I know you were being facetious, but agricultural derivatives are totally different from equities. But we do also have a stock exchange and options exchange in

I know you were being facetious, but agricultural derivatives are totally different from equities. But we do also have a stock exchange and options exchange in Chicago, you know. Anyway, the primary reason that your point 3 is true is because of basic supply and demand. It is harder to buy all the shares than to buy a few. When it's perceived there's a very small number of shares available--I don't know if this is true, but it does seem like investors are clamoring to invest in Facebook--share price will be higher than if that were not the case. In particular, perceived scarcity can share prices artificially high. The idea of getting a slice of the pie before someone else does was a big factor in the dot-com bubble, for instance.