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Comment by tankenmate | Hacker News Reader

Another article[1] on WSJ has as its title "Groupon posts surprise loss" and I thought, how is it a surprise? Personally I was expecting a loss, when I read through their S-1 both before and after the amendments the numbers still didn't add up. If I could find a reasonable source of Groupon stock to borrow for 12 months I'd be tempted to short.

[1] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020436940457721...

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You could just take a spread bet position instead. Doesn't require collateral, doesn't have a cost of funding/carry and, at least in the UK, gains are tax free.

Spread betting does have a big risk attached in that your losses, if you're wrong, can go way high.

Yes it's a leveraged product but that doesn't mean you need to take any more risk. You can put on the equivalent risk of any physical trade. Tne only difference is you're not putting down the money upfront. And of course you can put on stop-loss limit to close the trade if your losses exceed your threshold.

Same as borrowing the stock, although still spread-betting is uncomfortably speculative for me.

Based on the reaction of the stock price, perhaps a bigger loss was expected.

Earnings didn't come out until after market close- GRPN is down ~15% currently in after hours trading.

Seems as though a lot of people expected much better news.

Some or many were expecting a profit and in fact the main reason for the loss was extraordinary overseas taxes which will not happen in the same manner going forward.

You can hate Groupon but that doesn't change that it is a huge, fast growing, profitable (expected in Q1) business.

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