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Google Announces Nasdaq Float 28

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."
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Google Announces Nasdaq Float

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  • YRO? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Otter ( 3800 ) on Monday July 12, 2004 @06:39PM (#9680688) Journal
    Sorry, which of our Rights Online are involved here? Also, Simon, it's customary to append a sentence or two to the end of YRO posts to tell us what conclusion to reach. We're uncomfortable thinking about these things without patronizing explanations from Michael Sims.
    • I tried to think of something snappy to say but only thing I could think of was: "Google turns evil"

      Then I thought "From where in the hell did that thought come from?"

      Must be the provocating colour scheme of YRO. Didn't even notice it was YRO before reading your post :)

      *Mmmmmm* Subliminal messages.
    • I had the exact same thought when I was reading the story... Maybe with all the gmail stories this was some sort of YRO knee-jerk categorization. Another possibility is that here at slashdot all large corporations are evil and must be violating our rights somehow.

      Come to think of it, that conclusion is probably true more often than not. sad.

  • No surprise... (Score:5, Informative)

    by nlh ( 80031 ) on Monday July 12, 2004 @06:44PM (#9680739) Homepage
    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).
    • Of course, if they were really focused on doing things the right way, they'd insist upon YEARLY filing of profit/loss statements instead of QUARTERLY- that being the main problem I've ever seen with going public (suddenly your investors, most of whom are complete computer illiterates and PHBs, expect you to turn a profit in three months on a project that takes six).
    • The specialists obviously makes money for himself, but often puts his own money on the line to maintain an orderly market.
  • top 10??!! no way (Score:3, Interesting)

    by grimani ( 215677 ) on Monday July 12, 2004 @07:05PM (#9680939)
    top 10? with only 40b?

    that's doubtful

    microsoft
    cisco
    ibm
    hp
    dell
    intel
    oracle
    ebay
    sap
    nokia

    all above 40b, i'm sure.
  • by TMLink ( 177732 ) on Monday July 12, 2004 @07:30PM (#9681152)
    OOOO?
  • by Marxist Hacker 42 ( 638312 ) <seebert42@gmail.com> on Monday July 12, 2004 @07:39PM (#9681203) Homepage Journal
    Next thing they'll know they'll have a bunch of PHBs wondering why GMail has yet to turn a profit. Or worse yet, killing GMail because it hasn't turned a profit in the last three months, which is about how far a PHB focused on stock price can see.
    • No they won't, because they've structured the stock offering so that the stock purchasers:

      1. Get no control at all. The current ownership retains voting control.

      2. Get no dividends back. In the prospective they essentially promise no dividends, ever.

      So what do you get with your Google stock? The right to try to sell it to some other sucker later on.
      • That makes it all the worse- because certainly the key descision makers in the company are getting some stock, and thus they will have reason to try to keep the stock price up so that they ARE able to sell it to some other sucker down the road.

        Which leads us back to the main problem of a technology company being in the stock market at all- myopia. The three month reporting scheme might make for a nice market trade volume, but it's death for any long term research project.
    • At the risk of stating the obvious, if you're a company and want to get publicly listed, you have to start thinking about your shareholders and tedious things like quarterly earnings, profit forecasts, share price and so on.

      The alternative is to stay as a private company. No-one's forcing Google to go public.

      • Exactly. And what I'm saying is that good companies stay private- going public is ALWAYS a bad idea for a technology company. Because NONE of those things, shareholders, quarterly earnings, profit forecasts, or share price have ANYTHING TO DO WITH INNOVATION- and every second spent worrying about them is a second lost to time thinking aobut your next great invention or killer application. Going public is a HUGE drain on productivity at best- and a project killer at worst.
  • Shares price (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Tyreth ( 523822 ) on Monday July 12, 2004 @09:04PM (#9681861)
    What's the deal with Google shares. Is it possible for the average Joe with some money to buy some of this float? How much is it? I couldn't work it out when I was looking a few months ago.
  • Too bad about Google (Score:3, Informative)

    by mbstone ( 457308 ) on Monday July 12, 2004 @10:06PM (#9682270)
    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.

One man's constant is another man's variable. -- A.J. Perlis

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