IPOs are not vehicles to "invest in companies": they are under-priced opportunities to flip to those excluded from the exclusive financial sector club - the foundational support for the code of silence that underpins all the corruption and illegality of that sector. Companies accept the under-pricing because of the free publicity associated with the IPO hype. 

RL       

From: Societies for the History of Economics [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of
Scott Cullen [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Saturday, September 21, 2013 4:34 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [SHOE] Use of Entrepreneur in English

Thanks for that distinctinction.  If I understand it, then, stockholders who
buy IPOs invest in the companies but otherwise merely trade shares among
themselves.  Would it be accurate to say that some of them are traders - in
the business of making money on the trading; and some of them are investors
- looking to invest their money for growth and or return or safety?
Certainly, shares (equities) are called investments.  Is that a common or
commercial usage rather than a precise, economic one?

 

In any case, are any of them "entrepreneurs" in or of those companies?

 

----- Original Message ----- 

From: Ken <mailto:[log in to unmask]>  Gordon 

To: [log in to unmask] 

Sent: Friday, September 20, 2013 12:05 PM

Subject: Re: [SHOE] Use of Entrepreneur in English

 

Microsoft's and Ford's stockholders, by and large, do not invest in the
companies. They buy the companies' shares from, and sell the companies'
shares to, each other.

On 2013-09-20, at 5:16 AM, Scott Cullen <[log in to unmask]> wrote:





  Ford and Microsoft matured into massive corporate entities that would not
be called entrepenurial by any measure.  But their stockholders invest in
them.