15 Comments
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Jim Miller's avatar

The biggest flipper wasn't SAC, it was Fidelity. But everyone liked to blame retail for the trading volume post deal.

Don't even get me started on "Friends of Frank"...

The Blind Squirrel's avatar

I knew I would find Jim Miller all over the comments section here. Great piece Andy. Made me chuckle. This AI IPO season is a deafening Pinocchio Fest!!! 🤣

Capybara Devil's avatar

Would be fine. But nowadays IPO companies have spent time raising billions before going public. So the upside is captured mostly by private investors. Retail is exit liquidity here.

Jim Miller's avatar

Or Herzog accumulating the Market on Open orders from small regional brokers to pant a bogus opening print and then shorting to those retail firms to fill their ducks.

SonnyLand's avatar

What a fantastic piece Andy. In my run on The CBOE I was recruited by a firm that did a ton of what I refer to as "questionable" IPO's. Even with the great money they paid me, I broke my deal and got the heck outta there STAT. They went down a few years later and I felt really good about my decision. Had I stayed, it could have cost me my reputation. Once that happens on any floor, you're done. This piece is fascinating and it gives people like me a really nice "peak" behind the curtain. Thanks for writing it and sharing so generously. Best Regards

David Vieths's avatar

Fond memories. Through the 90s I flipped hundreds of deals armed with a prime broker account I had over a hundred brokers. Sometimes a lot of small allocations, often descent size. Occasionally I had to take a beating. IPOs, spot seconds, in for most. My word was good but trusted no one. Thanks for the memories. DV

Eddie's avatar

Love this!

Tim Pierotti's avatar

Can firmly attest this is how i remember things as well (ECM at MS). Outstanding. I will be interested in the feedback on this one. Didnt cover the small hedge fund flipper who hoped to derive all alpha from IPO's. Also less than Veracious.

Damped Spring's avatar

One of our flippers got so rich he bought the Houston rockets

Tim Pierotti's avatar

if you could whip around a lot stock and pay 6c a share without getting hurt too bad, you put yourself in a position to make a fortune. Lot of guys without a ton of capital crushed it. Also drove the alpha of a lot of pretenders, who also crushed it.

gibson Jiang's avatar

Why Warren Buffet never invested any IPO since 1955

Never participate the Stupid games

The hot shit always been priced As THE REAL HOT SHIT

but only time can tell if this hot Shit is the Real hot shit or not

The Private Ledger's avatar

Hey Andy!

This was a fantastic piece and I really enjoyed your blatant honesty - as the private market is what I write all my pieces about, I’d love to connect with you and learn from someone with a lot of experience in it.

All the best

Joseph

Learner Wanderer's avatar

Eliot Spitzer also lies...to his wife. If it wasn't for his weakness, do you think we might have had batter policing of wall street ? I'd bet yes, looking at how he was exposed but the Jeff island visitors were protected for so long.

Jim Miller's avatar

I forgot to say that Dutch Auctions solve all these hidden incentive problems. I designed a system than paid brokers for accepted bids and we successfully privatized the two Argentine telephone companies with auctions, raising over $2 billion.