The $100 break was the only great opportunity I saw but I had other positions to monitor and completely missed it. I did catch a 10 point bounce of the $125. The rest was a coin toss IMO with way too much risk after slippage & the spread. My guess is that a ton of momo traders & hedgies got killed in those dives cause they were the ones holding the bag. The spread & slippage alone was enough of a reason not to trade it, one guy in our office (not our group) was up 4 points, and went to get out. By the time he closed the position, he lost 3 points.
The shares are not available to short because the BD DO NOT HAVE ACTUAL possession OF THE SHARES TILL THE UNDERWRITING FIRMS SEND THEM OVER (3 DAYS). If you were allowed to short an IPO it is probably an illegal act as the firm does not have them to short. Most if not all of the shares were sold at $27/share on the initial PUBLIC OFFERING to the people/firms that got them. A lot of these people did not trade them so there is a very small float to actually trade, If one learns how an IPO actually takes place one can predict fairly accurately which will take off and which won't. When UPS went public several years ago, the specialist was shorting all the way up and was wiped out when the stock did not retrace. Was taken over the next day!! People making a market want a nice slow steady trading, not this type of activity. Too easy for them to get creamed. Just like Las Vegas does not like the wild guy betting $1 million on each throw at the crap table. SteveD
Obviously you didn't trade it because if you had you would have noticed that little 20 point "dip" from 150 to 130 in about one minute. I guess nobody on ET was caught in that because everyone here only buys bottoms and sells tops.
i know guy with some firms who shorted this. as long as one covers that day many can get away with it.there' always b games on wall street
If you do not have the shares it is an illegal short and the BD could/would lose his license. In this enforcement environment I don't think any broker is stupid enough to do this!!! Has nothing to do with when you cover. You sold something you do not own. If they really wanted to get nasty they could charge you with fraud. Most traders on this thread don't understand exactly what a short sale actually is. Just my opinion SteveD
How can someone buy 50 shares or 10 shares (no partial fills)? Isn't 100 shares minimum? Plus how come there are no stories about the sucker who bought it at 150$? All I see is people making easy money with it.
I started trading it right before that first big dive from 150 to 120. I bought 149.80, 140, 130, 125. Yep, I don't know what i was thinking, made money on it though. edit: just looked at my fills, I actually started buying it before that, around 145, and had some sales at 151
I feel sick. I just joined scalptrades.com on friday and they traded bidu for real while I paper traded like a fool and missed out on the once in a life time opportunity. The following were my paper results trading 500 shares of bidu as they were called: 1st trade= +$1200 2nd trade= +$10,000 3rd trade= +$600 4th trade= -$200 5th trade= +$27,000 as it flew to 150!! 6th trade= -$5060 7th trade= -$2000 8th trade= +$2500 Thumbs up to scalptrades.com!
As im sure (or hope) you know a paper fill is not real. I didnt not trade it so i dont know for sure, but im assuming by the stories a buy or sell could have slipped over 1 point, so 1 point in and 1 point out of 500 shares is -1000 per trade instantly. Not to mention missing the offers, and plain old luck. Im not trying to be a dick or anything but we all know trading paper is not real, especially in a gambling trade like this one.