Earnings, IPOs, and the like

Earnings, IPOs, and the like

by Mike Masnick




Baidu Has A Bubble-rific Debut

from the bad-bankers dept

Well, apparently investors didn't care that Baidu is about to lose its main differentiating feature (the ability to download free music and movies). In the pursuit of new dot com bubble mania, investors drove the stock up 354% in its debut (though, actually, it's not clear that number is accurate -- my calculation of the price jumping from $27 to $151 suggests about a 460% increase). We haven't seen that sort of first day bump since the bubble years, so it might be worth breaking out the old IPO lesson for those who have forgotten it. While this sort of news excites people and makes them think that this was a successful IPO, it's actually the opposite. It means the investment bankers did a horrible job of pricing the shares -- leaving a ton of money on the table that should have gone to Baidu, but instead went to people (friends of the investment bankers, of course) who immediately flipped their shares.

3 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
 

Reader Comments (rss)

(Flattened / Threaded)

  1. Aug 6th, 2005 @ 8:38pm

    The Next Asian Tech Bubble

    by dorpus

    There's a new genre of X-rated video games made for women, featuring handsome young men in love with each other. The genre is called "BL" (Boy Love), and a new store specializing in it just opened in Tokyo. We can assume it will be popular among some people here.

    News article: http://www.tokyo-np.co.jp/00/tokuho/20050807/mng_____tokuho__000.shtml

    BL site:
    http://www.arlesnovels.com/

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  2. Aug 8th, 2005 @ 7:46am

    How they got 354%

    by GunGeek

    They used the closing price, not the high for the day. Seems most of the stock market types have a real affinity for the open and close prices. Not sure how they'll handle things when the markets go to 24x7, which will happen one of these days as they get more computerized and more global.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  3. Aug 8th, 2005 @ 9:02am

    Re: How they got 354%

    by Anonymous Coward

    dorpus, you loser, what does that disgusting game have to do with Baidu going public?

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

Add Your Comment

Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now. Want one? Register here
Get Techdirt’s Daily Email
Plain Text HTML Save me a cookie
  • Plain Text: A CRLF will be replaced by break <br> tag, all other allowable HTML is intact
  • HTML: No formatting of any kind is done without explicitly being written in
  • Allowed HTML Tags: <b> <i> <p> <a> <em> <br> <strong> <blockquote> <hr> <tt>
Close
Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now. Want one? Register here
Get Techdirt’s Daily Email
Plain Text HTML Save me a cookie

Search Techdirt
And now, a word from our Sponsors..



Subscribe to Techdirt's Daily Email Newsletter

Techdirt's Daily Email Newsletter

Related Stories
Close
E-mail It