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VA Reprices Again
Quite a number of people have written in with the news that VA Linux Systems has re-priced, this time setting their range at $28-30 per share. People have been submitting e-mail reports from E*Trade, so if you are getting anything through there, you must re-confirm. For the friends and family program, remember that you will also be contacted to confirm as well.If you are part of the friends and family program, you can pre-emptively re-confirm by calling the phone number in the initial packet. Otherwise, phone calls will begin 8AM-4PM EST on Friday.
I fully support them raising the IPO price to something more reasonable. It it of significant benefit to VA Linux to do so and, in the long term, it is a good thing for investors becaues it give the company more capital for growth. It is unfortunate that they had to do it at the last minute, but that isn't entirely their choice either. Pricing IPOs is a tricky game; too low and the company doesn't get the benefit they could have, too high and the could flop. Often the build up doesn't begin until after it's first price range is filed. Now, it is unfortunate that it makes their 100 share directed share program far richer than it was initially. Perhaps they should have allowed people to buy less shares. I can't make a judgement on that since I don't know all the issues involved.
However, if you want something smaller and more innocent, roll your own site. In fact, you could focus on stuff YOU are interested in, there are always more people out there and /. doesn't have a monopoly ...
Once you make your own site, then put the URL and a little teaser in your sig about it.
Why make your own fun, when you can buy it for cheap?!
Market cap. is short for market capitalization, and is exactly that - it's the value of the company as given by the share price (market). It's simply the total number of shares outstanding times the stock price. When the market is sane, there are rules of thumb that relate share price to "real world" things like sales or earnings growth (e.g. P/E = annual earnings growth rate for a fairly valued growth stock, with a P/E premium for fast growth rates), but the bottom line is that share price (and hence market cap.) is whatever people are willing to pay.
So in the case of VA Linux, 39.7M shares (4.4M being offered at the IPO - both figures from the prospectus) times $30 would give them a market cap. of $1.19B. Of course it's really going to be quite a bit higher!
Here's the latest info from ETRADE (at the LOGON screen) on the LNUX IPO pricing:
"12/09/99The Va Linux Systems, Inc. initial public offering has been priced at $30 per share. E*TRADE is no longer accepting change or cancel requests for Conditional Offers in this offering. "
Scott
Please note that they are -very- busy just answering confirmation phone calls and emails that are coming in preemptively. You won't be left in the cold. Most likely they are waiting to send out a batch of email verifying your confirmation.
Chris
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
VP, SVLUG
Co-Editor, Open Sources
Open Source Program Manager, Google, Inc.
I E-mailed them and they said so.
This *does* suck. I can still afford it, but that pretty much wipes out my checking account. If they raise it again I'll have to take some drastic measures to get cash.
Wishing I hadn't recently sent a big check to my other brokerage,
Micah
I don't think super moderators would be the most efficient solution since I could easily create multiple posts faster than you could probably moderate them (all I have to do is figure out the CGI parameters that the server is expecting for a post and keep sending it). Something like this could be easily handled by preventing multiple posts in a short period of time from the same IP address.
/. made it such that you can't post more than one comment every 90 seconds, this kind of abuse would be time consuming for the abuser, but would not affect most people that contribute to the discussions.
If
And so far, no one has fallen for the trap by spamming my mailbox.
They should have known this would be a hot IPO and figured out earlier how much they could get. I have a feeling this is going to get a lot of people ticked off at them...
I'm not buying at this price. It's just a bunch of web sites. Sure, some of them are cool, but it looks like banner ad prices will be trending downwards. I bet it goes down to $30, maybe even $20.
Wondering when I'll be able to short ANDN,
Micah
Can you set a limit order on Etrade to a stock that hasn't gone public yet?
Well, perhaps there is room for shennanigans.
The beef this time is that since you have to buy 100 share lots, the letter-getters originally thought they would need $1300 minimum. Now that's looking like $3000. Big difference... it is unfortunate, but well... that's the market, I guess. Sucks for those with small pocketbooks.
It's interesting - this is a pretty gutsy move by VA, they really are betting that the Linux hype this week will continue, I guess. How big is their offering? They may actually get more out of their IPO than Red Hat did...
----
I wish I could have gotten in on it. These Linux IPOs are making me look like a financial wiz or something to my family. Of course, Linux is (almost sickeningly) THE buzzword for investors now.
If this trend continues, then there will be a day when people participating in such a program end up loosing, at least over the short term, when the stock drops below offering pricefor a few months or longer. We will see how people's tunes change then. Unfortunately, some company may get a lot of undeserved bad publicity if this does happen to them.
I don't think that is likely to happen with LNUX. But treating it as a free money handout is bogus.
Welcome to the law of supply and demand. Clearly there is intense demand for LNUX stock, and I can't blame VA Linux one bit for boosting the offering price -- why should they leave the money on the table?
...
All I can say is if I had the chance to get 100 shares of LNUX at the offering price -- even if that proves to be $35 or $40 or more -- I would do whatever it takes to get the money together, short of taking out a second mortgage. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that your son's college fund will be far, far better for it.
Of course there's risk involved in any stock and IPOs are particularly speculative, but I've watched a bunch of IPOs since before RHAT and those that price way above their initial range have without fail gone absolutely nuts in the aftermarket. Sycamore Networks (SCMR), for example, priced at $38, opened at $280 (that is not a typo), skidded within an hour or so to as low as a mere $180 and has climbed ever since. It closed today at 253 1/2.
In any event, make your own decisions and best of luck to you. I'm hoping to pick up maybe 20 shares if I can afford it in the aftermarket and hold on for a while. Just gotta have a stock with the ticker LNUX
Freedom's just another word for nothing left Zulus
No kidding, I want to do it but I will be in debt until I decide to sell it... Man, why don't they give the "friends" a deal at the origional $13 quoted? I don't know if that's legal or not, but I'm guessing a bunch of guys who devote free time to develop software that these guys use are going to have a tought time coming up with $3k.
AFAIK, you can only place a limit order on an IPO for the day. I'm on Wells Fargo's trading accounts so I can't speak for E-Trade (and E-Trade's damn system won't let me log on OR send me my forgotten password until I know my "secret word." Dammmit what if I forgot that too?? Just email me the damn thing!). You cannot place a Market order on an IPO.
-----
Linux user: if (nt == unstable) { switchTo.linux() }
Those who laugh at you for you having a Mac.. are the people who constantly call you to fix their PC.
The word from CNBC (in my xawtv window) is that LNUX goes public at 12:40 Eastern. The anchor (Sue Herera) just said (@12:28 ET) that "this is shaping up to be the biggest IPO ever."
(Disclaimer: I have been allocated 140 shares. Hence my interest...)
My Blog. Sela Ward can sell me long distanc
I saw that one coming. bought last February at 4 1/4. Unfortunately I sold it last week at 19 1/2. Oh well. I still did well, just not as well as it could have been...
I can already see it, a repeat of the Red Hat/ Etrade shennenigans!
hello. Not only am I the C{EIFO}O of Pineapple, Syphilitic Pudding, Inc., but I'm a customer too.
After recently unleashing the latest technological innovation (recursive parametric normalized case structures) for the eponymously named operating system of the next generation , I decided to create a business utilizing this stunning new operating system. The business is called MansTreta.
Manstreta is an online service that allows women of all ages to order men (Mans) and three (treta) beef jerkey sticks all at the same time. This service capitalizes on 2 of the biggest commodities that we enjoy today -- men and dried out beef.
My Chief Scientist, William Shatner, has volunteered to be the first person sold on the service. He was also generous to allow us to sell his toupee, which has the same molecular structure as beef jerky and almost equivalent nutritional content.
The Pineapple, Syhpilitic Pudding operating system should really shine in this type of service orientated enviroment. ZD Labs has assured us that the operating system scales to handle on the order of 2.5billion transactions per second, or 47 per hour depending on the tide. The folks at ZD Labs appear to be so honest. It is refreshing. You would think that they would be swayed by the advertising dollars that they receive from the very companies that they objectively cover, but for some reason they are above this.
Stay tuned for further exciting news.
C{EIFO}O of Pineapple, Syphilitic Pudding, Inc.
At between 250 and 270.
Must be nice.
Don Negro
Don Negro
Perl 6 will give you the big knob. -- Larry Wall
I have seen reports of both. One from reuters
saying that they moved trading up a day to thursday and others saying they should proce tommorrow and trade friday.
Anyone know for sure?
Malice95
Current message at ETRADE login screen (approx 12:30 pm EST):
"12/09/99 The VA Linux Systems, Inc. IPO has been priced at $30 per share. Shares are currently being allocated. Accounts that placed and reconfirmed Conditional Offers should check their account messages for allocation notices later this
morning. "
Scott
Here's a company that has a solid revenue source and is closer to it's valuation.
I wonder if they're going to be buying up companies in 6 months.
-sometimes the majority only means that all the fools are on the same side
WR Hamblect is taking reconfirmations but *not* changes... and they have severly oversold according to an account rep tonight. Since they don't do lottery, unless you were buying a lot, have a good trading history or a lot of cash in your account don't expect to get shares through Hamblecht. And if you tried to sneak a change in (I did, dumb, I know) you'll almost certainly get a rejection.
F /...
The best thing to do in such a case is be there the second the market opens. Good luck.
---
Openstep/NeXTSTEP/Solaris/FreeBSD/Linux/ultrix/OS
--- I do not moderate.
Now I gotta put even MORE money into the brokerage acct. Rumor is they start trading tomorrow. I'm sure this doesn't sit well wil a LOT of other people. Not everyone has the financial resources to keep up with this runaround. Hopefully they will wait til next week to trade, give us some time to secure the necessary funds. Or I could be dreaming.
The only way a stock makes you money is if you sell it.
I'm guessing you bought during their 1997 decrease.
While they have been going up since then, it wont go forever.
Just my 2 cents of info you probably already know.
- Hugh Buchanan
- Userfriendly.com
From: valinux@db.com
To: valinux@db.com
Subject: VA Linux Directed Share Program
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1999 19:22:52 -0500
Importance: high
X-Priority: 1
X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.0.1460.8)
The confirmation of pricing and your share allocation of VA Linux Systems
will now be Thursday morning at approximately 7:00 a.m. PST. We will be
contacting you at that time. It will not be tonight as originally planned.
Can E*Trade users get at this IPO like they did RHAT, ie. >100 shares?
Did any of you get an offer to participate in Andover's IPO? They could have offered it up to those with the most /. karma points.:-) I wonder if MEEPT bought Andover stock?
I wonder if my (and another comment) mentioning Andover makes the folks here nervous given the restrictions during the IPO?
Is an IPO the stock market equivalent to a First Post?
So many questions, so little beer.
Last week, it was $10 - $13 a share. Monday it was $21 - $23 a share. Today it's said to be $28 - $30 a share!? I mean, could some finance person out there please explain why VA Linux is doing this? I mean, are they seriously concerned that $44 million won't be enough and that they need $120 million now? Or are they just milking what seems to be a good IPO time? (due to examples like Andover.Net and Agency.Com?)
I've had to have my father FedEx me money twice this week and now it'll be third just so I can poney up the cash.
Oh well, I guess you gotta have money to make money.
You should never take life too seriously - You'll never get out of it alive.
How else would you like these companies to raise money?
I see nothing wrong with companies like Red Hat, VA, and so on for going public.
First of all, it's great for the United States economy, which I am a very strong supporter for. More money into the economy is good because it means more spending, and more spending means more profit. (You get the idea)
Second of all, people can make a lot of money with companies going IPO.
Third, it shows that the company has backing from investors, and makes their presence official. Its no longer a small private company at that point.
(Man. First Bruce Perens and now me?)
This poster is a fake. Notice the period at the end of his name.
My user # is 57473.
I happen to be a network architect at a firm that uses a fair amount of VA hardware. Here is the main difference, with Dell you get okay hardware, Gateway and Micron you get mediocre. On our VA boxes they are PURE POWER. And they work 100% out of the box. From the time we get a new server to the time its operational and secure is usually about 3 hours for us now (got it down pretty well). Need a database server with 6 NICs in it? No problem, VA does it (might I add the damn thing looks like the sandcrawler from star wars). Need a bunch of high powered SCSI web servers with 3 nics in em? No problem there either (we have 4 of those, they're older 500's). Its not a case of being a desktop system. They aren't desktop systems. We have 1 va desktop system and it works well, but its not what they're designed for. If you can show me a dell or a gateway that can actually challenge one of these that I might agree. But VA boxes are simply awesome. Not to mention the support, they botched part of our config the first time and paid for the next day air to and from (lots of $$ for 4 servers). When I want a box that I need to tinker with I'll go for a cheap dell box (or some knockoff) when I need reliability at work we get VA.
My Slashdot account is old enough to drink...
I say "stabilized" because things have been that way for two minutes, which is all the stability you get these days.
Congrats all who were in on it. You just made a bunch of dough.
Crazy. I went to buy some post-IPO, but when i logged onto e*trade, i found it already trading at $300!!!
jeez. outta hand. I'll put my money elsewhere (and make plans for debian or something).
how true!
:-)
but corel was one of "those stocks" that just kept popping into and leaving my mind up until a month ago. i was along the lines of "what have they done lately?" and "what are they going to do next?" couldn't really answer those questions at the time.
all the best of luck with corl for you, though, AC! your current 1500% is a truck-load better than the 300% my friends and family got in on!
-m
How the hell are people supposed to get on this when the damn stock opens at $300?!?!?! I put my order in around 9:00 a.m. this morning to buy until the price reaches $50/share.. surprise!! the stock opens at an astronomical price!! Hell i thought I was rich when I came in to check the stock price.. NOPE.. the stock never opened even close to the priced number.. this is stupid. How can anyone get shares before the thing opens at a ridiculous price?
-----
Linux user: if (nt == unstable) { switchTo.linux() }
Those who laugh at you for you having a Mac.. are the people who constantly call you to fix their PC.
Why shouldn't they have a bigger IPO than Red Hat?
They make more money (AFAIK) than Red Hat, I'd rather invest in a company that doesn't lose millions of dollars every quarter.
That's not to say that I wouldn't love to get in on Red Hat now, because I see them going far...
but I would rather invest in VA.
Anyone want to lend me $3000 or so and their letter?
Devil Ducky
MY peers would get out of jury duty.
I just reconfirmed through WRHambrecht (though they are not a primary underwriter, they are associated with Hambrecht & Quist, and thus have some shares to allocate amongst their clients). I placed an indication of interest with them for Cobalt, but didn't get any. I would really like to get some shares of VA, but I am still pretty ecstatic about Andover.Net's performance, so if not oh well.
A member of the community doesn't have to invest in these upcoming IPOs just because they are offered a chance to do so. It is still up to that individual person (or company) to research the company and discover for themselves wether or not to invest their hard earned cash.
And eventually that scenario will happen to a LINUX company. It will happen when a bunch of companies jump on the linux-ipo bandwagon like dotcom companies are doing now. When the first few companies that do it without any product whatsoever and get caught by the public their stock will crash. And at the same time bring the rest of the good linux stocks with them, though hopefully not for long.
Devil Ducky
MY peers would get out of jury duty.
Actually, he got moderated down too many times within a period of time. Who could ever grow tired of ruining a karma whore's life? Karma whores are as useless as trolls. Instead of writing comments which they know will piss people off, they write comments that they know the stupid moderators'll agree with. In my mind, they're the same thing, except that trolling at least shows some form of intelligence. Also, I don't think anyone's life is that centered around your own that they'd care whether you were the real author of those messages or not....
Dang!
While I understand that the IPO amount can change at any time, it is getting very frustating just attempting to keep up with the pricing changes, especially attempting to wire funds back and forth to cover the opportunity to get into the IPO at Etrade!
According to Etrade they expect this to price in the morning, EASTERN time! Which means the banks will still be closed here on the West coast (Calif)!
Yes, of course, it would be nice to have enough funds just sitting about in an Etrade account, BUT some of us just dont have enough 'idle' funds.
Fact is, the Etrade Broker said that they're not even certain if the price will not increase AGAIN. I wouldn't doubt it. MAYBE VA linux should have gone OPEN IPO?
Thank you for this info - called and got the same info. I would have completly missed out otherwise. I think I'll go in for all 140.
(Man. First Bruce Perens and now me?)
This poster is a fake. Notice the period at the end of his name.
My user # is 57473.
Repricing is good! Yes, there's lots of hype value right now, but there is also something seriously flawed with an IPO that jumps to 10x its opening price on the first day of trading and stays up there. That means the underwriters didn't do their best to get money for the company.
The real game isn't about making a cheap buck for us lowly investors, its about financing a company. VA is going to have a huge amount of cash after this, it'll be interesting to watch what they do with it.
Uhh.. nice arguement, BUT...
IPO Stock prices are based on hype. That's all. That's why there's a "quiet period."
This is not to say Linux is not Enterprise ready, but the soaring stock prices DO NOT prove that.
-sid
I strongly suspect that people at Slashdot are deleting messages relevent to its IPO today. Sounds like good news in general, though since it closed above $60 per share. I wonder whether the hosting of comments by readers regarding the Andover.net falls under SEC quiet period scrutiny. How closely is this "open forum" being moderated? I suppose if you're reading this message, they were honest enough to let some of them through. ;)
What are the chances that a ton of Andover.net investors will flip their shares for VA Linux tomorrow? That has GOT to be on Malda's mind tonight. Speaking of whom, congratulations on the 143k shares there Malda. Remember me when you come into your own...
MKC
http://tinyurl.com/4ny52
The market will definately be greater if they .config file, have them compile the kernel put it on.. all my other configs and a list of my own packages + their packages to install.. that'd save a lot of time.
do things like let you choose what packages you
want installed.. well not greater but it'd be more
convenient if I had to order 30 servers if I could ahead of time give them a rpm with my
"And how can this be? For he is the
and btw.. though dell's servers are in great
cases. they're way overpriced compared to
va boxes.
"And how can this be? For he is the
Everyone seems to be quite anxious to jump on the IPO bandwagon to make a quick buck, but get mad when the system (E-Trade in particular) does things that seem unfair. There are a few things to keep in mind when dealing with IPOs:
1. A company can raise its initial offering price. Period. If you are serious about investing, you'll have to have a respectable sum to invest in the first place. Since you have to buy stocks in blocks of 100 (yes, your trade of 37 shares of stock is matched up with someone else's 63 shares thanks to modern technology), plan to have enough cash on hand to buy at least 200 shares. That way, if the range increases, you can still buy a block of 100 shares and use any remaining money to pay for an odd amount of shares when the stock hits the market. It takes money to make money, and IPOs often raise their price ranges when there is a large amount of interest. Which leads into...
2. A quick bit of advice is to avoid IPOs that lower their ranges. Another tip-off to an IPO you might want to avoid is one that extends the time period of their IPO because a small amount of IPO shares have been allocated and the rest is still waiting for a buyer. After all, the price of IPO stock is initially driven up by the demand of everyone wanting to buy their share of the sure-fire performing stock.
3. E-Trade is not a brokerage firm... at least not in the traditional sense. They aren't obligated to call you and let you know that you need to reconfirm your IPO bid (though they will try to contact you through as many as 5 different e-mail addresses). You need to stay glued to E-Trade the two days prior to when the stocks initially hits the market. The first day is to catch that two-hour window with E-Trade to get in your IPO bid for the stock in the first place, and the second day is to reconfirm your IPO bid (which, unfortunately, happens quite often with the good stocks).
4. With E-Trade, make sure you read their IPO readme. Also, feel free to call E-Trade directly at 1-800-STOCKS5 to get the scoop from a real person. It will be about a 30 minute wait in the hold queue, so be patient.
5. Those 100 share block-o-stocks are delegated by a lottery system when there is more interest than supply for an IPO stock. Even if you have the money set aside to purchase stock, you may not get it. It really is the luck of the draw in some cases.
Nobody ever said IPOs were an easy way to get money, only a quick way. Still, the payoffs are worth a little time spent in preparation. Take some time to learn the system before trying to jump into the deal of a lifetime and you'll end up with much better results.
>
Since when did E*Trade became a LNUX underwriter?
VA Linux has some 'splaining to do.
--
**Damn me**! From now on I'll read Slashdot a lot more carefully :-). No, I've been too busy in the past week.
You may have to buy THIS stock at THIS particular IPO in blocks of 100, but it ain't necessarily so for stock markets in general (although it is certainly a common convention). For example, BRKa traded 310 shares today. BRKb traded 16,660.
Slashdot is entertaining like pro wrestling is entertaining
actually, 143K is not that much, based on the value /. has added to andover.
/. itself is worth more then 50% of the rest of andover.
/. alone is fair value based on potential.
I beleave that
My fear is that slashdot will get neglected ammong all of the other projects in Andover. other then that I think 60$+ for
--------------------------------
ER has one of (if not the) highest karmas on Slashdot. He must be deliberately trying to lower his Karma for some reason...I wonder why.
Daniel.
you missunderstud what I wrote, or maybe I wasn't clear enough.
I am not commenting about Andover or VAlinux's market cap. I was refaring to the precentage of shares that Rob holds in andover - which is (?) 143K/15M - arround 1% of andover's outstanding shares (if that information is true). That's kind of low, since Slashdot is responsible for 50% of the advertizing revenues of andover - as well as being the strongest brand they have (come on.. who ever HEARD of andover.net before they bought slashdot).
And I DON'T think VAlinux is overrated. They are one of the key companies developing the merced port (together with SGI) and are going to always have an advantage over other linux box makers. They have the best people (and the highest amount of high quality HR) and have a strong brandname - where that brandname counts - the IT professionals who make the decisions what hardware to buy.
--------------------------------
My mistake for being suckered into this, I can see now that it is an impostor :(
Pretty stupid tho'
Daniel.
E*Trade probably got its share allocation via its partner E*Offering, which is an investment bank.
AFAIK E*Trade has nothing to do with the underwriting; it's just buying a hunk of shares as an investment (and passing some on to its customers [mainly those "Power E*Trade" people] at the IPO price as a perk).
Here's E*Offering's page on the VA Linux IPO. Nowhere under "Underwriters" will you see the name "E*Trade" or "E*Offering".
My Blog. Sela Ward can sell me long distanc
Folks, if you are like me and had no way to place a pre-IPO order, you are shit out of luck on this one. The hype machine has really destroyed the hopes of the little guy getting in on this one. It's just another IPO where 99% of the market is left out (ya gotta love brokerage scamming of IPOs...).
On CNBC this evening, LNUX was the hot topic. It's expected to OPEN AT OVER $100!!!! The bell is gonna ring, and no one will be able to get this thing cheap. I think this really sucks balls. There's no way I can afford a stock that's $100-???. Yeah, I'll take...uh...ONE share, thanks...
Oh well. Maybe someday my fortune will come through my own company and I can stop getting all worked up over things like this. At least I bought AAPL at 16 and still hanging in there....
Congrats to all you schmucks who got it. I can only imagine the frenzy tomorrow.....
Man. First Bruce Perens and now me?)
This poster is a fake. Notice the period at the end of his name.
My user # is 57473.
They have been allocated shares by an underwriter...at least that is my understanding.
-Michael [Remove two parts of address to mail me]
I'm afraid "investors" is the wrong word for many of those running up the stock prices of any company with even the most remote Linux connection . They're daytraders, momentum players, speculators, gamblers -- but they're not "investing" in these companies because they believe in Linux. In some cases what these folks are doing is a lot closer to a legal Ponzi scheme.
I have very mixed feelings about the Linux stock craze. On the one hand, I like to invest in genuine Linux-related companies, to support the movement by backing the companies that support it (as I'm not a coder, the only other ways I can really support open source are by using it, especially on servers at work, and talking it up). OTOH, what happens if the bubble bursts? Will people see the current craze as having been a speculative frenzy and leave it at that, or would a boom-turned-bust have graver implications for the open source movement and the companies at its forefront?
Freedom's just another word for nothing left Zulus
Dude, read the message over at E*Trade. You are SOL. They stopped taking orders a couple of days ago.
That's all I want to know. What day? I don't want to get caught off-guard again, like with Andover.Net, which went public without a date on any finanical news site I looked on. Yahoo Finance's last feature on ANDN was on Sunday and surprise! the stock was being sold Wednesday.. by the time I found out it was already at $62/share and the day was almost over. How do you find out when the shares are supposed be sold?? All they ever say is, "the stock offered to the public __this week__ should raise over $XX Million... " blah blah.. goddamnit.. just tell me what DAY! Can't believe how ambiguous it is!
-----
Linux user: if (nt == unstable) { switchTo.linux() }
Those who laugh at you for you having a Mac.. are the people who constantly call you to fix their PC.
I don't follow you. But if you want, you can email me. My email is shown on my user page.
Yes, but remember that it's not just the cash they raise at the IPO, but the value of the stock in the months following also matters to them, since they presumably will use it for aquisitions.
If the stock rises significantly after the IPO, then investors will feel pretty secure and will likely tolerate the large price swings that are likely to happen. If, OTOH, they get greedy and try to squeeze all the juice out of the IPO, then investors may well bail out, particularly as many are probably in it just to stag the IPO (and stay in iff it's rising).
This whole Linux stocks craze is somewhat of a self perpetuating myth. If LNUX gets a good launch and rises significantly after the IPO, then it will likely gain mind share as a Linux stock and continue to do well. OTOH, if the IPO doesn't do so well, then it's possible investors may reconsider or take a harder look, and decide that it's really a Dell, not a RedHat.
While I'm sure the IPO will be a success, given what appears to be insane demand, I just wanted to make the point that it's not in their best interest to "market price" the issue - they need to leave something on the table for the IPO to be a success, which is equally important.
My theory: They reckon their stock's worth at least as much as Red Hat's. Red Hat's is trading almost at the $300 mark. However, they can't just reprice to $300 per share, at the start, without some people being mightily suspicious. So, what they're doing is sneaking the price up, $5 here, $10 there, until they reach the same value as Red Hat. And, incidently, avoid the Y2K headaches on the stock market in the process.
Sneaky, aren't they!
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I'm not comfortable with my limit being right at the upper end of their projected price now, as many have suggested it could likely be a few dollars higher than this...so now I'm considering changing my offer, fewer shares at a higher limit...but then I don't want to screw myself out of shares that I may be able to afford.
If my limit ends up being below the intial share price, am I just plain screwed, or will I have the opportunity to revise my offer? Likewise if I get chosen as "in" but my offer is above the actual price...will there be an opportunity to add more shares?
I guess what I'm asking is...what's a safe and realistic limit?
Jesus H. Christ!!! Rob! WOW! A Wealthy man as of tomorrow. Maybe that was a mis-print, but if/when these hit $200, homeboy has $28 MILLION. I am starting to feel very ill. Then again, /. has done so much for Linux, it's certainly deserved.
I got the Red Hat letter a while ago, but VA Linux didn't send me their letter. Oh well, I guess contributing to the Linux Documentation Project, and writing some utilities and making them available on MetaLab is unimportant. Hmph.
The confirmation of pricing and your share allocation of VA Linux Systems will now be Thursday morning at approximately 7:00 AM PST. We will be contacting you at that time. It will not be tonight as originally planned.
The market opens at 6:30 AM PST. I'm planning to up and logged in at 6:00 AM PST, ready for underwriter fun and games.
e*trade is taking reconfirmations right now. The window for reconfirmations is only two hours guaranteed, so it might close any time. If you have an indication of interest on e*trade you need to go there right now.
WR Hambrecht is taking reconfirmations, too. They mailed me with a URL to click to re-confirm.
It's time to get in touch with your inner suit. Remember guys, underwrites they can play games, they can make you lose, but they can't make you quit!
sorry
If this trend of Linux and/or Open Source related companies offering stocks to significant members of the community continues, I think we may have just found how to support the programmers. In fact, this is even better than working for a company: friendly competition develops amongst developers for access to IPO's, increasing code quality and quality of life!
I'm sorry about this slightly off-topic post, but I know Slashdot really can't post a story about its IPO during the "quite period". I and I'm sure a lot of other readers would like to know more information about it. A news.c om story has info about both VA Systems' and Andover.net's respective IPO's.
Do you feel that either of these IPO's are good investment opportunities? Is Andover.net's auction style IPO a good idea? Some investors warn that since institutional investors are not among the initial holders of the stock, their share price could suffer as a result. What do you think?
Sig goes here
Sorry. Nevermind.
ANDN already did it's thing earlier today... did ya miss it?
According to: http://quotes.freerealtime.com/rt/frt/quotes?symbo l=LNUX&type=Quote
As of the time I post it it is listing the price as $30/share but with 0 volume. Am I looking at a glitch (a moment ago it was nothing but zeros all across, including the price and change).
I hate this... I dont know what is going on exactly, and when you have your own money riding it's fearful.
I wish there was a page saying "VA is currently trading" or "VA is not currently trading".
- Hugh Buchanan
- Userfriendly.com
Does anyone know when Andover actually hit the market? Was it some odd time of the day?
- Hugh Buchanan
- Userfriendly.com
ummm, SUNW increased from about $40/share at the start of the year to $144 yesterday. Maybe it looks "down" to you because today it split 2 for 1, but today it closed at $78+ so it's still going up. SGI is over 11, not at 2. And SGI is repositioning itself with major Linux initiatives.
Freedom's just another word for nothing left Zulus
PLEASE MODERATE THIS DOWN!!!
http://eugeneciurana.com | http://ciurana.eu
I have posted this to another thread, but since Linux stocks are relevant here, I will just re-post.
I submitted this as a story, but it was rejected.
I believe it's very interesting and demonstrates the Linux stock craze in the markets very well.
Check this out:
A bunch of people on Yahoo chat boards touted a company called Perle Systems; which makes I/O cards and equipment, as the company behind Perl. To make matters worse, the company released a news article about Linux drivers for their products to hype the stock further. Thousands of crazy day traders flocked to buy the stock just because the ticker symbol is PERL and they thought it was Linux-related, and the stock is now up 200% in one day.
Go check the stock "PERL" if you don't believe.
The company owns Specialix, which made multiport serial cards, and all they did was to put in a press release that announced the availability of Specialix Linux drivers that have already been around for about five years now.
--
BluetoothCentral.com
A site for everything Bluetooth. Coming in January 2000.
Zigbee Central: A Zigbee weblog
Enoch Root. , You are truly pathetic,
Notice that just like the recent Bruce Perens imposter (Bruce Perens.), this is not really Enoch Root, but a fake. He even copied Enoch Root's user bio. Damn.
-----Transmission Complete----- If you want to email me...Don't
Check your facts!
Wed Dec 8 - After U.S. Markets Closed
"Yeah well
Find the money and hand it over.
(--BS Mode == Bu**Sh*T mode --)
(BS Mode)
VA will close the 1st day trading at $80 minimum. It will close the year at well over $200. Get in now and take out only your initial investment plus 10% next week.
Let the rest sit for at least 6 months. Next summer you will be rolling in dough so just send some this way.
(/BS Mode)
Of course I don't know any of this and have no knowledge or interest in the stock market. I'm a hardware hacker and I failed accounting at high school.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
"SUN stock is going down"
What planet are from? On my planet SUNW just split for the second time this year and went up 10% today. It is a monster stock that is outperforming Microsoft.
Remember -- due to our little friend the quiet period, don't expect any stories about the ANDN stock offering for some time.
;)
We're still welcome to comment about it -- who else watched ANDN more than triple on its opening day?
For more information, click here.
It's a done deal. Closed today at $60 and change, I think.
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Just found a way to make share price suffer, by making people think it will suffer without them.
By the time you had posted, the Wednesday market was closed; the Andover.net IPO is a done deal.
Brent J. Nordquist N0BJN
Check me on this.. but I just looked at some
of the systems that they are peddling and the
prices seem way rich to me. Like how much
premium should be paid for a low end wintel box
that already has linux installed (and I suppose
configured properly)? Please correct me if I
am off base but I really do think you can do
better buying from the likes of Dell/GTW/Micron
etc and installing Linux yourself.
Of course I'm 60 bid for their shares when they
start trading...
I'm sorry for the stupid previous post. Did any of you invest in the IPO. How many shares were you able to purchase?
Sig goes here
Here's the message ETRADE is showing at the login screen as of Thu 10:25 am:
"12/09/99 The Va Linux Systems, Inc.(LNUX) initial public offering has been priced at $30 per share. E*TRADE is no longer accepting new Conditional Offers in this offering. If you have previously placed a Conditional Offer and still wish to
be eligible to participate at these terms, no further action is required. If you have previously placed a Conditional Offer but DO NOT wish to participate at these terms, go to Current Offerings by 11:15am EST to change or cancel your open existing offer to purchase. "
Scott
MSFT: Market Cap: ~470 billion
RHAT: Market Cap: ~ 20 billion
Remember, you have to go by what you think FUTURE evaluation is going to be. If you believe (as I do) that Linux is indeed headed toward the "big time" (ie. REAL competition for MS), this is not THAT inflated. After all, MS is more than 40x RHAT's valuation.
Also, just for reference,
YHOO - 85 billion
AMZN - 35 billion
AOL - 180 billion
Now that I look at it, I think RHAT has a ways to go still. IMHO think RHAT will ultimately be worth more than AMZN and YHOO.
BTW, I have a vague understanding of what the market cap means (in the real world, not investor-speak), but would like more info.
E*TRADE's latest confirms the $30 pricing, and says customers who've placed conditional offers have until 11:15am EST to cancel if they want to (after which presumably they run their allocation)... Sounds like it may start trading around midday.
That way, you will be listed in a database of open-source software authors, and the next time someone does a Linux IPO, they will let you in on the ground floor along with all the other hackers.
send all spam to theotherwhitemeat@ropine.com
It's just proof that moderation simply doesn't work. You see, the moderators don't like the Beatles. Or things other than linux. The Beatles don't happen to be Linux related. Had all the lyrics been replaced with linux related things (and windows hating things) it most certainly would've been given a +4 Funny.
PLEASE DON'T MODERATE ME DOWN!! THERE'S ABSOLUTLY NO POINT! NO ONE WILL READ THIS ANYWAY...
Note that there's another party that gets "screwed" further by the pre-IPO price raises: the Linux community members granted the option to purchase pre-IPO shares; they benefit less from the IPO and VA Linux benefits more.
I don't blame VA for leaving less money on the table, but I'd be surprised if the IPO jump is as large as others we've been seeing. The smaller the jump, the more tempted people are to flip and lockin their win, which could backfire. We'll see I suppose.
--LP
When I talked to DB Alex. Brown a few minutes ago (7:45am PST), I was given the option of purchasing 50, 100, or 140 shares as part of the Directed Share program. So it looks like they're actually being a bit more flexible than the original documents made it sound (100 shares, no more, no less). Shame I didn't have an extra $1200 lying around! IPO initial price is $30/share. I could have spent it, but never violate the first rule of gambling (and this IS a gamble, albeit with better odds than a casino offers) -- don't risk what you can't afford to lose.
I actually "called it" and told everyone to buy CORL at 11 3/8.
:-) )
Everyone bought it except me, though. Spread the wealth, is what I say...
(Don't forget to save your money for TransMeta!
-m
Why?
You could have indicated interest E*Trade in lots of 100 shares - but it's a lottery system, and it's over. And E*Trade's site is down in any case. :/
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