CyrusL

I think connor is referring to the expected value of the returns, not just the odds of winning.

IPO shares are already allocated by the opening bell. It's a little bit confusing, but IPO shares are actually sold privately prior to opening day.

Another important thing to remember is that there are two sides to every trade. Presumably, the guy who has shares on opening day has at least as much information about the stock that a retail buyer does, and he's choosing to sell. To be a buyer, you have to have a stronger belief about the future of the company than the market price indicates.

It doesn't even require a lot of amateur investors to drive it up beyond reason, just the belief that there will be a lot of amateur investors. Who cares if I paid a stupid price if I can sell to them at a stupider price? Some people call this the "Greater Fool Theory."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_fool_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_beauty_contest

It's weird that you critiqued his analysis by using gold, which makes no sense for comparison. You might have strong feelings about unbacked paper money, but that doesn't make comparing with gold a sound financial model.

  August 2004:
  
  Orange Juice Concentrate Futures $61
  Google $85/share
  
  Now:
  Orange Juice Concentrate Futures $211
  Google $576/share
  
  211/61 ~= 3.45
  85*4.27 ~= 293.25

The lockup is 180 days

I took part in SecondMarket's 1/18/12 Facebook auction and was unaware of any trading being halted for that week.

Does anyone know what normal IPO timelines are? My uneducated expectation is that shares begin trading something like 3-6 months after filing the prospectus.

Actually, that already exists. Believe it or not there are ad products that pay for the people who click "Under 18" on porn entry pages.

Most likely the phisher had a Hotmail-specific method to hit inbox, so their spam was more effective on Hotmail than other providers. The other possibility is that the phishing page emulated a Hotmail login, so only those with Hotmail accounts would believe it enough to enter their info.

Absolutely not. I always recommend the weaker .com over the stronger .net or ccTLD

Hey, sorry I thought I put it in there. It is cyruslohrasbpour AT gmail dot com. I have no idea if I can help getting you the domain but I can try to give you some perspective.

I imagine this is the kind of question that HN sees a lot. I don't spend tons of time here, but considering the responses so far, I think my input is will be not be redundant. I am a domainer with ~$500,000 in purchases under my belt, which means I am experienced but not one of the "big guys."

First of all, there is no single best way to get a domain that you want. There are techniques that tend to work better in some situations than others, but it's good to think of these as tools in your toolbelt rather than the ultimate domain-buying dogma. Unfortunately, confirmation bias can skew less experienced hackers toward confusing the story of how they got their domain with real advice.

Like any negotiation, the first place to start is by assessing all info about both parties. Can you answer the following?

- Does the seller have true WHOIS visible or is the WHOIS obfuscated by a privacy service? a. If visible, what can you figure out about the seller?

- Do the domain's nameservers point to anything that could help you identify the owner?

- Is the domain name a generic dictionary word .com or .net? That is, is your gut feeling that it's worth >$10,000?

- Is the domain listed for sale at any major venues (sedo, godaddy, afternic, snapnames, ect)?

- Do you have alternatives or do you absolutely need to have this domain?

- What is your timeline to acquire either this domain or one of your alternatives?

If you feel comfortable emailing me the domain, I can give you a report of the WHOIS history from http://whois.domaintools.com/ along with my personal opinion.

Lastly, I would specifically recommend you ignore advice from tuscon and johnmurch. Absolutely no domainer takes estibot seriously and feigning legal threats will not help your situation at all.