it depends on how liquid the shares are. If 80% are controlled by insiders,and institutions loyal to insider, they can run up the stock, despite the incongruity with fundamentals.

case study: Open Table

http://www.google.ca/finance?q=open+table

It has a P/E of 157!!!!! And it's still going strong. Likely because it's getting pumped by thin trading.

It's the classic pump n dump. Run up the stock, and try to unload it to dumb money like mutual funds, and pension funds aka (your money).

Groupon's P/E can run just as high. It depends on how high they have to push it to entice dumb money, which is likely why they are pushing out a pre-IPO PR blitz to frame the story beforehand.

This was all done in Web 1.0. Same bag of tricks. Let's see if the average American has learned anything.