NBA : No Basketball Again

If the 2019-20 NBA season wasn't already strange enough, three game 5 matches were last night postponed after players refused to play in protest at the latest police shooting of a 29 year old black man. Seven times. In the back. The victim, Jacob Blake, survived, but is paralysed from the waist down.

The postponements were triggered by the Milwaukee Bucks (from Wisconsin where the shooting occurred) who refused to come out of the locker room for their game against the Orlando Magic. To their credit, the Magic said they would not accept a walkover, and the league quickly postponed all three games scheduled, the other two being the Oklahoma City Thunder v Houston Rockets and the Portland Trail Blazers v Los Angeles Lakers games. Both Los Angeles teams (Lakers and Clippers) have now "voted" to stop the season, but other teams are not aligned, so how this will play out remains to be seen. Voted is in quotes because some reports consider this to have been a "poll" rather than an official vote.

Three MLB games were also postponed "to draw attention to the issues of racial injustice and systemic oppression." The games were the Milwaukee Brewers v Cincinnati Reds, Seattle Mariners v San Diego Padres and Los Angles Dodgers v San Francisco Giants. Only about 8% of MLB players are black, a number that has declined in recent years, but the Seattle Mariners have more than any other club.

Three WNBA games were also postponed last night as were five of six scheduled MLS games, but the 97% white NHL went ahead with its play-off games with a rather weak "moment of reflection in the effort to end racism and fight for social injustice". 

Investment life outside of sports goes on meanwhile with Telsa soaring past $2,250 today after closing at a new all-time high yesterday after CEO Elon Musk hinted that the company may be able to double the density of its batteries in three to four years. On September 22nd, the company holds a "Battery Day" about which there is much speculation.

The company now has a market capitalisation of $400 million, which is double what it was just two months ago. One of my better investments. 

Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives reiterated his Neutral rating and $1,900 price target for Tesla, but raised his bull-case scenario target from $2,500 to $3,500.

Another individual thinks it'll more likely be somewhat lower:

“In a nutshell, Tesla is essentially a busted growth story. I know that sounds crazy to people looking at the stock,” Gordon Johnson, CEO and founder of GLJ Research, told Yahoo Finance’s the First Trade.

Johnson has an $87 price target on the stock by the end of next year. (You read that correctly.)

Which would make it one of my worse investments, but for now, I'm happy to let this one run.

With just three trading days to go this month, and today looking good (Tesla close to $2,300) I'm in good shape for my second best month ever, behind April of this year.