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Comment by fleitz | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, when it bursts short it all the way to the bottom, hopefully panic selling ensues and you can pick it up a firesales prices at the bottom. Just saw citigroup at $40 today and am kicking myself for not having the cajones to pick it up at $2. Hindsight is 20/20 though and I know I liked it at $18 as well.

Looks like I'm being downvoted, I guess the CEO of overture reads HN.

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1 for 10 reverse split...

Ahh ok, I was wondering how the heck it recovered. I'm glad I didn't pick it up then. I haven't followed the finance sector for about a year.

Why glad? a 10-for-1 reverse split means that the stock is still double it's $2 price point. Doubling your money in a year or two isn't bad at all.

I could have also picked it up at $18 (pre-reverse split)

Well yeah; that would have sucked. :P

I always find it weird that retail investors speak of share price when that number is so obviously easy to game. Seems to me like it'd be better to think of it in terms of percentage of the company than in numbers of shares.

You're right about that number being so obviously easy to game, but share price isn't completely irrelevant since many mutual funds won't hold shares with a price < $5 [1]. Also, share prices < $1 can lead to delisting from exchanges such as NYSE or Nasdaq [2]

[1]http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/3011203?f=related [2]http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/columnist/krantz/2009-01...

right, but a company that is worth something is going to do a reverse split when it starts trading in the $5-$10/share range. Share price is technical arcana, something the accountants should worry about.

Personally, I'd compare letting the stock price fall below $5 to filing your required government regulation paperwork late. If it happens often, there is something wrong, sure, but it's something that can be fixed by firing a couple of paper pushers; it doesn't indicate a fundamental weakness in the company's business.

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