SPACs: the most ludicrous bubble we'll ever see... why not $IAC?
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There are a lot of things about financial markets that confuse me these days. For example, I'm confused by the pricing of a bunch of consumer experience type stocks (high end restaurants, movie theaters, etc.). It's pretty clear to me that their current capital structures are completely unsuitable for today's environment, and they'll need to raise huge amounts of equity and/or restructure to make it through to the other side of COVID. I'm not saying these businesses are worthless; just that they need capital to make it through. That creates something of a circularity problem: if their share price is high, they can just issue stock to get through to the other side. If their stock is low, they'll need to file for bankruptcy in order to make it through (this is a simplification but directionally correct). In general, when businesses are struggling, have large fixed costs, and clearly need capital to make it through to an uncertain future, their equity is decimated and they have to file (the stock is too low to use equity to fund the business through). Today, however, the market just doesn't seem to care: it's near wide open for basically unlimited equity raises and massive dilution of current shareholders. The headliner here is clearly Hertz (HTZ), which filed for bankruptcy and made clear that their equity was almost certainly worthless yet
SPACs: the most ludicrous bubble we'll ever see... why not $IAC?
SPACs: the most ludicrous bubble we'll ever…
SPACs: the most ludicrous bubble we'll ever see... why not $IAC?
There are a lot of things about financial markets that confuse me these days. For example, I'm confused by the pricing of a bunch of consumer experience type stocks (high end restaurants, movie theaters, etc.). It's pretty clear to me that their current capital structures are completely unsuitable for today's environment, and they'll need to raise huge amounts of equity and/or restructure to make it through to the other side of COVID. I'm not saying these businesses are worthless; just that they need capital to make it through. That creates something of a circularity problem: if their share price is high, they can just issue stock to get through to the other side. If their stock is low, they'll need to file for bankruptcy in order to make it through (this is a simplification but directionally correct). In general, when businesses are struggling, have large fixed costs, and clearly need capital to make it through to an uncertain future, their equity is decimated and they have to file (the stock is too low to use equity to fund the business through). Today, however, the market just doesn't seem to care: it's near wide open for basically unlimited equity raises and massive dilution of current shareholders. The headliner here is clearly Hertz (HTZ), which filed for bankruptcy and made clear that their equity was almost certainly worthless yet