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VA

VA Reprices Again 221

Posted by Hemos from the movin'-on-up dept.
Quite a number of people have written in with the news that VA Linux Systems has re-priced, this time setting their range at $28-30 per share. People have been submitting e-mail reports from E*Trade, so if you are getting anything through there, you must re-confirm. For the friends and family program, remember that you will also be contacted to confirm as well.If you are part of the friends and family program, you can pre-emptively re-confirm by calling the phone number in the initial packet. Otherwise, phone calls will begin 8AM-4PM EST on Friday.
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VA Reprices Again More

VA Reprices Again

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  • I fully support them raising the IPO price to something more reasonable. It it of significant benefit to VA Linux to do so and, in the long term, it is a good thing for investors becaues it give the company more capital for growth. It is unfortunate that they had to do it at the last minute, but that isn't entirely their choice either. Pricing IPOs is a tricky game; too low and the company doesn't get the benefit they could have, too high and the could flop. Often the build up doesn't begin until after it's first price range is filed. Now, it is unfortunate that it makes their 100 share directed share program far richer than it was initially. Perhaps they should have allowed people to buy less shares. I can't make a judgement on that since I don't know all the issues involved.
  • Slashdot can never go back to it's old innocence. Way too big now. It's just the way things work.

    However, if you want something smaller and more innocent, roll your own site. In fact, you could focus on stuff YOU are interested in, there are always more people out there and /. doesn't have a monopoly ...

    Once you make your own site, then put the URL and a little teaser in your sig about it.

    Why make your own fun, when you can buy it for cheap?!

  • Market cap. is short for market capitalization, and is exactly that - it's the value of the company as given by the share price (market). It's simply the total number of shares outstanding times the stock price. When the market is sane, there are rules of thumb that relate share price to "real world" things like sales or earnings growth (e.g. P/E = annual earnings growth rate for a fairly valued growth stock, with a P/E premium for fast growth rates), but the bottom line is that share price (and hence market cap.) is whatever people are willing to pay.

    So in the case of VA Linux, 39.7M shares (4.4M being offered at the IPO - both figures from the prospectus) times $30 would give them a market cap. of $1.19B. Of course it's really going to be quite a bit higher!
  • Here's the latest info from ETRADE (at the LOGON screen) on the LNUX IPO pricing:

    "12/09/99The Va Linux Systems, Inc. initial public offering has been priced at $30 per share. E*TRADE is no longer accepting change or cancel requests for Conditional Offers in this offering. "

    Scott
  • You'll be alright, feel free to email me and I'll make sure they'll get it. chris@valinux.com [mailto] But they are very responsible, they'll get back to you.

    Please note that they are -very- busy just answering confirmation phone calls and emails that are coming in preemptively. You won't be left in the cold. Most likely they are waiting to send out a batch of email verifying your confirmation.

    Chris

    --
    Grant Chair, Linux Int.
    VP, SVLUG

  • I E-mailed them and they said so.

    This *does* suck. I can still afford it, but that pretty much wipes out my checking account. If they raise it again I'll have to take some drastic measures to get cash.

    Wishing I hadn't recently sent a big check to my other brokerage,

    Micah
  • I don't think super moderators would be the most efficient solution since I could easily create multiple posts faster than you could probably moderate them (all I have to do is figure out the CGI parameters that the server is expecting for a post and keep sending it). Something like this could be easily handled by preventing multiple posts in a short period of time from the same IP address.

    If /. made it such that you can't post more than one comment every 90 seconds, this kind of abuse would be time consuming for the abuser, but would not affect most people that contribute to the discussions.
  • Thanks for your concern, AC. I think Enoch Root. has gotten tired of his game as he saw it wasn't working, and now he just trolls around. Especially since his karma has now been driven into the ground, I suspect people will notice it's not me when they see a post about nakedness and petrification with a starting score of 0.

    And so far, no one has fallen for the trap by spamming my mailbox.

  • They should have known this would be a hot IPO and figured out earlier how much they could get. I have a feeling this is going to get a lot of people ticked off at them...
  • I'm not buying at this price. It's just a bunch of web sites. Sure, some of them are cool, but it looks like banner ad prices will be trending downwards. I bet it goes down to $30, maybe even $20.

    Wondering when I'll be able to short ANDN,

    Micah
  • Can you set a limit order on Etrade to a stock that hasn't gone public yet?
  • Well, perhaps there is room for shennanigans.

    The beef this time is that since you have to buy 100 share lots, the letter-getters originally thought they would need $1300 minimum. Now that's looking like $3000. Big difference... it is unfortunate, but well... that's the market, I guess. Sucks for those with small pocketbooks.

    It's interesting - this is a pretty gutsy move by VA, they really are betting that the Linux hype this week will continue, I guess. How big is their offering? They may actually get more out of their IPO than Red Hat did...
    ----
  • ...if you only read /. you would never have found out...they never mentioned it.

    I wish I could have gotten in on it. These Linux IPOs are making me look like a financial wiz or something to my family. Of course, Linux is (almost sickeningly) THE buzzword for investors now.

  • If this trend continues, then there will be a day when people participating in such a program end up loosing, at least over the short term, when the stock drops below offering pricefor a few months or longer. We will see how people's tunes change then. Unfortunately, some company may get a lot of undeserved bad publicity if this does happen to them.

    I don't think that is likely to happen with LNUX. But treating it as a free money handout is bogus.
  • Welcome to the law of supply and demand. Clearly there is intense demand for LNUX stock, and I can't blame VA Linux one bit for boosting the offering price -- why should they leave the money on the table?

    All I can say is if I had the chance to get 100 shares of LNUX at the offering price -- even if that proves to be $35 or $40 or more -- I would do whatever it takes to get the money together, short of taking out a second mortgage. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that your son's college fund will be far, far better for it.

    Of course there's risk involved in any stock and IPOs are particularly speculative, but I've watched a bunch of IPOs since before RHAT and those that price way above their initial range have without fail gone absolutely nuts in the aftermarket. Sycamore Networks (SCMR), for example, priced at $38, opened at $280 (that is not a typo), skidded within an hour or so to as low as a mere $180 and has climbed ever since. It closed today at 253 1/2.

    In any event, make your own decisions and best of luck to you. I'm hoping to pick up maybe 20 shares if I can afford it in the aftermarket and hold on for a while. Just gotta have a stock with the ticker LNUX ...

  • No kidding, I want to do it but I will be in debt until I decide to sell it... Man, why don't they give the "friends" a deal at the origional $13 quoted? I don't know if that's legal or not, but I'm guessing a bunch of guys who devote free time to develop software that these guys use are going to have a tought time coming up with $3k.
  • AFAIK, you can only place a limit order on an IPO for the day. I'm on Wells Fargo's trading accounts so I can't speak for E-Trade (and E-Trade's damn system won't let me log on OR send me my forgotten password until I know my "secret word." Dammmit what if I forgot that too?? Just email me the damn thing!). You cannot place a Market order on an IPO.

    -----
    Linux user: if (nt == unstable) { switchTo.linux() }

  • if you got "the letter" you can buy 50 shares (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 08, 1999 @06:18PM (#1473758)
    I called Deutsche Bank Alex. Brown and got this info for recipients of "the letter":
    • You can now choose between 50, 100, and 140 shares. So if you could afford 100 shares at $15, but not more, you can now buy 50 shares at $30. And if you have the gambler's itch....
    • You can direct the broker to sell some (or, I presume, all) of the stock on the first day of trading, even though your check won't have reached them by then. So you could tell the broker "buy 50 at the IPO price, and sell $500 worth as soon as it starts trading".
  • The word from CNBC (in my xawtv [freshmeat.net] window) is that LNUX [yahoo.com] goes public at 12:40 Eastern. The anchor (Sue Herera) just said (@12:28 ET) that "this is shaping up to be the biggest IPO ever."

    (Disclaimer: I have been allocated 140 shares. Hence my interest...)
  • I saw that one coming. bought last February at 4 1/4. Unfortunately I sold it last week at 19 1/2. Oh well. I still did well, just not as well as it could have been...
  • I can already see it, a repeat of the Red Hat/ Etrade shennenigans!

  • Re:How To Live Through An IPO (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    hello. Not only am I the C{EIFO}O of Pineapple, Syphilitic Pudding, Inc., but I'm a customer too.
    After recently unleashing the latest technological innovation (recursive parametric normalized case structures) for the eponymously named operating system of the next generation , I decided to create a business utilizing this stunning new operating system. The business is called MansTreta.

    Manstreta is an online service that allows women of all ages to order men (Mans) and three (treta) beef jerkey sticks all at the same time. This service capitalizes on 2 of the biggest commodities that we enjoy today -- men and dried out beef.

    My Chief Scientist, William Shatner, has volunteered to be the first person sold on the service. He was also generous to allow us to sell his toupee, which has the same molecular structure as beef jerky and almost equivalent nutritional content.

    The Pineapple, Syhpilitic Pudding operating system should really shine in this type of service orientated enviroment. ZD Labs has assured us that the operating system scales to handle on the order of 2.5billion transactions per second, or 47 per hour depending on the tide. The folks at ZD Labs appear to be so honest. It is refreshing. You would think that they would be swayed by the advertising dollars that they receive from the very companies that they objectively cover, but for some reason they are above this.

    Stay tuned for further exciting news.

    C{EIFO}O of Pineapple, Syphilitic Pudding, Inc.
  • At between 250 and 270.

    Must be nice.

    Don Negro
  • I have seen reports of both. One from reuters
    saying that they moved trading up a day to thursday and others saying they should proce tommorrow and trade friday.

    Anyone know for sure?

    Malice95
  • Nah. People probably learned the first time.

    What I learned, though, is that you should not sell on a 500% gain. :) Not only did I lose out on the $75-$300 runup, but now I probably will not get in on the LNUX offering either (I didn't get the letter, and I'm probably blacklisted on E*Trade.)

    Ah well. Just money, right? :)
    ----
  • Current message at ETRADE login screen (approx 12:30 pm EST):
    "12/09/99 The VA Linux Systems, Inc. IPO has been priced at $30 per share. Shares are currently being allocated. Accounts that placed and reconfirmed Conditional Offers should check their account messages for allocation notices later this
    morning. "
    Scott
  • Here's a company that has a solid revenue source and is closer to it's valuation.

    I wonder if they're going to be buying up companies in 6 months.
  • WR Hamblect is taking reconfirmations but *not* changes... and they have severly oversold according to an account rep tonight. Since they don't do lottery, unless you were buying a lot, have a good trading history or a lot of cash in your account don't expect to get shares through Hamblecht. And if you tried to sneak a change in (I did, dumb, I know) you'll almost certainly get a rejection.

    The best thing to do in such a case is be there the second the market opens. Good luck.
    ---
    Openstep/NeXTSTEP/Solaris/FreeBSD/Linux/ultrix/OSF /...

  • WTF? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Now I gotta put even MORE money into the brokerage acct. Rumor is they start trading tomorrow. I'm sure this doesn't sit well wil a LOT of other people. Not everyone has the financial resources to keep up with this runaround. Hopefully they will wait til next week to trade, give us some time to secure the necessary funds. Or I could be dreaming.
  • The only way a stock makes you money is if you sell it.

    I'm guessing you bought during their 1997 decrease.

    While they have been going up since then, it wont go forever.

    Just my 2 cents of info you probably already know.

  • Updates From db.com (Score:3)

    by Cerb ( 10299 ) on Wednesday December 08, 1999 @03:26PM (#1473778) Homepage
    From: valinux@db.com
    To: valinux@db.com
    Subject: VA Linux Directed Share Program
    Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1999 19:22:52 -0500
    Importance: high
    X-Priority: 1
    X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.0.1460.8)

    The confirmation of pricing and your share allocation of VA Linux Systems
    will now be Thursday morning at approximately 7:00 a.m. PST. We will be
    contacting you at that time. It will not be tonight as originally planned.
  • Can E*Trade users get at this IPO like they did RHAT, ie. >100 shares?

  • I wonder (Score:1)

    by craw ( 6958 )
    Off-topic, but related to VA Linux. I went over to their web site a few minutes ago, and was asked if I wanted a cookie. Okay, that's fine except the cookie would expire on 12/07/99. Kind of strange. Maybe a renegade timed.:-)

    Did any of you get an offer to participate in Andover's IPO? They could have offered it up to those with the most /. karma points.:-) I wonder if MEEPT bought Andover stock?

    I wonder if my (and another comment) mentioning Andover makes the folks here nervous given the restrictions during the IPO?

    Is an IPO the stock market equivalent to a First Post?

    So many questions, so little beer.

  • Last week, it was $10 - $13 a share. Monday it was $21 - $23 a share. Today it's said to be $28 - $30 a share!? I mean, could some finance person out there please explain why VA Linux is doing this? I mean, are they seriously concerned that $44 million won't be enough and that they need $120 million now? Or are they just milking what seems to be a good IPO time? (due to examples like Andover.Net and Agency.Com?)

    I've had to have my father FedEx me money twice this week and now it'll be third just so I can poney up the cash.

    Oh well, I guess you gotta have money to make money.
  • I wonder if they're going to be buying up companies in 6 months.

    December issue of Linux Magazine has an article on SGI's Linux initiatives and quoted a "source close to VA Linux" saying SGI would be "a perfect fit ... It makes a lot of sense." SGI has a stake in VA as well as a close working relationship with VA, in the shrinkwrapped Debian project and other things. Article also quoted analyst Stacey Quandt of Giga saying a VA-SGI merger "would be very compelling ... Larry Augustin may also want to acquire SGI because his company is a smaller player in the Linux market than the likes of IBM and Compaq. This would expand VA's mindshare and market share."

    Not sure if that's what has been moving SGI stock price upward in the past week. Disclosure: Long SGI

  • How else would you like these companies to raise money?

    I see nothing wrong with companies like Red Hat, VA, and so on for going public.
    First of all, it's great for the United States economy, which I am a very strong supporter for. More money into the economy is good because it means more spending, and more spending means more profit. (You get the idea)

    Second of all, people can make a lot of money with companies going IPO.

    Third, it shows that the company has backing from investors, and makes their presence official. Its no longer a small private company at that point.
  • Once again...

    (Man. First Bruce Perens and now me?)

    This poster is a fake. Notice the period at the end of his name.

    My user # is 57473.

  • I happen to be a network architect at a firm that uses a fair amount of VA hardware. Here is the main difference, with Dell you get okay hardware, Gateway and Micron you get mediocre. On our VA boxes they are PURE POWER. And they work 100% out of the box. From the time we get a new server to the time its operational and secure is usually about 3 hours for us now (got it down pretty well). Need a database server with 6 NICs in it? No problem, VA does it (might I add the damn thing looks like the sandcrawler from star wars). Need a bunch of high powered SCSI web servers with 3 nics in em? No problem there either (we have 4 of those, they're older 500's). Its not a case of being a desktop system. They aren't desktop systems. We have 1 va desktop system and it works well, but its not what they're designed for. If you can show me a dell or a gateway that can actually challenge one of these that I might agree. But VA boxes are simply awesome. Not to mention the support, they botched part of our config the first time and paid for the next day air to and from (lots of $$ for 4 servers). When I want a box that I need to tinker with I'll go for a cheap dell box (or some knockoff) when I need reliability at work we get VA.
  • Va Linux has started trading. Early trades were in the 320 range and things have "stabilized" at around 260.

    I say "stabilized" because things have been that way for two minutes, which is all the stability you get these days.

    Congrats all who were in on it. You just made a bunch of dough.


  • Crazy. I went to buy some post-IPO, but when i logged onto e*trade, i found it already trading at $300!!!

    jeez. outta hand. I'll put my money elsewhere (and make plans for debian or something).

  • how true!

    but corel was one of "those stocks" that just kept popping into and leaving my mind up until a month ago. i was along the lines of "what have they done lately?" and "what are they going to do next?" couldn't really answer those questions at the time.

    all the best of luck with corl for you, though, AC! your current 1500% is a truck-load better than the 300% my friends and family got in on! :-)

    -m
  • How the hell are people supposed to get on this when the damn stock opens at $300?!?!?! I put my order in around 9:00 a.m. this morning to buy until the price reaches $50/share.. surprise!! the stock opens at an astronomical price!! Hell i thought I was rich when I came in to check the stock price.. NOPE.. the stock never opened even close to the priced number.. this is stupid. How can anyone get shares before the thing opens at a ridiculous price?

    -----
    Linux user: if (nt == unstable) { switchTo.linux() }
  • Why shouldn't they have a bigger IPO than Red Hat?
    They make more money (AFAIK) than Red Hat, I'd rather invest in a company that doesn't lose millions of dollars every quarter.

    That's not to say that I wouldn't love to get in on Red Hat now, because I see them going far...
    but I would rather invest in VA.

    Anyone want to lend me $3000 or so and their letter?
  • I just reconfirmed through WRHambrecht (though they are not a primary underwriter, they are associated with Hambrecht & Quist, and thus have some shares to allocate amongst their clients). I placed an indication of interest with them for Cobalt, but didn't get any. I would really like to get some shares of VA, but I am still pretty ecstatic about Andover.Net's performance, so if not oh well.
  • A member of the community doesn't have to invest in these upcoming IPOs just because they are offered a chance to do so. It is still up to that individual person (or company) to research the company and discover for themselves wether or not to invest their hard earned cash.

    And eventually that scenario will happen to a LINUX company. It will happen when a bunch of companies jump on the linux-ipo bandwagon like dotcom companies are doing now. When the first few companies that do it without any product whatsoever and get caught by the public their stock will crash. And at the same time bring the rest of the good linux stocks with them, though hopefully not for long.
  • Actually, he got moderated down too many times within a period of time. Who could ever grow tired of ruining a karma whore's life? Karma whores are as useless as trolls. Instead of writing comments which they know will piss people off, they write comments that they know the stupid moderators'll agree with. In my mind, they're the same thing, except that trolling at least shows some form of intelligence. Also, I don't think anyone's life is that centered around your own that they'd care whether you were the real author of those messages or not....
  • Dang!

    While I understand that the IPO amount can change at any time, it is getting very frustating just attempting to keep up with the pricing changes, especially attempting to wire funds back and forth to cover the opportunity to get into the IPO at Etrade!

    According to Etrade they expect this to price in the morning, EASTERN time! Which means the banks will still be closed here on the West coast (Calif)!

    Yes, of course, it would be nice to have enough funds just sitting about in an Etrade account, BUT some of us just dont have enough 'idle' funds.

    Fact is, the Etrade Broker said that they're not even certain if the price will not increase AGAIN. I wouldn't doubt it. MAYBE VA linux should have gone OPEN IPO?
  • Thank you for this info - called and got the same info. I would have completly missed out otherwise. I think I'll go in for all 140.
  • Ok, a last one for tonight. Maybe hiding karma from the user page wasn't such a good idea after all... At least Signail11 was funny, and he didn't point to Signal 11's email when he was saying something stupid.

    (Man. First Bruce Perens and now me?)

    This poster is a fake. Notice the period at the end of his name.

    My user # is 57473.

  • Repricing is good! Yes, there's lots of hype value right now, but there is also something seriously flawed with an IPO that jumps to 10x its opening price on the first day of trading and stays up there. That means the underwriters didn't do their best to get money for the company.

    The real game isn't about making a cheap buck for us lowly investors, its about financing a company. VA is going to have a huge amount of cash after this, it'll be interesting to watch what they do with it.
  • Uhh.. nice arguement, BUT...

    IPO Stock prices are based on hype. That's all. That's why there's a "quiet period."

    This is not to say Linux is not Enterprise ready, but the soaring stock prices DO NOT prove that.

    -sid
  • My father's broker said they won't trade
    until friday.. great. guess i won't be getting
    those 300 shares @ "up to $30" like i bid my order :(
  • I strongly suspect that people at Slashdot are deleting messages relevent to its IPO today. Sounds like good news in general, though since it closed above $60 per share. I wonder whether the hosting of comments by readers regarding the Andover.net falls under SEC quiet period scrutiny. How closely is this "open forum" being moderated? I suppose if you're reading this message, they were honest enough to let some of them through. ;)

    What are the chances that a ton of Andover.net investors will flip their shares for VA Linux tomorrow? That has GOT to be on Malda's mind tonight. Speaking of whom, congratulations on the 143k shares there Malda. Remember me when you come into your own...




    MKC
  • The market will definately be greater if they
    do things like let you choose what packages you
    want installed.. well not greater but it'd be more
    convenient if I had to order 30 servers if I could ahead of time give them a rpm with my .config file, have them compile the kernel put it on.. all my other configs and a list of my own packages + their packages to install.. that'd save a lot of time.
  • and btw.. though dell's servers are in great
    cases. they're way overpriced compared to
    va boxes.

  • How To Live Through An IPO (Score:5)

    by Hendersa ( 103381 ) <hendersa@nOspAM.icculus.org> on Wednesday December 08, 1999 @04:24PM (#1473819) Homepage

    Everyone seems to be quite anxious to jump on the IPO bandwagon to make a quick buck, but get mad when the system (E-Trade in particular) does things that seem unfair. There are a few things to keep in mind when dealing with IPOs:

    1. A company can raise its initial offering price. Period. If you are serious about investing, you'll have to have a respectable sum to invest in the first place. Since you have to buy stocks in blocks of 100 (yes, your trade of 37 shares of stock is matched up with someone else's 63 shares thanks to modern technology), plan to have enough cash on hand to buy at least 200 shares. That way, if the range increases, you can still buy a block of 100 shares and use any remaining money to pay for an odd amount of shares when the stock hits the market. It takes money to make money, and IPOs often raise their price ranges when there is a large amount of interest. Which leads into...

    2. A quick bit of advice is to avoid IPOs that lower their ranges. Another tip-off to an IPO you might want to avoid is one that extends the time period of their IPO because a small amount of IPO shares have been allocated and the rest is still waiting for a buyer. After all, the price of IPO stock is initially driven up by the demand of everyone wanting to buy their share of the sure-fire performing stock.

    3. E-Trade is not a brokerage firm... at least not in the traditional sense. They aren't obligated to call you and let you know that you need to reconfirm your IPO bid (though they will try to contact you through as many as 5 different e-mail addresses). You need to stay glued to E-Trade the two days prior to when the stocks initially hits the market. The first day is to catch that two-hour window with E-Trade to get in your IPO bid for the stock in the first place, and the second day is to reconfirm your IPO bid (which, unfortunately, happens quite often with the good stocks).

    4. With E-Trade, make sure you read their IPO readme. Also, feel free to call E-Trade directly at 1-800-STOCKS5 to get the scoop from a real person. It will be about a 30 minute wait in the hold queue, so be patient.

    5. Those 100 share block-o-stocks are delegated by a lottery system when there is more interest than supply for an IPO stock. Even if you have the money set aside to purchase stock, you may not get it. It really is the luck of the draw in some cases.

    Nobody ever said IPOs were an easy way to get money, only a quick way. Still, the payoffs are worth a little time spent in preparation. Take some time to learn the system before trying to jump into the deal of a lifetime and you'll end up with much better results.

    >

  • Since when did E*Trade became a LNUX underwriter?

    VA Linux has some 'splaining to do.
    --

  • **Damn me**! From now on I'll read Slashdot a lot more carefully :-). No, I've been too busy in the past week.
  • You may have to buy THIS stock at THIS particular IPO in blocks of 100, but it ain't necessarily so for stock markets in general (although it is certainly a common convention). For example, BRKa traded 310 shares today. BRKb traded 16,660.
  • actually, 143K is not that much, based on the value /. has added to andover.

    I beleave that /. itself is worth more then 50% of the rest of andover.

    My fear is that slashdot will get neglected ammong all of the other projects in Andover. other then that I think 60$+ for /. alone is fair value based on potential.
    --------------------------------
  • ER has one of (if not the) highest karmas on Slashdot. He must be deliberately trying to lower his Karma for some reason...I wonder why.

    Daniel.
  • you missunderstud what I wrote, or maybe I wasn't clear enough.

    I am not commenting about Andover or VAlinux's market cap. I was refaring to the precentage of shares that Rob holds in andover - which is (?) 143K/15M - arround 1% of andover's outstanding shares (if that information is true). That's kind of low, since Slashdot is responsible for 50% of the advertizing revenues of andover - as well as being the strongest brand they have (come on.. who ever HEARD of andover.net before they bought slashdot).

    And I DON'T think VAlinux is overrated. They are one of the key companies developing the merced port (together with SGI) and are going to always have an advantage over other linux box makers. They have the best people (and the highest amount of high quality HR) and have a strong brandname - where that brandname counts - the IT professionals who make the decisions what hardware to buy.




    --------------------------------
  • My mistake for being suckered into this, I can see now that it is an impostor :(

    Pretty stupid tho'

    Daniel.
  • E*Trade probably got its share allocation via its partner E*Offering [eoffering.com], which is an investment bank.

    AFAIK E*Trade has nothing to do with the underwriting; it's just buying a hunk of shares as an investment (and passing some on to its customers [mainly those "Power E*Trade" people] at the IPO price as a perk).

    Here's E*Offering [eoffering.com]'s page on the VA Linux IPO. Nowhere under "Underwriters" will you see the name "E*Trade" or "E*Offering".
  • If they don't raise the price, the underwriters of the IPO will reap the extra cash. Who do you think deserves it more, VA Linux or the Banks? I think it is about time someono does this. Too many companies are giving massive amounts of money away by undervaluing their IPO's.
  • Folks, if you are like me and had no way to place a pre-IPO order, you are shit out of luck on this one. The hype machine has really destroyed the hopes of the little guy getting in on this one. It's just another IPO where 99% of the market is left out (ya gotta love brokerage scamming of IPOs...).
    On CNBC this evening, LNUX was the hot topic. It's expected to OPEN AT OVER $100!!!! The bell is gonna ring, and no one will be able to get this thing cheap. I think this really sucks balls. There's no way I can afford a stock that's $100-???. Yeah, I'll take...uh...ONE share, thanks...
    Oh well. Maybe someday my fortune will come through my own company and I can stop getting all worked up over things like this. At least I bought AAPL at 16 and still hanging in there....
    Congrats to all you schmucks who got it. I can only imagine the frenzy tomorrow.....
  • (I'd probably make a pretty good statue, yeah.)

    Man. First Bruce Perens and now me?)

    This poster is a fake. Notice the period at the end of his name.

    My user # is 57473.

  • They have been allocated shares by an underwriter...at least that is my understanding.
  • Linux is (almost sickeningly) THE buzzword for investors now.

    I'm afraid "investors" is the wrong word for many of those running up the stock prices of any company with even the most remote Linux connection . They're daytraders, momentum players, speculators, gamblers -- but they're not "investing" in these companies because they believe in Linux. In some cases what these folks are doing is a lot closer to a legal Ponzi scheme.

    I have very mixed feelings about the Linux stock craze. On the one hand, I like to invest in genuine Linux-related companies, to support the movement by backing the companies that support it (as I'm not a coder, the only other ways I can really support open source are by using it, especially on servers at work, and talking it up). OTOH, what happens if the bubble bursts? Will people see the current craze as having been a speculative frenzy and leave it at that, or would a boom-turned-bust have graver implications for the open source movement and the companies at its forefront?

  • Dude, read the message over at E*Trade. You are SOL. They stopped taking orders a couple of days ago.
  • That's all I want to know. What day? I don't want to get caught off-guard again, like with Andover.Net, which went public without a date on any finanical news site I looked on. Yahoo Finance's last feature on ANDN was on Sunday and surprise! the stock was being sold Wednesday.. by the time I found out it was already at $62/share and the day was almost over. How do you find out when the shares are supposed be sold?? All they ever say is, "the stock offered to the public __this week__ should raise over $XX Million... " blah blah.. goddamnit.. just tell me what DAY! Can't believe how ambiguous it is!

    -----
    Linux user: if (nt == unstable) { switchTo.linux() }
  • I don't follow you. But if you want, you can email me. My email is shown on my user page.
  • Yes, but remember that it's not just the cash they raise at the IPO, but the value of the stock in the months following also matters to them, since they presumably will use it for aquisitions.

    If the stock rises significantly after the IPO, then investors will feel pretty secure and will likely tolerate the large price swings that are likely to happen. If, OTOH, they get greedy and try to squeeze all the juice out of the IPO, then investors may well bail out, particularly as many are probably in it just to stag the IPO (and stay in iff it's rising).

    This whole Linux stocks craze is somewhat of a self perpetuating myth. If LNUX gets a good launch and rises significantly after the IPO, then it will likely gain mind share as a Linux stock and continue to do well. OTOH, if the IPO doesn't do so well, then it's possible investors may reconsider or take a harder look, and decide that it's really a Dell, not a RedHat.

    While I'm sure the IPO will be a success, given what appears to be insane demand, I just wanted to make the point that it's not in their best interest to "market price" the issue - they need to leave something on the table for the IPO to be a success, which is equally important.
  • Ok, when is VA -REALLY- going to start trading?

    My theory: They reckon their stock's worth at least as much as Red Hat's. Red Hat's is trading almost at the $300 mark. However, they can't just reprice to $300 per share, at the start, without some people being mightily suspicious. So, what they're doing is sneaking the price up, $5 here, $10 there, until they reach the same value as Red Hat. And, incidently, avoid the Y2K headaches on the stock market in the process.

    Sneaky, aren't they!

  • Aw, crud...ideas? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I made a conditional offer yesterday with a limit of $30, thinking that was padded rather generously, and wired money from my bank to E*Trade to precisely cover the desired shares at this limit.

    I'm not comfortable with my limit being right at the upper end of their projected price now, as many have suggested it could likely be a few dollars higher than this...so now I'm considering changing my offer, fewer shares at a higher limit...but then I don't want to screw myself out of shares that I may be able to afford.

    If my limit ends up being below the intial share price, am I just plain screwed, or will I have the opportunity to revise my offer? Likewise if I get chosen as "in" but my offer is above the actual price...will there be an opportunity to add more shares?

    I guess what I'm asking is...what's a safe and realistic limit?

  • Jesus H. Christ!!! Rob! WOW! A Wealthy man as of tomorrow. Maybe that was a mis-print, but if/when these hit $200, homeboy has $28 MILLION. I am starting to feel very ill. Then again, /. has done so much for Linux, it's certainly deserved.
  • I got the Red Hat letter a while ago, but VA Linux didn't send me their letter. Oh well, I guess contributing to the Linux Documentation Project, and writing some utilities and making them available on MetaLab is unimportant. Hmph.
  • It's really quite simple.

    The reason a corporation goes public is in order to get money that they can use for some purpose. The more money, the better. (Especially if they can make more money without issuing more stock, since issuing stock dilutes the value of current shares of stock)

    If a corporation were, say, to go public with 1 million shares of stock and the IPO price is $10, then they get 10 million dollars. If the price then leaps up to $20/share, there's another 10 million dollars that they could have gotten (since that's the market value for the stock and they could have issued at that price instead and sold it all.)

    If VA Linux didn't need money for something, they wouldn't issue public stock. VA Linux is doing it to maximize the amount of money they get from investors in order to do something (open more offices? ramp up business? hire new people to develop new products? who knows?) while trying to minimize the dilution of the stock to the current (non-public) shareholders/owners of the company.

  • Here's my letter (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Here's my letter from valinux@db.com:

    The confirmation of pricing and your share allocation of VA Linux Systems will now be Thursday morning at approximately 7:00 AM PST. We will be contacting you at that time. It will not be tonight as originally planned.

    The market opens at 6:30 AM PST. I'm planning to up and logged in at 6:00 AM PST, ready for underwriter fun and games.

    e*trade is taking reconfirmations right now. The window for reconfirmations is only two hours guaranteed, so it might close any time. If you have an indication of interest on e*trade you need to go there right now.

    WR Hambrecht is taking reconfirmations, too. They mailed me with a URL to click to re-confirm.

    It's time to get in touch with your inner suit. Remember guys, underwrites they can play games, they can make you lose, but they can't make you quit!

  • It doesn't sit well with me. Ponying up ~$1000: OK, ~$2000: well it's tight, but I can manage, ~$3000: sorry son, we'll start the college fund next year. I might have to sell a few shares to make up for the difference.

  • Actually... (TIC) (Score:4)

    by Enoch Root. ( 124053 ) on Wednesday December 08, 1999 @03:30PM (#1473880)
    If this trend of Linux and/or Open Source related companies offering stocks to significant members of the community continues, I think we may have just found how to support the programmers. In fact, this is even better than working for a company: friendly competition develops amongst developers for access to IPO's, increasing code quality and quality of life!

  • Let's discuss Andover.net's impending IPO too. (Score:3)

    by ecampbel ( 89842 ) on Wednesday December 08, 1999 @03:30PM (#1473881)
    I'm sorry about this slightly off-topic post, but I know Slashdot really can't post a story about its IPO during the "quite period". I and I'm sure a lot of other readers would like to know more information about it. A news.c om story [slashdot.org] has info about both VA Systems' and Andover.net's respective IPO's.

    Do you feel that either of these IPO's are good investment opportunities? Is Andover.net's auction style [cnet.com] IPO a good idea? Some investors warn that since institutional investors are not among the initial holders of the stock, their share price could suffer as a result. What do you think?
  • The answers to your questions are yes and yes. Just waiting til 1/15 or maybe before when earnings are due. Blowout quarter expected... = )

  • Well, the fact that they may be "hard as hell to get ahold of" is beside the point. Allegedly poor customer service is not really why some people around here have an axe to grind with E*Trade.

    Well, this is a rather interesting development, to say the least.
    --

  • Incredible Linux stock craze going on.. (Score:3)

    by TurkishGeek ( 61318 ) on Wednesday December 08, 1999 @05:21PM (#1473902)
    I have posted this to another thread, but since Linux stocks are relevant here, I will just re-post.

    I submitted this as a story, but it was rejected.
    I believe it's very interesting and demonstrates the Linux stock craze in the markets very well.
    Check this out:

    A bunch of people on Yahoo chat boards touted a company called Perle Systems; which makes I/O cards and equipment, as the company behind Perl. To make matters worse, the company released a news article about Linux drivers for their products to hype the stock further. Thousands of crazy day traders flocked to buy the stock just because the ticker symbol is PERL and they thought it was Linux-related, and the stock is now up 200% in one day.

    Go check the stock [yahoo.com] "PERL" if you don't believe.

    The company owns Specialix, which made multiport serial cards, and all they did was to put in a press release that announced the availability of Specialix Linux drivers that have already been around for about five years now.
    --

    BluetoothCentral.com [bluetoothcentral.com]
    A site for everything Bluetooth. Coming in January 2000.
  • Find the money and hand it over.

    (--BS Mode == Bu**Sh*T mode --)

    (BS Mode)
    VA will close the 1st day trading at $80 minimum. It will close the year at well over $200. Get in now and take out only your initial investment plus 10% next week.

    Let the rest sit for at least 6 months. Next summer you will be rolling in dough so just send some this way.
    (/BS Mode)

    Of course I don't know any of this and have no knowledge or interest in the stock market. I'm a hardware hacker and I failed accounting at high school.
  • "SUN stock is going down"

    What planet are from? On my planet SUNW just split for the second time this year and went up 10% today. It is a monster stock that is outperforming Microsoft.
  • Remember -- due to our little friend the quiet period, don't expect any stories about the ANDN stock offering for some time.

    We're still welcome to comment about it -- who else watched ANDN more than triple on its opening day? ;)
  • Well Since Andover jumped 45 points on its first day of trading opening at 18 and closing at 63, I'd say it would have been a good IPO to get in on.

    Damn, why didn't I bid higher.....

    Chris

  • Check me on this.. but I just looked at some
    of the systems that they are peddling and the
    prices seem way rich to me. Like how much
    premium should be paid for a low end wintel box
    that already has linux installed (and I suppose
    configured properly)? Please correct me if I
    am off base but I really do think you can do
    better buying from the likes of Dell/GTW/Micron
    etc and installing Linux yourself.

    Of course I'm 60 bid for their shares when they
    start trading...

  • Re:Here's my letter (Score:4)

    by chrisd ( 1457 ) <chrisd@dibona.com> on Wednesday December 08, 1999 @03:37PM (#1473917) Homepage
    Please note that he did not end his italics correctly. The letter that the underwriters sent ended at "planned".

    Also, VA's only underwriters are:

    Credit Suisse First Boston
    Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown
    Hambrect & Quist (Not WR Hambrect, diff. comapny altogether)
    Lehman Brothers

    Other brokers offering the shares purchased them from the syndicate of underwriters and are not under our control. Thanks.

    Just trying to clear away any confusion before it begins.

    Chris
    --
    Grant Chair, Linux Int.
    VP, SVLUG

  • I'm sorry for the stupid previous post. Did any of you invest in the IPO. How many shares were you able to purchase?
  • E*TRADE's latest confirms the $30 pricing, and says customers who've placed conditional offers have until 11:15am EST to cancel if they want to (after which presumably they run their allocation)... Sounds like it may start trading around midday.

  • Post your "hello world" program on freshmeat! (Score:3)

    by sethg ( 15187 ) on Wednesday December 08, 1999 @05:32PM (#1473927) Homepage
    That way, you will be listed in a database of open-source software authors, and the next time someone does a Linux IPO, they will let you in on the ground floor along with all the other hackers.
  • Wires officially take 24-48 hours to clear. I think the only thing faster is to use an EFT (i.e. ATM card) and that can be done by E-trade if your bank isn't open. Only problem is you need to send E-trade a blank voided check so they have the codes for your bank and account, so that takes a bit of setup time.
  • Note that there's another party that gets "screwed" further by the pre-IPO price raises: the Linux community members granted the option to purchase pre-IPO shares; they benefit less from the IPO and VA Linux benefits more.

    I don't blame VA for leaving less money on the table, but I'd be surprised if the IPO jump is as large as others we've been seeing. The smaller the jump, the more tempted people are to flip and lockin their win, which could backfire. We'll see I suppose.

    --LP
  • I actually "called it" and told everyone to buy CORL at 11 3/8.

    Everyone bought it except me, though. Spread the wealth, is what I say...


    (Don't forget to save your money for TransMeta! :-) )

    -m
  • You could have indicated interest E*Trade in lots of 100 shares - but it's a lottery system, and it's over. And E*Trade's site is down in any case. :/


    ----
  • ...Impending no more


    Andover went public today ~ 1:00 - 1:30 PM


    check this link out.
    http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=ANDN&d=t [yahoo.com]

    ANDN, on the NASDAQ

    It's pre-IPO was ~ $18, came to the market at $41 and it closed today at $63; quite a surge, but it seems typical for the "anything linux goes" mentaity.


    It seems like the "anything .com" phenomena has now grown to "anything linux"

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