fun and insightful discussion on Facebook re: shorting Groupon shortly after IPO

Short.

working capital deficit of $300MM and growing...salivating over the option chains opening up in 2 weeks...buying up as many PUT leaps as I can in 2012....

Short.

Short!

Make a voting option list here. Could be fun to count.

Count me in the "short" group.

that's easy, go for it

It's sort of like you need a Groupon for Groupon, no?

short!

short

Wait for hype to push it to $40-45, then short allll the way down.

Short it...

short it... you can buy it back for 50% off!

Short!

This bloated pig is more than likely a great long term short, in the near term who knows. Market makers and the big institutions will be able to manipulate this in the short term due to the low float, also you will likely have to pay a heavy price to short this once the borrow becomes available. I got the borrow on Linked In the other day and was told it would cost me 17%. Maybe wait til the options come out, but those will likely be expensive too. I'd start building a short here and wait to see if they manipulate it higher in the coming weeks/months.

Seems like a great long term short, but better have some good capital in your account. The float is less than $1B and is thus subject to some crazy manipulation...

Amish when you say wait for the options are talking puts?

Look at the 30 day LNKD chart post IPO. SHORT.

I'll be the contrarian. No, don't short.

Courtney, yes referring to puts. I would think they will come out within the next 2-3 weeks, at least thats when LNKD options started trading after its IPO

short

Let the hype settle in FIRST --then short, short, and short some more...

Heck yeah..it's way over.

This could be your hedging strategy: long Lashou and short Groupon :)

right and once it's optionable, if you think it's headed down in the future, could do a bear call spread: sell a call you think will expire worthless (e.g. Jan 27c or 28c), and buy a strike or two higher to hedge. If it closes below the call you sold you pocket the profit, if not the amount you can lose is constrained

There's some great advice here, but the most important piece of advice is to limit your losses by staying disciplined.

The market can stay insane longer than most of us are willing to admit.

Thank you for the fascinating Convo, Tim.

Here's the original Facebook thread, which didn't survive our migration from 106miles.net to PandaWhale.com ...

Some other great Convos with discussions about Groupon:

• Bubble IPOs

• Lessons Learned from the First Few Years of Groupon

• Founders Cashing Out

• The best way to manage a fledgling business is to be impatient for profit but patient for growth

It turns out shorting Groupon at $28 would have yielded great returns.

Now, the Sharks are circling with GRPN at $14/share and the SEC investigating.