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Comment by eightman | Hacker News Reader

I assume the value of the remaining assets are worth more than $8/share and she was trying to get them for a discount.

Shares are only worth what somebody wants to pay for them. Selling a ton of shares also often devalues them. Since the company was losing money, it was clear that the shares would drop.

Bloomberg's Matt Levine on the 23andMe situation:

https://archive.is/zXqnB

Yeah but he mostly analyzes his he relationship between the board and the ceo. Of course 8 usd was not so good at the time, but the stock was falling rapidly and everybody shorted the shit out of the company, even if the ceo would’ve sold its shares under no circumstances would they have gotten over 10 usd besides that the stock was higher

That's not true, shares are a share of the companies assets and future dividends.

There are "scavengers" out there who buy a company if its assets are worth more than the market cap, close down the company or otherwise spin out the assets, and thus earn more than they paid for the shares.

> That's not true, shares are a share of the companies assets and future dividends.

Possibly true 20 or 30 years ago, but now shares are speculative assets, their worth determined by what the market thinks they might be bought for by a greater fool.

Only for companies who are profitable or might be profitable in the future.

If the company has no chance at future profit, it becomes a simple share of assets. There are plenty of companies with assets only and no revenue or employees.

Are assets not also worth "what somebody wants to pay for them"?

There are tons of examples of unprofitable companies, with no visible prospect of ever becoming profitable, trading at increasingly-higher values. Every tech bubble has their share of these.

yeah but 23andme was already falling when she wanted to buy the shares. It was overvalued and people already lost trust at the site.

If that’s the case then the likelihood of the remaining net assets being worth more than $8/share are even lower.

I can’t 100% say you are wrong but I can 99% say you are wrong.

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