Whois & Analysis for sharespost.com

Initial public offering (IPO) or stock market launch is a type of public offering in which shares of a company usually are sold to institutional investors that in turn, sell to the general public, on a securities exchange, for the first time.

Through this process, a privately held company transforms into a public company.

Initial public offerings are mostly used by companies to raise the expansion of capital, possibly to monetize the investments of early private investors, and to become publicly traded enterprises.

A company selling shares is never required to repay the capital to its public investors.

After the IPO, when shares trade freely in the open market, money passes between public investors.

Although IPO offers many advantages, there are also significant disadvantages, chief among these are the costs associated with the process and the requirement to disclose certain information that could prove helpful to competitors.

The IPO process is colloquially known as going public.

The stock (also capital stock) of a corporation is constituted of the equity stock of its owners.

A single share of the stock represents fractional ownership of the corporation in proportion to the total number of shares.

In liquidation, the stock represents the residual assets of the company that would be due to stockholders after discharge of all senior claims such as secured and unsecured debt.

Stockholders' equity cannot be withdrawn from the company in a way that is intended to be detrimental to the company's creditors.

To invest is to allocate money (or sometimes another resource, such as time) in the expectation of some benefit in the future.

In financial markets, share is a unit of account for various investments.

It often means the stock of a corporation, but is also used for collective investments such as mutual funds, limited partnerships, and real estate investment trusts.

In finance, a growth stock is a stock.

of a company that generates substantial and sustainable positive cash flow and whose revenues and earnings are expected to increase at a faster rate than the average company within the same industry.

A growth company typically has some sort of competitive advantage (a new product, a breakthrough patent, overseas expansion) that allows it to fend off competitors.

Growth stocks usually pay smaller dividends, as the company typically reinvests retained earnings in capital projects.