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> Stock markets exist so that companies can raise money to fund their projects

The amount of money corporate America raises from initial and secondary offerings in the stock market is negligible relative to corporate bonds, lines of credit, bank loans etc. Companies don't raise money from the stock market in any real sense. It has been this way since World War II (and possibly before).

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That’s certainly true in absolute numbers, but there are certain subsections of the market where stock offerings remain a primary capital instrument. Biotechs will often do an IPO even 5-10 years before the product is ready to launch, and then do several secondaries along the way.

Moderna, foe example. And I imagine a few companies going through SPACs today.

that only addresses one side of the story - banks/credit decision makers often use market capitalization as a factor in underwriting. The easiest example of how equity prices influence credit is NFLX - their 1st big debt raise was in 2015 (2b?) when NFLX's burned 700M in cash and was pledging to be cash flow negative for the next 3+ years. Also see all the converts that a lot of recent tech IPOs have started offering

edit: changed the unit from billions to millions.

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