Average Investors And The Google IPO: Not Easy, Not Interested
from the oh-well dept
One of the reasons Google claimed they planned to go with a Dutch Auction IPO process was to make sure the Wall Street fat cats didn't run off with all the money and toss the shares to their friends. They said they wanted the "average investor" to be able to take part in the IPO. That seems like a good idea... but there are a couple of problems. It appears many average investors aren't at all interested in Google shares, especially at the price they've set. Even worse, the investment banks (who never liked the whole idea of opening their doors to the riff raff investors anyway) are making it as difficult as possible to sign up to get your shares. Many of the banks are turning away investors as not being "appropriate" or setting up $50,000 to $100,000 initial investment accounts as a requirement to bid. There are a couple of discount brokers who will let you in without a problem, but without a clear indication, most "average users" who call up one of the random underwriters on the list may be shocked to find the $50,000 ante a bit... steep. Instead, we seem to be getting a bunch of people who work their way through the process just so they can see what it's like. That's not quite the way Google was pitching this IPO.
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IPO Fraud
1 - only 10% Google is going up on the IPO
2 - okrut code theft
3 - age discrimination
4 - low levels of "innovation" given the number of PhDs employed
5 - attempting to cut into investment bank's share of the IPO spoils (subverting a finely tuned network designed to execute IPOs)
6 - flippant issuing to shares to completely unrelated/uninvested individuals
7 - Flagging appliance sales
8 - the net-advertizing meltdown of 2001
9 - saturated search market space
10 - nosebleed P/E ratio of >300< br>
These are just my top 10. There are so many reasons to not invest in Google that I really can't list them all here. I don't believe that Google is going to see anywhere near the target $108 per share they'd like to see (ask for the sky and be happy when you don't get the ground).
Of course, I believe that there will be plenty of folks who will invest in Google. After all, the stock market is the United States only form of nationalized legal gambling.
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Re: IPO Fraud
If you could only talk to yourself two years ago. =)
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Re: IPO Fraud
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Re: IPO Fraud
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