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TWTR

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Re: TWTR

#21
post #4

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…

Can someone who knows about these things explain why no one else does auctions like Google did? I mean, these guys are supposed to be about markets, right, so why the heck is the price decided by some kind of "central committee"?!

I don't really know these things but as far as I can tell what Google did was something really unpopular that only what Google used to be could do: they only allowed the "right" VCs to invest to their conditions, and they were not interested to the reaction of bankers and alike, and everybody wanted the Google shares. Twitter was nowhere in such a kind of predominant position given that is in a weaker situation (it is not clear if it will ever make enough money to justify even the IPO initial price).

Re: TWTR

#22

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…

Unlike Facebook, none of Twitters employees and VC's are selling, so no internal pressure to grab every last dollar.

Re: TWTR

#24

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…

I now little about the stock market, so I'm not sure why you're upset but it sounds important! :) Anyone care to elaborate?

The owners of Twitter prior to the flotation have basically sold a chunk of what they owned on the stock market. To do that they needed to put a value on those shares. Determining that price is pretty tricky but through one mechanism or another they settled on $26 a share.

The fact that people are now willing to buy them for $46 a share suggests that they basically sold them at too low a price (arguably $20 a share too low).

In doing so they've lost out on a fair bit of money. Establishing a value ahead of the flotation is difficult and often companies will err on the side of caution (that is sell slightly cheap) to make the sell off look like a success, but I think it's being suggested that this gap is too big to just be that and that some of the previous owners may be unhappy that they've lost out.

Re: TWTR

#25

I don't know how these things typically work.. it started out at 46, now it's below, ~45, but it says +19.66 (75.62%)? Is that because that's the highest it was today? I would expect the +/- to be against the starting amount at any time...

The price movement is based on difference from the previous day's close, not today's open. Those may differ if there was news overnight. In this case, there isn't really a previous day's close, just the price that was set.

Google Finance doesn't seem to show previous close, but Yahoo Finance does: http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=TWTR

Re: TWTR

#26
post #16

I don't know how these things typically work.. it started out at 46, now it's below, ~45, but it says +19.66 (75.62%)? Is that because that's the highest it was today? I would expect the +/- to be against the starting amount at any time...

The opening price was $26.

Opening price was $45.01 according to Google Finance, $45.10 according to the WSJ, and $45.10 according to Yahoo finance. Not $26. Insider pre-order price was $26.

Re: TWTR

#27

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…

I believe you have the logic backwards here. Facebook was the fuckup because they priced correctly and all the buddies of the underwriters didn't make bank on the IPO. Twitter is back to the old system and nobody will be complaining this time around.

I suppose it depends on who you are trying to please. If you are Twitter, it's a major loss.

If you give a shit about bankers (most of us do not), then you win.

Re: TWTR

#28
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe you have the logic backwards here. Facebook was the fuckup because they priced correctly and all the buddies of the underwriters didn't make bank on the IPO. Twitter is back to the old system and nobody will be complaining this time around.

I suppose it depends on who you are trying to please. If you are Twitter, it's a major loss. If you give a shit about bankers (most of us do not), then you win.

But the bankers come up with those magical "buy/hold/sell" recommendations that everyone else listens to and panic-sells when their advice says so. Or "oops, they missed our magically predicted revenue by one penny per share". It's all part of the game.

Re: TWTR

#29

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.

> Markets are highly irrational. That depends which recent Nobel Memorial Prize winner you believe.

Which one claims that all actors in a market have perfect information?

Re: TWTR

#30
And... this marks the beginning of the end for Twitter as we know it.
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