Square stock drops 10%, is now less than IPO price • Hacker News Board

Re: Square stock drops 10%, is now less than IPO price

#41

Post by jmagoon » Wed, Jan 20, 2016, 6:12 PM UTC

dantillberg wrote: post #21

boomzilla wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, for some people, myself included, the not-going-so-well recent IPOs (Square, Box, etc.) would help deflate the pressure on housing prices in SF/BA. I feel for the workers at these company, but it's becoming impossible to raise a family here when the rent/mortgage is creeping up to more than half of most people's salary.

Ha, yes. I don't own a home, but I would like to someday, so I'm always confused how news about falling home prices is treated as "bad" in general in the media. For me, I celebrate the news. I want housing prices to go kaboom so I can afford one.

Yes, but as soon as you buy one you will want housing prices to go up, just like any investment.

Re: Square stock drops 10%, is now less than IPO price

#42

Post by myth_buster » Wed, Jan 20, 2016, 6:12 PM UTC

dantillberg wrote: post #7

Well, the NASDAQ[0] and DJIA[1] are both off 3% for the day right now, along with every other index around the world. Or, to talk about price movements that are probably a bit more noteworthy, crude oil futures on NYMEX[2] are down ~7%. It's been kind of a (minor) bloodbath so far in the markets today. So, a 10% drop for a young, growth-oriented company is not terribly surprising on a day like today, I'd think. 0: ht…

WaPo: Global markets plunge on oil/China fears.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2016/01/20/n...

Re: Square stock drops 10%, is now less than IPO price

#43

Post by pbreit » Wed, Jan 20, 2016, 6:13 PM UTC

gtrubetskoy wrote: post #13

All the food trucks, street and market vendors, estate and yard sales, handymen, etc I see accept credit cards using Square. If they figure out how to hang on to this market and grow as these little vendors grow then they're in good shape. Being down 10% when the Dow is down 400+ points for days on is not unusual. The big question is - who is Square competing with.

Itself. It is deploying tons of resources on non-core activities like scheduling & food delivery. All the ceding online payments to Stripe, being last to release an Apple Pay terminal and having almost no international business.

Re: Square stock drops 10%, is now less than IPO price

#44

Post by JonFish85 » Wed, Jan 20, 2016, 6:14 PM UTC

dantillberg wrote: post #21

boomzilla wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, for some people, myself included, the not-going-so-well recent IPOs (Square, Box, etc.) would help deflate the pressure on housing prices in SF/BA. I feel for the workers at these company, but it's becoming impossible to raise a family here when the rent/mortgage is creeping up to more than half of most people's salary.

Ha, yes. I don't own a home, but I would like to someday, so I'm always confused how news about falling home prices is treated as "bad" in general in the media. For me, I celebrate the news. I want housing prices to go kaboom so I can afford one.

The problem with that though is that housing prices are tightly tied to surrounding economic factors. You could go to some crappy neighborhood in a depressed area of the USA and get a great house for "nothing" (relative to, say, CA). If housing prices go kaboom, it's likely because there aren't as many people moving there, and people aren't moving there because there aren't jobs that can support people.

And be careful what you wish for, because once you do own that house, if the prices continue to fall, you could be underwater fairly easily. If a $1m place falls to $750k, which you can afford, but then the economy continues to stutter, it could fall to $500k or $350k. Remember that your mortgage doesn't reflect what you could sell your house for, once you sign the papers, you're on the hook for it.

Re: Square stock drops 10%, is now less than IPO price

#45

Post by rhino369 » Wed, Jan 20, 2016, 6:18 PM UTC

gtrubetskoy wrote: post #13

All the food trucks, street and market vendors, estate and yard sales, handymen, etc I see accept credit cards using Square. If they figure out how to hang on to this market and grow as these little vendors grow then they're in good shape. Being down 10% when the Dow is down 400+ points for days on is not unusual. The big question is - who is Square competing with.

The other big question is whether that small market for street merchants is really enough to justify the stock price.

I'm sure you can build a great business in that market, but is it a 3 billion dollar business?

Re: Square stock drops 10%, is now less than IPO price

#46

Post by aaroninsf » Wed, Jan 20, 2016, 6:19 PM UTC

boomzilla wrote: post #19

dantillberg wrote: post #7

Well, the NASDAQ[0] and DJIA[1] are both off 3% for the day right now, along with every other index around the world. Or, to talk about price movements that are probably a bit more noteworthy, crude oil futures on NYMEX[2] are down ~7%. It's been kind of a (minor) bloodbath so far in the markets today. So, a 10% drop for a young, growth-oriented company is not terribly surprising on a day like today, I'd think. 0: ht…

Well, for some people, myself included, the not-going-so-well recent IPOs (Square, Box, etc.) would help deflate the pressure on housing prices in SF/BA. I feel for the workers at these company, but it's becoming impossible to raise a family here when the rent/mortgage is creeping up to more than half of most people's salary.

Preach, sibling!

My wife and I have put in more than 20 unsuccessful offers attempting to stay in our unfortunately popular neighborhood in the last two years. We have been chasing the affordability train for some years now, our increasing bids never getting ahead of the frenzy... (today, it seems we're at peak market and it'd be foolhardy to buy perhaps...)

NB: we don't just 'move further out' not only because of 20 years of community, our love of bike commuting, and our great 'hood...

...we are bound by the location of our excellent public school. Non-parents may not realize the staggering import of lucking into a K8 public school you truly love... for two siblings in SF, staying in our school instead of paying for some private (assuming we could get into one) will amounts to well over half a million dollars in post-tax income over the next decade...

We too are part of the tired story of 'middle' class (by SF standards... :P) professional families with 2x full time incomes finding it almost impossible to hold on to a life of modest middle class comfort in SF (where middle class means: a 1000 sq ft 2 bedroom home for family of four; one 25K car; public schools; etc.)

Re: Square stock drops 10%, is now less than IPO price

#47

Post by ihsw » Wed, Jan 20, 2016, 6:20 PM UTC

myth_buster wrote: post #42

dantillberg wrote: post #7

Well, the NASDAQ[0] and DJIA[1] are both off 3% for the day right now, along with every other index around the world. Or, to talk about price movements that are probably a bit more noteworthy, crude oil futures on NYMEX[2] are down ~7%. It's been kind of a (minor) bloodbath so far in the markets today. So, a 10% drop for a young, growth-oriented company is not terribly surprising on a day like today, I'd think. 0: ht…

WaPo: Global markets plunge on oil/China fears. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2016/01/20/n...

To add more context to this -- the markets have been sliding since Sunday due to Chinese intervention in the markets (including raising RMB reserves for Chinese banks), and there is a lot of shakeup expected from the lifting of Iranian sanctions and the Saudi Aramco IPO internal debate (could be largest IPO in history and it would be company with the largest market cap in history, yes bigger than Apple's).

The environment should stabilize by 2016Q2.

Re: Square stock drops 10%, is now less than IPO price

#48

Post by elif » Wed, Jan 20, 2016, 6:23 PM UTC

brainflake wrote: post #34

Everything is down. This is almost certainly related to macro signals and not Square itself. Smaller cap stocks tend to have higher volatility and will normally take a heavier beating than larger cap ones.

Coins are up 8.3% on the day, which is strange considering all the bandwagon press universally condemning it.

Some of it is correction, but I think generally more people are starting to treat it as a hedge against general global markets--as a haven like gold.

Re: Square stock drops 10%, is now less than IPO price

#49

Post by estel » Wed, Jan 20, 2016, 6:25 PM UTC

gtrubetskoy wrote: post #13

All the food trucks, street and market vendors, estate and yard sales, handymen, etc I see accept credit cards using Square. If they figure out how to hang on to this market and grow as these little vendors grow then they're in good shape. Being down 10% when the Dow is down 400+ points for days on is not unusual. The big question is - who is Square competing with.

> The big question is - who is Square competing with.

There's a bunch internationally where Square hasn't really begun to compete.

Re: Square stock drops 10%, is now less than IPO price

#50

Post by rconti » Wed, Jan 20, 2016, 6:26 PM UTC

boomzilla wrote: post #19

dantillberg wrote: post #7

Well, the NASDAQ[0] and DJIA[1] are both off 3% for the day right now, along with every other index around the world. Or, to talk about price movements that are probably a bit more noteworthy, crude oil futures on NYMEX[2] are down ~7%. It's been kind of a (minor) bloodbath so far in the markets today. So, a 10% drop for a young, growth-oriented company is not terribly surprising on a day like today, I'd think. 0: ht…

Well, for some people, myself included, the not-going-so-well recent IPOs (Square, Box, etc.) would help deflate the pressure on housing prices in SF/BA. I feel for the workers at these company, but it's becoming impossible to raise a family here when the rent/mortgage is creeping up to more than half of most people's salary.

It'll be easy to find a cheap place in Morgan Hill! SF/Peninsula, not so much. Prices never really went down by that much in '08 which was a real, honest-to-god housing crisis.. so a smaller tech deflation won't help much.

.. Or so I hope, since I just bought an overpriced Peninsula house last year :)