Quotes on the Baidu IPO
Shades of 1999:
A fine collection of analysts’ comments from around the web at China Net Investor:
Consider that CBS Marketwatch cited a IDC report as saying the entire China online ad market was $130 million in 2004. Now I think Baidu may surpass a $1.3 billion market cap by the end of first day of trading (China Net Investor: Baidu now has a market capitalization of $3.92 billion!), and if that happens, then I must say that I don’t know of that many other companies that trade at 10x INDUSTRY revenues, even if the industry happens to be growing real fast.
and
“Baidu.com’s P-E ratio is sick”
and Bill Bishop (via Silicon Beat):
“Who in the world doesn’t now think Baidu is China’s Google, even though Google is still really China’s Google?”
and from a comment to the same post:
I watched the stock price like watching a movie. A fantastic show for traders. There are 4 million shares outstanding and the trading volume is 22 million. This means every share has been traded 5 times. It is absolutely not long term investment. it is a toy for traders only.
Good news: It’s a real company, with a real market.
Bad news: Retail investors want to buy shares because they have a feeling it’s like Google. It’s not.
