Michael Hiltzik

Pulitzer-winning columnist, author, mhiltzik@latimes. Golden State, my new history of California, see for details.

[Michael Hiltzik @hiltzikm]

Want to know the historical background of California's legal strike against Trump? Read my history of California, "Golden State," published by HarperCollins (https://t.co/OX7Q8hLu6s)--and pay attention to the legend on the state flag....

[Jim Stewartson, Decelerationist 🇨🇦🇺🇦🇺🇸 @jimstewartson]

🚨 This is how you turn a stock market crash into great depression.

[Jamie Bonkiewicz @JamieBonkiewicz]

BREAKING: The FBI has recovered several boxes of algae starter kits from Antifa headquarters.

[Christopher Hooks @cd_hooks]

they should make another state that’s even half as good as California

[David Leavitt 🎲🎮🧙‍♂️🌈 @DavidLeavitt]

Who did this?

[Michael Hiltzik @hiltzikm]

Commentary: A porn firm that a judge called a 'copyright troll' now has Meta in its sights — and it could win https://t.co/PsQtoJfhBU

[Thierry from arvy 🇨🇭 @ThierryBorgeat]

SpaceX $SPCX traded 256 million shares yesterday.

The entire public float is 556 million.

So in one day, almost half of every tradable share changed hands. Bought and sold, over and over, in a few hours.

Here's why that number is absurd. SpaceX sold 555.6 million shares at $135 to raise $75 billion. That float is barely 4% of the company. Musk and insiders hold the other 96%, locked up and unable to sell.

Tiny supply. Enormous demand. Index funds that have to own it, retail that wants to, traders chasing the move.

The result is a $2 trillion company that trades like a penny stock. Up to $211 pre-market, swinging double-digit percentages between coffees.

This is what happens when you list 4% of the seventh-largest company in America and let the world fight over the scraps.

The price isn't telling you what SpaceX is worth.

It's telling you how few shares there are to buy.

[Michael Hiltzik @hiltzikm]

Commentary: Small investors have powered SpaceX higher, but they'll shoulder much of the risk when reality bites https://t.co/ZXsRQkqNe5

[Andy Flach 🌵 @AndyfromTucson]

@JasonJournoDC @chamath How on earth could a Republican lose in a city that Harris won by 50 points?!

[Michael Hiltzik @hiltzikm]

@FareedZakaria @TheDragonFeeder Your take is worthless and mostly ignorant about California politics

[Michael Hiltzik @hiltzikm]

@haroldpollack @MeganTStevenson @umichbball I once heard a Caltech dean talk about how the incoming frosh class was filled with the smartest kids in their high schools, only to discover that they were also-rans at Caltech. He'd tell them, "I sympathize. When I got here, Richard Feynman was on the faculty."

[Michael Hiltzik @hiltzikm]

@mcelarier No, thank you!

[Michael Hiltzik @hiltzikm]

@RealJimChanos seconded

[Michael Hiltzik @hiltzikm]

Gee, California has the same problems as almost every other state, none of which has solved them. Let me know, Mr Zakaria, when the Cal GOP proposes any answers: https://t.co/1P2PJcDJ95

[Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @AOC]

But taxing wealth so normal people can afford to see a doctor and not go bankrupt over inhalers is radical left. OK

[Michael Hiltzik @hiltzikm]

@binarybits Nowhere

[Michael Hiltzik @hiltzikm]

@ATRightMovies Rocky horror picture show

[mass ave curmudgeon @mass_ave]

“Oh my God. All the time... you finally, really did it. You maniacs! Damn you! God damn you all to hell!"

[Lee Roach @leevalueroach]

SpaceX is the most overhyped IPO of the decade and it will end exactly the way every overhyped IPO ends. Facebook IPO’d at $38 and traded under that for 15 months. Uber IPO’d at $45 and is still below that adjusted seven years later for a while. WeWork tried at $47 billion and ended at zero. Robinhood IPO’d at $38, hit $85, then $7. Coinbase IPO’d at $381 and was at $40 two years later. Rivian IPO’d at a $100 billion valuation with no meaningful revenue and gave back 90%. Beyond Meat. Peloton. Lyft. DoorDash. Bird. Each one a “generational company” the day it priced.

Each one a wealth destruction event for retail within 18 months. The pattern is not a coincidence. Hype IPOs are designed to transfer wealth from the people buying the story to the people who built the story. The bankers get paid. The early employees get out. The VCs get a markup they can show their LPs. The retail investor gets the bag. SpaceX is a great company. That has nothing to do with whether it’s a great stock at IPO. Greatness was already priced in five funding rounds ago. You are not getting in early. You are buying the exit. The only IPO worth chasing is the one nobody is talking about. Those don’t exist anymore because every IPO is marketed like a movie release. So the answer is: don’t chase. Wait two years. Buy it down 70% when the lockup unwinds and the narrative breaks. Or don’t buy it at all and put the money somewhere the bankers haven’t already extracted the alpha. Hype is not an asset class. It’s a tax.

[Neil Stone @DrNeilStone]

The idea vaccines cause autism was invented by Andrew Wakefield in 1998 and was so thoroughly debunked he lost his license for gross malpractice

And here we are 27 years later RFK Jr dredging up the same nonsense

Such a tiresome waste of time