to be Russian. 

Online searches of the names bring up multiple US defense contractors, with at least some of the detained Americans having prior experience as US special forces officers. 

This article claims that the names weren’t immediately available but it took two minutes of googling to find that the names have been available for hours. And five more minutes of googling to find that five of the arrested work for five different US based security companies https://t.co/w69BNvEOoN

— very successful business person (@StalinMusial) February 18, 2019

For example one report noted the following peculiar background:

One of their reported identities is particularly interesting – Kroeker Kent Leland, who is Partner and Chief Operations Officer of the Kroeker Partners private security company. Kroeker is a former US Marine officer, with “a rich career in military, business enterprise and crisis management operations,” as the company’s website modestly puts it. Several other suspects’ names also corresponded to social media profiles of “US citizens claiming military background,” Reuters reports.

The men had been taken into custody Sunday night at a moment mass unrest, make-shift roadblocks, barricades, and police checkpoints have temporarily choked off the normal life of the country. 

According to the US government-funded Voice of America, in total authorities discovered six assault rifles, six pistols, ammunition, bullet-proof vests, drones, telecommunications equipment and two vehicles. A video purporting to show the men in custody of Haitian authorities has surfaced online. 

Video of 7 US citizens and a Haitian being held at main police station in downtown PAP, #Haiti. They were detained after a cache of automatic weapons, communications equipment and several license plates were found in their vehicles. Why they were stopped is unknown. pic.twitter.com/YvCxaULWIo

— HaitiInfoProject 📡 (@HaitiInfoProj) February 18, 2019

If it is confirmed the Americans were operating inside Haiti as military contractors, the authorities will certainly attempt to keep a lid on it, as it will further enrage the popular anti-President Jovenel Moise protests.

One Haitian online publication, Vedeth, has already provocatively written: 

“President Jovenel Moise has brought home mercenaries to assassinate not only a desperate people who are clamoring for his resignation by demonstrating peacefully but especially his political opponents.” 

Major cities throughout Haiti have for days essentially been on “lockdown” due to civil unrest and mass protests demanding that President Jovenal Moise step down over charges of corruption and rampant inflation under his watch — yet unlike similar unrest happening hundreds of miles due south of the small Caribbean country in Venezuela, Washington has stood in support of the president, who since 2017 has found himself facing a flood of popular anger surrounding the PetroCaribe scandal.

Meanwhile the US State Department urged all American citizens out of the country over the past days, and issued a no-not-travel advisory due to “crime and civil unrest.” This was followed on Saturday by national security adviser John Bolton issuing a statement for all sides in Haiti to “respect and protect their democracy”.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2tsKrpN Tyler Durden

Twitter user @JakeLangford6, who posts under the “$TSLA” cashtag on Twitter, has done some cyber-sleuthing and claims to have uncovered a “massive” Tesla Model 3 inventory stockpile. In a thread posted early this week, Jake, a self-proclaimed member of the Tesla “shorty ground force“, explained how he reached his striking conclusion. He opened his thread by saying: 

“Tesla has an inventory problem. There is a massive amount of 2018 Model 3 vehicles available for immediate delivery in the US. Here is a list of nearly 11,000 model 3s we’ve found.”

He first went to Tesla’s own Model 3 configuration webpage. After getting through several of the steps to order a vehicle, he took a closer look at the website’s source code, where he noticed a JSON object (web design code) for a function called “Inventory Match”.

Background: head over to the Model 3 Config page https://t.co/vQp4SLkKbt. Click through a config until you get to “Step 5 Payment”. Once here, right click to view page source. Towards bottom of the page within the JSON object you will see “inventory_match_enabled” set to false. pic.twitter.com/YdIUqtfcA2

— Jake F (@JakeLangford6) February 19, 2019

From there, he went on to explain how this is a not-yet-enabled function that is going to eventually help match buyers with inventory when they order, ostensibly saving Tesla a step internally. In other words, the ordering web app will talk with Tesla’s inventory management systems to pair buyers with cars based on their requests. 

Eventually this will be toggled to help match buyers & inventory. This webapp is still in its infancy, and Tesla was kind enough to provide us a full description of its purpose: “Application to help drive inventory sales by presenting a unified and simplified configurator” pic.twitter.com/fKhbF16R2k

— Jake F (@JakeLangford6) February 19, 2019

Jake then explained that when the company does enable the function, it’s going to provide a VIN number for every order. Upon doing so, the website will append a VIN number to the end of a URL for every particular order, matching the order with a Tesla whose VIN is in the system at Tesla.

Using this logic, Jake worked backward to note that if one were so inclined to simply “just guess and check any potentially valid VIN” that the corresponding website source code would turn up information on the vehicle you’ve selected, including odometer, price, discounts, location, etc. 

If you find an Inventory VIN, the web source has a JSON object with specs on the vehicle include odometer reading, price, discounts, location, etc. These have been tracked since early January. It appears only vehicles that are in their final inventory lot are added (manually)

— Jake F (@JakeLangford6) February 19, 2019

Download the data and check it out for yourself. You can look up any of the vehicles that are still in inventory by adding the VIN after “https://t.co/J9Fs511qty“. Not all are still shown in inventory, but latest queries show over 8500 still active inventory.

— Jake F (@JakeLangford6) February 19, 2019

He then includes links to two Pastebin posts where he lists the 2018 and 2019 inventory he found, seemingly using this method. Those lists look like this:

And the data of what he found, presented in several charts. 

He even claims to have stumbled upon the VIN number of vehicles that have been flooded, but are still included in the company’s inventory. Theoretically, one could purchase a flooded vehicle by using its VIN number on the company’s website, according to Jake. 

Who wants to buy this FLOODED one out of inventory? Full VIN is 5YJ3E1EB7KF191970 and it is still available! Only $43k after all your gas savings. https://t.co/Aqx9cxumsy

— Jake F (@JakeLangford6) February 19, 2019

These allegations of inventory stockpiling come just days after Tesla slashed prices on the Model 3 for the second time in 36 days.  All versions of the Model 3 saw a price reduction of $1100, which lowered the starting price of the vehicle to $42,900. This followed a $2000 price cut on all Tesla vehicles that was announced in early January in order to try and offset the reduction in the United States federal tax credit that Tesla vehicles qualify for.

The news also came after Tesla’s referral program ended at the beginning of February.

You can view Jake’s entire Twitter thread on the company’s inventory here.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2IoFdFJ Tyler Durden