Posted by
ryuzaki0
on from the a-week-for-cobalt dept.
Cobalt's IPO, which was announced a while back, will apparently be this week. The story itself has more information regarding the whole thing for Cobalt, and the market in general.
Perhaps I'm not understanding this.
by
mr
·
· Score: 3
Exactly WHY are companies that are loosing money WORTH all this cash? (Hint: I don't really want to hear all about how the future will be better, and the losses will become profits.)
Every one in the CNN article showed a loss. 94,000 last year, 2.3 million this year and yet this is worth having an IPO over. Boggles MY mind.
I guess if the US government can run a shop where more money is spent than taken in, then why not every one else?
--
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
Re:Perhaps I'm not understanding this.
by
Jahf
·
· Score: 4
I'm biased, very much so, but in the case of Cobalt it's not quite the same as with a ".com" company.
Cobalt has physical real-world product. They aren't selling vaporware. They can show consistent growth both in revenue and in product line.
I'm not saying that they have a value of billions of dollars, but comparisons to some other IPOs over the last year or two where those companies with software or information-based (or worse, vapor-based) are really not fair.
/Jahf
-- It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
Re:There is a problem with IPO's
by
davidu
·
· Score: 5
It seems to me like a lot of people misunderstand what an IPO is.
--Umm yeah, so do you.
If you buy a stock when it balloons to 80 or so, you haven't bought into the IPO; you've bought shares from someone who applied for and got IPO shares for 15 each, and is now selling them to you for 80.
WRONG. I have been in quite a few IPO's and when you are really IN on the IPO, you can't sell until the SEC lockout period ends. That period is usually about 6 months, at which point, if you work for the company you still can't sell all of it.
The way to make money off these things is to watch for the announcements and apply as quickly as possible (you need to fill out a SEC form that says you aren't related to any officers of the company and you know stuff about the market).
--Umm, no. To do that, you need to be on the floor making trades. Since a chair on the exchange (NYSE) goes into the millions these days, I doubt you have one. Maybe you mean your broker does this, but you're still wrong. Your broker usually gets IN on the IPO months before the actual day. (if they can even get in at all)
If you are eligible, you can get shares pretty cheap (usually about 15 dollars) before trading starts.
What are you talking about? The IPO has nothing to do with the low price? It is just where the price starts. The price could start at $400 a share if they wanted. They would just offer a lower float as a result.
Then when it starts trading, if there is significant hype surrounding the company (always the case if it's posted on Slashdot) you'll be able to sell the shares for 5 times what you paid for them very early in the day.
Nope...not for a few months...otherwise everyone would do it.
If you don't get the actual IPO, don't bother trying to buy the stock.
Well, just tell your broker not to pay for than X dollars a share and you _should_ be safe.
If, however, you think the company will be a good long term investment, wait a while to see what happens the the price. It'll probably adjust to a normal price after a few days (a lot of people who get stuck with the stock at the end of the first day don't want to hold onto it).
Yeah...the first true thing you have said.
Just my $.02,
-Davidu
--
# Hack the planet, it's important.
There is a problem with IPO's
by
SaxMaster
·
· Score: 5
The real problem with ipo's aside from the inherent risk factor of the stock market is the speed of trade execution. Large brokerages have the advantage, and by the time a normal person buys a stock like Cobalt, the price of 15 has balooned to 80, and then could drop back to something like 60, and you then lose money. I say, stick with companies whose future has little doubt like HP, IBM, Dell and others like Phillip Morris and General Electric. Play it safe.
-- "Dancing is the vertical expression of a horizontal desire" --Robert Frost
Re:There is a problem with IPO's
by
ben.b
·
· Score: 5
It seems to me like a lot of people misunderstand what an IPO is.
If you buy a stock when it balloons to 80 or so, you haven't bought into the IPO; you've bought shares from someone who applied for and got IPO shares for 15 each, and is now selling them to you for 80. The way to make money off these things is to watch for the announcements and apply as quickly as possible (you need to fill out a SEC form that says you aren't related to any officers of the company and you know stuff about the market). If you are eligible, you can get shares pretty cheap (usually about 15 dollars) before trading starts. Then when it starts trading, if there is significant hype surrounding the company (always the case if it's posted on Slashdot) you'll be able to sell the shares for 5 times what you paid for them very early in the day.
If you don't get the actual IPO, don't bother trying to buy the stock. If, however, you think the company will be a good long term investment, wait a while to see what happens the the price. It'll probably adjust to a normal price after a few days (a lot of people who get stuck with the stock at the end of the first day don't want to hold onto it).
Of course, buying into an IPO is risky business, no matter what all the "experts" who cleaned up on RHAT (having opened their E*Trade accounts the previous week) tell you.
Cobalt might be a good long-term. The idea of network appliances like the Cube could very well be the Next Big Thing -- boxes that serve web and don't do anything else are a fairly big step towards simplifying the information environment of a small to medium sized company. The fact that they're using Linux as an underpinning proves only that they know how to be frugal.
That said, we'll have to see how well they're managed before we declare them the next Cisco. What they manage for a line of follow-up products is the Big Question...
----
-- Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Of course, the way tech stock IPO's have been going recently, it is probably not a bad bet.
Speaking of which, who wants to join in a business venture with me? We will buy a server, set it up, call the company networks.com, IPO, sell to a big company, and make a FORTUNE! Oh wait, I forgot, the company would have to lose money or it wouldn't be worth anything. Oh well.
Re:My stock prediction
by
TurkishGeek
·
· Score: 3
Sorry, please check out their financial situation. Microsoft is literally raking in millions of bucks. With this kind of revenue and growth, short-selling Microsoft is financial suicide. Gates, Ballmer and other MS executives will never allow MS stock to slump since MS completely depends on stock options-it is what's keeping those hordes of programmers there.
You might want to check out their past annual reports, and take a look at recommendations of Wall Street analysts covering the company.
We may not like some of their crappy software and business practices, but the stock price will continue going up since they are obviously doing very well financially. And this is not likely to change overnight. Things would probably be very different if it was the sentiment of Open Source geek community that was driving the stock market, rather than the logic of Wall Street MBA types looking at nothing other than actual numbers and sales figures.
If you want fast execution on your orders, you have to pay for it. Thats the downside of using a discount brokerage. For fast execution, try a day trading brokerage like Datek.
OK, so we've got Red Hat, Cobalt, VA, and a while ago I heard rumours of Cygnus, too... now, if you ask me, all these small IPOs are only leading up to one thing...
Transmeta I P O
Yes, that's right. Transmeta's only real product will earn them millions of dollars in a matter of seconds, and it's only three little letters: IPO. No programmable chips, no anti-microsoft ultimate anything, just an IPO. We now know the truth.
-- Windows 2000: Designed for the Internet.
The Internet: Designed for UNIX.
Slashdot Mirror
Exactly WHY are companies that are loosing money WORTH all this cash? (Hint: I don't really want to hear all about how the future will be better, and the losses will become profits.)
Every one in the CNN article showed a loss. 94,000 last year, 2.3 million this year and yet this is worth having an IPO over. Boggles MY mind.
I guess if the US government can run a shop where more money is spent than taken in, then why not every one else?
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
It seems to me like a lot of people misunderstand what an IPO is.
--Umm yeah, so do you.
If you buy a stock when it balloons to 80 or so, you haven't bought into the IPO; you've bought shares from someone who applied for and got IPO shares for 15 each, and is now selling them to you for 80.
WRONG. I have been in quite a few IPO's and when you are really IN on the IPO, you can't sell until the SEC lockout period ends. That period is usually about 6 months, at which point, if you work for the company you still can't sell all of it.
The way to make money off these things is to watch for the announcements and apply as quickly as possible (you need to fill out a SEC form that says you aren't related to any officers of the company and you know stuff about the market).
--Umm, no. To do that, you need to be on the floor making trades. Since a chair on the exchange (NYSE) goes into the millions these days, I doubt you have one. Maybe you mean your broker does this, but you're still wrong. Your broker usually gets IN on the IPO months before the actual day. (if they can even get in at all)
If you are eligible, you can get shares pretty cheap (usually about 15 dollars) before trading starts.
What are you talking about? The IPO has nothing to do with the low price? It is just where the price starts. The price could start at $400 a share if they wanted. They would just offer a lower float as a result.
Then when it starts trading, if there is significant hype surrounding the company (always the case if it's posted on Slashdot) you'll be able to sell the shares for 5 times what you paid for them very early in the day.
Nope...not for a few months...otherwise everyone would do it.
If you don't get the actual IPO, don't bother trying to buy the stock.
Well, just tell your broker not to pay for than X dollars a share and you _should_ be safe.
If, however, you think the company will be a good long term investment, wait a while to see what happens the the price. It'll probably adjust to a normal price after a few days (a lot of people who get stuck with the stock at the end of the first day don't want to hold onto it).
Yeah...the first true thing you have said.
Just my $.02,
-Davidu
# Hack the planet, it's important.
The real problem with ipo's aside from the inherent risk factor of the stock market is the speed of trade execution. Large brokerages have the advantage, and by the time a normal person buys a stock like Cobalt, the price of 15 has balooned to 80, and then could drop back to something like 60, and you then lose money. I say, stick with companies whose future has little doubt like HP, IBM, Dell and others like Phillip Morris and General Electric. Play it safe.
"Dancing is the vertical expression of a horizontal desire" --Robert Frost
Cobalt might be a good long-term. The idea of network appliances like the Cube could very well be the Next Big Thing -- boxes that serve web and don't do anything else are a fairly big step towards simplifying the information environment of a small to medium sized company. The fact that they're using Linux as an underpinning proves only that they know how to be frugal.
That said, we'll have to see how well they're managed before we declare them the next Cisco. What they manage for a line of follow-up products is the Big Question...
----
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
There's also a Wired article on the subject :
http://www.wired.com/news/b usiness/0,1367,32154,00.html
Sorry, please check out their financial situation. Microsoft is literally raking in millions of bucks. With this kind of revenue and growth, short-selling Microsoft is financial suicide. Gates, Ballmer and other MS executives will never allow MS stock to slump since MS completely depends on stock options-it is what's keeping those hordes of programmers there.
You might want to check out their past annual reports, and take a look at recommendations of Wall Street analysts covering the company.
We may not like some of their crappy software and business practices, but the stock price will continue going up since they are obviously doing very well financially. And this is not likely to change overnight. Things would probably be very different if it was the sentiment of Open Source geek community that was driving the stock market, rather than the logic of Wall Street MBA types looking at nothing other than actual numbers and sales figures.
Zigbee Central: A Zigbee weblog
If you want fast execution on your orders, you have to pay for it. Thats the downside of using a discount brokerage. For fast execution, try a day trading brokerage like Datek.
Transmeta I P O
Yes, that's right. Transmeta's only real product will earn them millions of dollars in a matter of seconds, and it's only three little letters: IPO. No programmable chips, no anti-microsoft ultimate anything, just an IPO. We now know the truth.
Windows 2000: Designed for the Internet. The Internet: Designed for UNIX.