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Comment by brosephius | Hacker News Reader

there's a lockup period, nobody is selling their pre-IPO shares now.

That would prevent insiders and common shareholders from selling their shares, but it would in no way prevent an investment bank from unloading their shares through some sort of intermediary.

you mean the underwriters of the IPO are not subject to a lockup period? that seems unusual, but I'd believe it I guess.

They probably are, but what I mean is they could use some 3rd party to short their own shares. We're talking about people that can rob the US government of a trillion dollars in plain sight.

what 3rd party? banks usually are the third party in these sorts of transactions.

Through an under the table deal with any hedge fund, or any number of other means, an investment bank that owns LinkedIn shares could quite easily insure their profits. That is exactly what these businesses do.

Most hedge funds use a bank as their primary broker.

They are supposed to be selling the stock in order to create the market. If you look at the S1 filing it outlines who sold what today.

Everything outside of that is subject to lockout periods (and in the case of executives they are also vesting on new stock)

From the S1 filling (http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1271024/0001193125110...):

Morgan Stanley & Co. Incorporated may, in its sole discretion, release all or some portion of the shares subject to lock-up agreements prior to expiration of the lock-up period.

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