Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Long-Term Stock Exchange Opens for Business

blog.ltse.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

451–460 of 561 posts

Re: The Long-Term Stock Exchange Opens for Business

#451

Post by om2 »

eries wrote: post #359
cwkoss wrote: post #354

Having a hard time groking what exactly LTSE does differently. What are the specific features/differences between LTSE and other markets? Will companies listed on LTSE be listed exclusively there, or also on other markets?

I've posted links elsewhere in this thread to the exact points of differentiation. You can even read the legal filings, if you are so inclined. We support (and encourage) dual-listing, so that a company can still benefit from our protections while accessing liquidity at the open/close from a legacy exchange.

What protections do you provide for companies?

Re: The Long-Term Stock Exchange Opens for Business

#452

Post by bricemo »

Let me try to summarize everyone’s same question:

- The idea of a stock exchange that allows companies and investors to focus on 5, 10, 25 year horizons sounds great!

- However companies on normal stock exchanges now already try to do this, but it’s hard because of quarterly earnings, pressure for quarterly growth, etc

- How is LTSE different? Seems like: Companies and investors “promise” to have a longer term focus via planning

- seems like that wouldn’t be enough and the same financial pressures would result in the same focus

- We were expecting something like: “investors must hold positions for 10 years”, or, “earnings only reported every 2 years”, etc etc. but there’s nothing like that.

- So, what is the big idea, the teeth, the new rule, that makes long term focus enforceable?

Re: The Long-Term Stock Exchange Opens for Business

#453

Post by alasdair_ »

eries wrote: post #286
alasdair_ wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s say the largest flagship company on LTSE decides to move to short-term governance strategies. How can investors be sure this company really would be delisted, even if it’s the company that makes LTSE the most money?

Everything we do is completely transparent. If a company deliberately violates the policies they have publicly adopted, not only would they be delisted they would likely be committing securities fraud. I think it's likely you'd hear about it. You imply rather than state directly that you fear our regulatory decisions would be influenced by our commercial interests, so just to address that part, we have an extensive s…

Thank you. I thought I was being direct but I’ll try to be more so.

Just to be clear, I don’t doubt you personally in any way, it’s more that I think it’s an enormously difficult problem to get a group of people to take action on something when they will receive a lot of money by NOT taking that action.

More specifically: companies are already supposed to take the wishes of long-term shareholders into account, and boards are supposed to enforce this, yet in practice this doesn’t happen much because, well, incentives dictate otherwise.

Can you share some of the checks and balances that would stop the exchange itself acting in its controllers own short-term self-interest?

Re: The Long-Term Stock Exchange Opens for Business

#454

Post by alasdair_ »

vmception wrote: post #245
alasdair_ wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that stock buybacks are generally better than issuing a dividend for the simple reason that with a buyback, an owner can choose to sell (and incur a taxable event) or not sell, while with a dividend the taxable event is forced upon them.

A convenient reality as they can also just be used to constrict the supply of shares on market more and more, which is what they do. How also convenient that it can result in gains much more amplified than dividends. Yes, your observation is also true. But lets not pretend companies were really trying to choose between dividends and buybacks, most don't do dividends and ultimately never return capital to shareholders…

> But lets not pretend companies were really trying to choose between dividends and buybacks

I’m not pretending. And most companies eventually are designed to return capital to shareholders - otherwise why would anyone buy them?

Re: The Long-Term Stock Exchange Opens for Business

#455

Post by aisofteng »

eries wrote: post #99

PS. we are hiring: https://jobs.lever.co/ltse

I’m a senior software engineer and software architect at a tech giant that has been lucky to have the experience of launching a new product twice, operationally treating it as a well funded startup and growing it to multimillion dollar revenue while instilling development practices that ensure quality while also being adaptive to change. I read the job description for the senior software engineer posting, and at first thought I might be a good candidate.

I generally want to dedicate my efforts to long term betterment of humanity, rather than “we make the world better by making a mobile app for dog walkers” sort of thing, so this position is attractive to me. However, this “full stack” position mentions only JavaScript and Rails as required experience.

Is your entire stack Rails and JavaScript? That turns me off entirely (and makes me unqualified).

Re: The Long-Term Stock Exchange Opens for Business

#456

Post by AmericanChopper »

bricemo wrote: post #452

Let me try to summarize everyone’s same question: - The idea of a stock exchange that allows companies and investors to focus on 5, 10, 25 year horizons sounds great! - However companies on normal stock exchanges now already try to do this, but it’s hard because of quarterly earnings, pressure for quarterly growth, etc - How is LTSE different? Seems like: Companies and investors “promise” to have a longer term focus…

> The idea of a stock exchange that allows companies and investors to focus on 5, 10, 25 year horizons sounds great!

But this already exists. It's just the regular stock exchange.

It's also worth noting that a majority of the capital in the market is already focused on very long term horizons. Most of it is sitting in boring mutual funds, who's investors are looking towards retirement as their horizon.

If you're looking for a market that is so focused on long term horizons that they don't even care whether you have enough revenue to remain solvent, and won't have enough revenue to remain solvent at any time in the foreseeable future, then that market already exists too. You can call it Private Equity, or Venture Capital, and HN often likes to discuss how it's trying to reinvent the 2000s tech bubble. It's also led to some incredible scams, and isn't really something you want consumer investors betting their retirements on.

> something like: “investors must hold positions for 10 years”, or, “earnings only reported every 2 years”

These wouldn't be good rules even if you were focused exclusively on long term results. Your longterm outlook can change from one day to the next.

Re: The Long-Term Stock Exchange Opens for Business

#457

Post by SolarNet »

samatman wrote: post #417
SolarNet wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's more usual to accept a weaker claim: that markets are the most efficient approximation to the perfect algorithm for price discovery This claim is just as problematic. You may view it as weaker, but algorithmicly speaking it's the same nonsense. Algorithms in similar complexity classes are usually translatable to each other, which is to say they can be framed in terms of each other. You appear to be claiming th…

> This claim is just as problematic. You may view it as weaker, but algorithmicly speaking it's the same nonsense. It's an existential claim, not a mathematical claim. The claim is simply that markets are more efficient than other mechanisms, proposed or extant, which actually exist in the real world. Clearly to quantify this claim requires some real mathematical analysis, but that's quite beyond my talents or intere…

> And I'd suggest reading my reply to the absurd thermodynamics bit before assuming too much about my thoughts on it!

I mean. My issue is multi-fold. I have an issue with market fundamentalists who treat it like a religion. But I also have an issue with economists who use methods of analysis that aren't empirical.

> It's an existential claim, not a mathematical claim.

This isn't just an issue of philosophy and mathematics in the abstract. Computation is a physical phenomena. The claim of efficiency being made here, even in the weaker version, is not congruent with reality.

It's an existential claim that would be no different than chemists shouting "this chemical reaction will continue forever" (a violation of the second law of thermodynamics).

> I'm just here to point out that the weakened claim is "markets are the best we've got", not anything theoretical nor abstract.

The weaker claim is no different than doctors who once believed in the four humors. It's not technically an incorrect categorization of reality given current knowledge in the field. But it's a piece of general economics knowledge that has no backing in reality, nor is falsifiable, nor provides predictive use.

And every time an economist spouts that sort of nonsense I can't help but remember their field must be primarily pesduo-science. I don't know how they expect me to take them seriously when they are still yelling about four humors and perpetual chemical interactions.

Because existential claims like this one are incongruent with reality. I don't know many times I can emphasize this point, the claim, even the weakest version I have seen, is not physically possible, hence it would require extraordinary evidence. It would upset the entire field of computation if it were true. It stands in opposition to modern pillars of computational reality, no different than claiming one had a perpetual motion machine would physics. Humanity would be like gods if it were true. You can continue to claim it all you want, but it's as misguided as claiming the earth is flat.

Re: The Long-Term Stock Exchange Opens for Business

#458

Post by pm90 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #351
eries wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not quite sure how to answer your question. Clearly there are long-term investors and companies in today’s markets. I think there would be more of them if they had a platform conducive to their philosophy.

> Clearly there are long-term investors and companies in today’s markets. As the age-old principle goes: could you please name three? Examples would help us understand the idea more thoroughly.

Institutional investors like pension funds have a longer term focus. If this platform succeeds, it might encourage more institutions like it.

Re: The Long-Term Stock Exchange Opens for Business

#459

Post by Galanwe »

cdmoyer wrote: post #265
Galanwe wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a source for this? I don't see how that could be possible, unless they created a new share class for these long term investors. The price of the share has to be adjusted at the dividend ex date to reflect the drop of value induced by the dividend payout. If not every holder of the share class benefited from it, then this is obviously unfair. Now if you are talking about different share classes, then they…

Specifics about L'Oreal. https://www.loreal-finance.com/eng/registered-shares-loyalty... General discussion of the concept in France. http://jpkoning.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-french-shareholder-... > Despite ensuing controversy in the French legislature over the fairness of elevating one class of shareholder above the rest, the ability to provide prime de fidélité was enshrined in French law in 1994, with several lim…

Thanks a lot for the information!

So indeed they provide you with a different share class. What is amazing though is that they have what look like an automated process to convert your shares from public to registered (private with fidelity bonus).

Reselling these shares is not really explained in the page though. They seem to imply that your broker will swap them for regular shares that you can then sell on the market.

Re: The Long-Term Stock Exchange Opens for Business

#460

Post by jzig »

cdnpal wrote: post #430
eries wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the kind words

Eric, I saw you present at Twiistup years ago with that CEO guy from Demand Media, where you exclaimed that you crammed untested spyware toolbars into IMVU just to get money, knowing it would blow up your users' computers. It's clear you got some money since then, but other than that why would we trust you with a stock exchange in retrospect? Were you hoping we would forget?

There are not enough upvotes for this comment.
Post reply on HN