4 ms·

The thing that interests me here is company valuation. The base idea is that you predict the future profits of a company and NPV that down to today, and that's

The thing that interests me here is company valuation. The base idea is that you predict the future profits of a company and NPV that down to today, and that's how much the total share price should be. This of course is tricky, but at some point all the big regulatory arbitrage plays (uber, airbnb) etc were obvious for what they were - and I am not sure they got adjusted. In other words short term competition and PR played as big a role it seems in valuation models as did "can airbnb keep renting out against local laws" I have not dug into their IPO documents but it must be in there. But once you are worth a gazillion dollars regulators have an uphill struggle. The thing is short selling is such a poor way to signal criticism of the company. Investing is a default optimistic thing. And I am not sure there is an alternative. Some kind of anti-investment?

Iolaum 5y ago
Maybe invest elsewhere? (Assuming qualified choices can be found.)
- lifeisstillgood 5y ago
  But that's not the point - I mean if everyone did then the company would get the point. But look at Climate change. FOr decades its been "ignore the tree huggers" - but imagine there was an investment vehicle that was "anti-Exxon" - its hard to stand up at the AGM and say "just tree huggers" when there is a Trillion dollars of bets against you. I don't think there is any possible such vehicle. I just kind of wish there was. A way of allowing the market to take care of externalities. All we have is regulation, and as a fan of markets, that kind of annoys me. (or rather, I recognise that markets are after all dependant on the existence of government (as opposed to the right-wing style if only governments did not exist markets would take over). And am annoyed that this market has not been created.)
t0mas88 5y ago
> I have not dug into their IPO documents but it must be in there. Any IPO document I've seen had several pages of future risks, so I'm almost certain that Uber has put the regulatory thing somewhere in that chapter.

Iolaum 5y ago

Maybe invest elsewhere? (Assuming qualified choices can be found.)

lifeisstillgood 5y ago
But that's not the point - I mean if everyone did then the company would get the point. But look at Climate change. FOr decades its been "ignore the tree huggers" - but imagine there was an investment vehicle that was "anti-Exxon" - its hard to stand up at the AGM and say "just tree huggers" when there is a Trillion dollars of bets against you. I don't think there is any possible such vehicle. I just kind of wish there was. A way of allowing the market to take care of externalities. All we have is regulation, and as a fan of markets, that kind of annoys me. (or rather, I recognise that markets are after all dependant on the existence of government (as opposed to the right-wing style if only governments did not exist markets would take over). And am annoyed that this market has not been created.)

t0mas88 5y ago

> I have not dug into their IPO documents but it must be in there. Any IPO document I've seen had several pages of future risks, so I'm almost certain that Uber has put the regulatory thing somewhere in that chapter.