Slashdot Mirror
Google Announces Nasdaq Float
cycleburner writes "The Financial Times reports that Google will list its shares on the Nasdaq stock market, ending months of speculation over whether the world's most used internet search engine would pick Nasdaq or its larger rival, the New York Stock Exchange. Apparently: 'Winning the Google listing is a big victory for Nasdaq, whose dominance of trading in technology stocks has come under concerted attack from the NYSE. Google's likely stock market value has been estimated by some analysts at more than $40bn, a level that would turn it overnight into one of the 10 most valuable US tech companies.' Reuters/ABC News has more information on the announcement."
This should come as no surprise to most people, and it would seem fitting that a company so focused on "the right way" would pick the stock market with both a superior (from an efficiency perspective) and more technological solution.
Frankly, I'm surprised that companies still list on NYSE at all. Sure, there are merits to the specialist system (fair & orderly marketplace, yadda yadda yadda), but anyone who actively trades NYSE stocks knows that in the end, the specialist is just like the rest of us -- out to make money for himself. Yes, there are market-makers on NASDAQ who are also out to make money and can game the market to some extent, but it's an order of magnitude better than the NYSE's way of doing things.
So just like Google's choice of an auction to price & distribute the shares, the selection of NASDAQ is a vote against the "old way" (more middlemen and old boys to pocket fees).
Ferrari and other exotic car rentals in New York
Good call.
Market caps:
MSFT: 301 bln
CSCO: 150 bln
IBM: 143 bln
HPQ: 61 bln
DELL: 89 bln
INTC: 169 bln
ORCL: 57 bln
EBAY: 55 bln
SAP: 49 bln
NOK: 67 bln
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
They say the IPO has to happen by the end of the next two weeks or else Google has to refile with the SEC. And tech stocks have been in the dumper this month.