Lessons from last night's E*T share distribution.
Last night E*Trade distributed its shares of the Value America IPO. For a blow by blow account of what happened one can read the VUSA thread, but here's a summary, from my viewpoint.
1. Distribution procedure. It began about 6:00 PM Eastern and went on to about 6:45. Notice that one was "in" first showed up in one's accounts section, not by receiving an alert. At 6:45 the unlucky "outs" began receiving flashing red letterbox alerts notifying them.
2. 100 share limit. No one got more than 100 shares.
3. Who got in. Folks who had applied online, with time stamps from their IOI between 5:39 and 6:37 got in. Two folks reported doing their IOI by phone at 5:09 and 5:18 and getting in. Note: one (unconfirmed) poster said she got in with an IOI time stamp of 7:25. My stamp was 6:48 and I didn't get in.
4. Who didn't get in. Several applicants within the time period mentioned above did not get in. There seemed no pattern as to why they did not get in. Folks time-stamped as early as early as 5:23 and 5:39 reported not getting in
5. Platinum status. It made no difference whether one got in or not. (This is in accordance with stated E*T policy.)
6. Value America customer status. Whether one was a VA customer and checked the IOI box to that effect did not appear to make any difference.
7. Flipping. Flipping previous E*T IPO's did not prevent one from getting in.
8. "First come, first serve." E*T's stated policy is to do a "first come, first serve" distribution, based on the time-stamp. If the information of the posters on the VUSA thread is accurate, it does not appear that this actually happened.
9. One possible explanation. (From a post on the VUSA thread):
Like everything at E-Trade, it depends on who you talk to.
Warren E*TRADE C/S:
It doesn't matter when you enter in an indication of interest as to whether or not you receive shares--this is not done on a first-in, first-served basis. Rather, what happens is we close the window, find out how many shares we have been allocated, and begin to issue out shares in 100 share blocks. If we have more indications than shares, they are then issued out randomly in blocks of 100.
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Again, all this depends on reported/unconfirmed information, as posted.
Best wishes,
Tom |
