Well, not sure about not throwing money into the wind. I do quite stupid moves from time to time :-). Like yesterday, selling some LAC shares into this PPL/Tesla event. Not much, but it may hurt a bit if the sprint extend beyond Monday. A week ago, it was hard for me to imagine, that LAC would go from $9 over $15 in a month (see the stock option comment from last week to Cal). After this PPL announcement, it is quite clear, that the share price can be anything between $5 and $50 in these days. 

Anyway, I don’t thing, I am generally “circumspective”, but in a case of a Tesla, I have came to a conclusion, that with Elon Musk, nothing is as it seems. And one has to always ask the right questions. For example, over past 3 years, I was not able to reconcile the TSLA share sprint with the stock performance. Everyone was telling about the great future of his cars, ignoring the low quality.  Few weeks back, I have came across an article on Zero Hedge, which was explaining, how purposely placed  out of the money call options can actually generate a buying spree (something called gamma squeeze). Last week, I have seen a note, that SoftBank and I think MorganStanley have admitted execution of this strategy on TSLA. Of course, selling shares is what keeps Tesla alive and Musks financial well being was closely linked to massive stock appreciation. Of course, those events are coincidental and not at all related. Given high moral standards of those 3 parties, it would be impossible to imply anything else. 

The PLL story is quite similar. A contract for an non existent Lithium of inadequate quality for a company, which does to make battery cells and does not have any supply chain in place to process the concentrate into a battery. Either Maxwell knows something nobody else knows (which I doubt) or the purpose of this contract is something else than battery production. And I bet, that the contract gives Tesla the right but not obligation to take the volume.

My guess is, that some investment bank has a sizeable position in PLL and Musk was just returning them a favor of some kind. That may not be ever visible, because nobody is at the moment listed as an institutional holder and if there was somebody yesterday, they will likely make sure to exit prior next 13F report. I would not be surprised if those mentioned above are eventually part of it. 

Based on that, anyone being long in PLL will be left with an empty bag. The implication also may be, that LAC will go down too, till DFS is released. All just a speculation of course :-)