(As an aside, i think WeWork’s S1 has turned to a remarkable feat of marketing, making buzz around the company in cycles who are likely to be their customers)
So some wealthy people will buy bonds with negative yields, others will buy equity at inflated valuations like WeWork.
Strange times.
Pretty good time to have a lot of money (it's always a good time to have a lot of money), to own a business in a developing economy, to start a "tech" company to be acquired in a developed economy, to be in private equity, or to fraud/bluff your way into a lot of money in a developed economy (true productivity-increasing products/technologies are currently few and far between but globalization of technology and outsourcing is still going strong).
Not a great time to be poor, a saver, a licensed professional, or worker of any sort in a developed economy (aside from working at a "tech" company).
An index fund might be a sounder investment.
--It must be a U.S. company.
--The market cap must be $5.3 billion or more.
--The public float must consist of at least 50% of outstanding shares.
--It must have positive reported earnings in the most recent quarter, as well as over the four most recent quarters.
--The stock must have an active market and must trade for a reasonable share price.
https://www.fool.com/knowledge-center/what-is-the-sp-500.asp...
No one said anything about "anytime soon"
(1) They are a US company.
(2) They raised at a $40bn valuation in their last funding round, so I don't know why you think a $5.3bn market cap is out of the range of possibility.
(3) The float will be whatever it is.
(4) WeWork is a real estate company. Real estate companies tend to make profit. The biggest issue most people have with WeWork is that their profits look small.
(5) Whatever that means. They will be in an active market, but reasonable is in the eye of the beholder.
Tilray had similar problems trying to monetize their high valuation.
The point is that bubbly tech prices in public markets are no less fragile than bubbly ones in private markets.
But yeah, if you sell integer percentages of a company in a short timeframe, you're right that you can't expect to get the current market price. I'm surprised that it moved it so much in this case, though.