[dstein]

Really the only people making any money here are the underwriter and venture capitalists who took this company public - the guys who pumped up and are now dumping these shares. While they're high fiving eachother with a job well done it's setting up the exact same crash that happened last time.

[brosephius]

there's a lockup period, nobody is selling their pre-IPO shares now.

[dstein]

That would prevent insiders and common shareholders from selling their shares, but it would in no way prevent an investment bank from unloading their shares through some sort of intermediary.

[brosephius]

you mean the underwriters of the IPO are not subject to a lockup period? that seems unusual, but I'd believe it I guess.

[nikcub]

They are supposed to be selling the stock in order to create the market. If you look at the S1 filing it outlines who sold what today.

Everything outside of that is subject to lockout periods (and in the case of executives they are also vesting on new stock)

[crizCraig]

From the S1 filling (http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1271024/0001193125110...):

Morgan Stanley & Co. Incorporated may, in its sole discretion, release all or some portion of the shares subject to lock-up agreements prior to expiration of the lock-up period.

Related poll: http://www.wepolls.com/r/462580/Is-it-right-for-Wall-Street-...

[dstein]

They probably are, but what I mean is they could use some 3rd party to short their own shares. We're talking about people that can rob the US government of a trillion dollars in plain sight.

[brosephius]

what 3rd party? banks usually are the third party in these sorts of transactions.

[dstein]

Through an under the table deal with any hedge fund, or any number of other means, an investment bank that owns LinkedIn shares could quite easily insure their profits. That is exactly what these businesses do.

[Aloisius]

How many people have the ability to pump up a stock several hundred million dollars? These are most likely hedge funds investing.

[jrwoodruff]

Read "The Wolf on Wallstreet." Don't know if it's still happening that way, but the author made it sound like "pump and dump" was (is?) a pretty common game.

[loganfrederick]

Having read the book you mentioned, the chop shop practices of that era have largely been killed off. I'd give more citations if I wasn't responding from my droid,