Live data from Hacker News

TWTR

google.com

161–170 of 349 posts

Re: TWTR

#161

If it stays at $46, that's a gigantic fuck up. They left a billion dollars on the table, and that's borderline breach of fiduciary duty. Of course, we have to wait and see what it settles at, and it's a little premature to heap scorn just yet. But the initial reaction is it looks like they overreacted to the Facebook IPO debacle (in my book, Facebook did the best thing possible for the company and extracted as much v…

> borderline breach of fiduciary duty. That's not a real thing. http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/8146/are-u-s-com...

"breach of fiduciary duty" is a very real thing. (29 USC § 1109 specifically) In this case it has nothing to do with the link you posted. He means the contract that Twitter signed with the banks probably has language that says they will attempt to get the best possible price for the shares. The resulting pop shows that they did not do that.

Re: TWTR

#162
post #82

Can someone with more clue please tell me that the following cynical thought I keep having is wrong and laughably misinformed (and then explain why)? Twitter's investors (who have plowed hundreds of millions in to a loss making company) decide to sell some of their stock at $26/share (after consulting with banks to arrive at this price). This will make right the losses they've experienced so far and pass the problem…

When you say "Joe Public" you make it sound like the stock is being bought with our tax dollars. Anybody who buys TWTR is making an informed decision and expects Twitter to do very well. It's hard to imagine Twitter today eventually being worth the current market cap of $25B. However, take a look at Google as a prime example of success. When GOOG first hit the market in 2004 it got a market cap of $23B. It was somewh…

> Anybody who buys TWTR is making an informed decision

If only.

Re: TWTR

#163
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add to this, just remember one simple fact: When you are a long a stock, the most you can lose is the amount you paid. When you are short, you can lose unlimited money.

I don't trade stocks, nor do I claim to know that business at all. Can you explain this concept?

If you buy a stock at 10 and it goes to zero (the bottom limit), all you lose is your $10. If you short a stock (thinking it's price will go down), there is no upper limit on how far it can go up. If it continues to go up, you're going to lose the amount of money at which you eventually "buy to cover". For example, if you hold your short until the price is $100, you lose $90.

Re: TWTR

#164
post #82

Can someone with more clue please tell me that the following cynical thought I keep having is wrong and laughably misinformed (and then explain why)? Twitter's investors (who have plowed hundreds of millions in to a loss making company) decide to sell some of their stock at $26/share (after consulting with banks to arrive at this price). This will make right the losses they've experienced so far and pass the problem…

When you say "Joe Public" you make it sound like the stock is being bought with our tax dollars. Anybody who buys TWTR is making an informed decision and expects Twitter to do very well. It's hard to imagine Twitter today eventually being worth the current market cap of $25B. However, take a look at Google as a prime example of success. When GOOG first hit the market in 2004 it got a market cap of $23B. It was somewh…

Google had a solid, well-working monetization mechanism: AdWords, released in 2000, 4 years before the IPO. It was easy to see how it performs financially and why it might skyrocket.

Can someone enlighten me how Twitter might earn some steady money?

Re: TWTR

#165
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It only sucks to be an employee if his shares or options are contingent on a market cap above the current price.

I was a GRPN employee at IPO and I can confirm that even with your stipulation, it sucked.

GRPN and TWTR are not the same. I can assure you, that things worked out just fine for GOOG employees. GRPN was very clearly broken. TWTR is not. Whether it is worth this or not I don't know, but I wouldn't expect it to behave like GRPN.

Re: TWTR

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you say for a fact that if they priced at $46 that people would have bought at $46? Markets are highly irrational.

What does it mean for a market to be "highly irrational"? Normally the term "irrational" is applied to actors, while "efficient" refers to markets. Are you suggesting markets are not efficient? In that case, when can we expect you to become extremely wealthy from your inefficiency-proving strategy? (Claiming the EMH is false is equivalent to claiming that such a strategy exists.) Incidentally, when an actor behaves i…

Are you suggesting markets are not efficient? In that case, when can we expect you to become extremely wealthy from your inefficiency-proving strategy? (Claiming the EMH is false is equivalent to claiming that such a strategy exists.)

What if I were able to prove that markets are inefficient because efficiently pricing securities is an NP-complete problem? Well, sure, maybe a strategy exists, but if it requires solving an intractable problem then I'm not about to get rich off of my proof ;)

Re: TWTR

#168
post #82

Can someone with more clue please tell me that the following cynical thought I keep having is wrong and laughably misinformed (and then explain why)? Twitter's investors (who have plowed hundreds of millions in to a loss making company) decide to sell some of their stock at $26/share (after consulting with banks to arrive at this price). This will make right the losses they've experienced so far and pass the problem…

When you say "Joe Public" you make it sound like the stock is being bought with our tax dollars. Anybody who buys TWTR is making an informed decision and expects Twitter to do very well. It's hard to imagine Twitter today eventually being worth the current market cap of $25B. However, take a look at Google as a prime example of success. When GOOG first hit the market in 2004 it got a market cap of $23B. It was somewh…

Regarding tax dollars: please take a moment and google for "QE3 stimulus package". If not tax dollars, it's inflation dollars, which is an indirect tax anyway.

Re: TWTR

#169
post #82

Can someone with more clue please tell me that the following cynical thought I keep having is wrong and laughably misinformed (and then explain why)? Twitter's investors (who have plowed hundreds of millions in to a loss making company) decide to sell some of their stock at $26/share (after consulting with banks to arrive at this price). This will make right the losses they've experienced so far and pass the problem…

How does Wall St always seem to end up with the blame on these threads? They priced the Facebook IPO too high and they get the blame, they priced the Twitter IPO too low and they get the blame. The company just went public and raised $2B+ at a higher valuation initial valuation then anyone expected. IPOs are tricky things to get right. Give it a few months for the hype to settle down before you start screaming about "joe public".

Re: TWTR

#170
post #82

Can someone with more clue please tell me that the following cynical thought I keep having is wrong and laughably misinformed (and then explain why)? Twitter's investors (who have plowed hundreds of millions in to a loss making company) decide to sell some of their stock at $26/share (after consulting with banks to arrive at this price). This will make right the losses they've experienced so far and pass the problem…

Only a small percentage of TWTR shares were up for sale in the IPO--there are 544.70M total shares and just 70M were part of the IPO (a little less than 13%). Unless I missed something the shares sold in the IPO were issued, so for example if you were a VC with a million shares of TWTR you would still have a million shares of TWTR (now valued at $45M). The money from the sale will go to Twitter, not an investor. Twitter did "leave money on the table", but their #1 goal was not to pull a Facebook and have the IPO be DOA.
Post reply on HN