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Slack Is Going Public Without an IPO – How a Direct Listing Works

fortune.com

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Re: Slack Is Going Public Without an IPO – How a Direct Listing Works

#41

Post by TomVDB »

FartyMcFarter wrote: post #5
nodesocket wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure it's up 50% from the "reference price", but publicly for you and me retail investors we had NO chance at that gain. You'd have been super lucky to get some shares at where it opened at $38.88 (12:08 EST). It immediately shot up to daily high of $41.95 which is most likely where retail trades would have executed at (assuming you used a market order, which you never should). Always buy with limit orders. See the f…

> assuming you used a market order, which you never should). Yeah I don't get why market orders even exist . If you're doing something that usually costs thousands to millions, is it ever a meaningful benefit to saving a click or two and a few keystrokes? If my broker had an option to remove my ability to do market orders (sell or buy) I would immediately enable that.

I'm not a high frequency trader. When I want to sell (all highly liquid shares), I've made that decision on other factors than a 0.1% variation of the listed stock price.

What I care about is that it sells.

It's hold-over from the dotcom days when I saw colleagues sell options with a limit order just above the current listed price that never got fulfilled in an a constant down market.

Re: Slack Is Going Public Without an IPO – How a Direct Listing Works

#42

Post by evanpw »

tylerapplebaum wrote: post #21
FartyMcFarter wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> assuming you used a market order, which you never should). Yeah I don't get why market orders even exist . If you're doing something that usually costs thousands to millions, is it ever a meaningful benefit to saving a click or two and a few keystrokes? If my broker had an option to remove my ability to do market orders (sell or buy) I would immediately enable that.

> Yeah I don't get why market orders even exist. Have you ever needed to exit a trade in a hurry? Or been buying something on the way up?

A marketable limit order is strictly better: "I'll sell at the best price available, but no more than X% worse than the current price" vs. "I'll sell at literally any price". In most cases, they give identical results, except in certain catastrophic cases where the limit order will save you (e.g., flash crash).

Re: Slack Is Going Public Without an IPO – How a Direct Listing Works

#43

Post by esoterica »

sixhobbits wrote: post #31

> In an IPO, SEC rules typically restrict shareholders from selling shares until six months after the offering. A direct offering makes it much easier for employees and early investors to cash out as soon as the first day of trading. This can be a big help for investors in companies that have waited to go public, which many of the best-known tech companies have been doing for years Is it wrong to interpret this as ot…

Investors can usually cash out during the IPO itself, they are only banned from trading between the IPO and the end of the lock up period.

Re: Slack Is Going Public Without an IPO – How a Direct Listing Works

#44

Post by ericabiz »

nodesocket wrote: post #32
ericabiz wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I set a buy order yesterday through Schwab and got a notification today that it executed at $38.50, which as far as I can tell was the retail opening price. It executed at 12:08 Eastern.

Nice work. Was it a market order or limit? If limit, what did you set as the limit price? I waiting and eventually executed my order at $40.36.

I set a limit $50 because they didn’t announce a price as far as I could tell, and I knew I was going to be working today and couldn’t pay attention. It did cost me some because I could have bought more shares had I set a lower limit, but I am happy the trade executed at a low price.

Re: Slack Is Going Public Without an IPO – How a Direct Listing Works

#45

Post by icedchai »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #36
mfatica wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's a few pennies for month how are their operating expenses greater than their revenue? Have you even looked at their public filing or are you just making assumptions?

Because they’re paying 1000 engineers to shoot for the moon, to justify the next valuation. In a fancy office. To service their order book, they just need a skeleton crew. And the order book should be the bottom line for the bulk of investors.

It looks like sales and marketing is costing more than engineering.

Re: Slack Is Going Public Without an IPO – How a Direct Listing Works

#46

Post by BubRoss »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #36
mfatica wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's a few pennies for month how are their operating expenses greater than their revenue? Have you even looked at their public filing or are you just making assumptions?

Because they’re paying 1000 engineers to shoot for the moon, to justify the next valuation. In a fancy office. To service their order book, they just need a skeleton crew. And the order book should be the bottom line for the bulk of investors.

You say that, but Twitter has many thousands of employees. They could be much more profitable if they weren't paying enormous amounts of money (for what end I have no idea, the site seems to always be getting less reliable and more bloated).

Re: Slack Is Going Public Without an IPO – How a Direct Listing Works

#49

Post by askafriend »

BubRoss wrote: post #47

Is each slack user really worth $1,600 USD ?

This is a pretty financially illiterate question...

I mean do you really think you can divide the valuation of a company by their user base and think it means anything?

I really hope that isn't how you make decisions with investing your personal money...

Re: Slack Is Going Public Without an IPO – How a Direct Listing Works

#50

Post by asr »

cdumler wrote: post #35
sixhobbits wrote: post #31

> In an IPO, SEC rules typically restrict shareholders from selling shares until six months after the offering. A direct offering makes it much easier for employees and early investors to cash out as soon as the first day of trading. This can be a big help for investors in companies that have waited to go public, which many of the best-known tech companies have been doing for years Is it wrong to interpret this as ot…

That is possible, but in theory there has been due diligence to verify the company as an on-going concern. Normally the goal of going public is to let those who took the risk in the beginning to get a payout, given that they have had their funds locked up all this time. Those who choose to invest now are taking the risks for access to future returns.

Normally the point of an IPO is to raise cash.
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