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> It does not seem to be a viable business so this makes sense. Many businesses that IPO aren't viable, the problem is when the general public figures that out
by linuxftw 7y ago
> It does not seem to be a viable business so this makes sense.
Many businesses that IPO aren't viable, the problem is when the general public figures that out. For instance, snap chat. In no way a viable business, but has plenty of investors thanks to the wall street scam of institutional investors (401ks, etc) buying entire sectors of an exchange. It's a nice scheme to ensure you bail out your 'venture capitalist' friends.
- nradov 7y agoThe vast majority of 401(k) money is in large-cap mutual funds which don't invest in IPOs.
- linuxftw 7y agoCurrent top institutional holder: Vanguard Group [1]. It's almost like they specialize in mutual-funds and 401k's. 1: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/SNAP/holders/ https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/SNAP/holders/
- nradov 7y agoThose Vanguard holdings were purchased in the secondary market after SNAP market cap reached certain thresholds. Vanguard bought little or nothing in the IPO.
- linuxftw 7y agoIt doesn't matter if they buy during or shortly after an IPO, the fact of the matter is that there's some value there just by virtue of being listed because you will most definitely get institutional investors based on that fact alone. Institutional investors set the market, everyone else is playing the spread. Can you give me an example of a company that IPO'd profitless and the largest shareholders aren't institutional investors that do broad-index-based purchases?
- baby 7y agowow, can you explain to me how Snapchat ended up on a Vanguard index fund? Is it like a "new start up" index fund or something?
- nradov 7y agoVanguard has some index funds like VTSMX that buy essentially every publicly traded US stock.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]