Finance Articles

Virgin Galactic's Carrier Aircraft VMS Eve and VSS Unity Take to the Skies.

Virgin Galactic stock is skyrocketing. It’s just hype.

February 24, 2020

Reading Time: < 1 minute “Every couple of years, a new stock mania captures the imagination of the investing public. From 3-D printers to the blockchain and pot stocks, many investors fall for stocks with seemingly limitless potential. What’s the latest frenzy infecting stocks? It may be Virgin Galactic Holdings, which could very well be the frothiest stock around right now,” writes Tae Kim of Barron’s.  See if Cordell Eminent Scholar Chair Jay Ritter agrees with the hype in this story from Barron’s. 

Circular sign with airbnb triangle logo mounted on a brick wall outside

Airbnb swings to a loss as costs climb ahead of IPO

February 12, 2020

Reading Time: < 1 minute “Airbnb Inc. swung to a loss for the first nine months of last year as costs rose sharply, according to people close to the company, raising questions about the valuation and timing of the home-sharing giant’s much-anticipated public-markets debut,” writes The Wall Street Journal.  The loss isn’t too unusual, though, according to Cordell Eminent Scholar Chair Jay Ritter, as he’s found that fewer than one in four technology IPOs in the five years through 2019 were profitable.  See what else

Manipulating arm on a black and white background

New study highlights the real cost of political interference in banking

February 11, 2020

Reading Time: 3 minutes GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Banks across the world have long faced a common threat – political interference. Previous studies have shown that the world average of government ownership of banks is almost 42 percent, putting banks at risk of political capture. Following the 2008 financial crisis, when many governments stepped in to save their banks from crisis, deep political divides formed and caused political interference to become the number one industry concern among bankers, non-bankers and regulators, according to a study

Jay Ritter talks on CNBC

Why this IPO expert says investors are ghosting Casper

February 6, 2020

Reading Time: < 1 minute CNBC’s “Power Lunch” team discusses the upcoming Casper IPO with Jay Ritter, Cordell Eminent Scholar Chair and IPO expert. See what Ritter had to say about why investors are ghosting Casper. 

Multi-story building with large long windows with CenterState Bank logo at top of the building

Winter Haven-based CenterState Bank: Merger with South State ‘will keep us competitive’

February 6, 2020

Reading Time: < 1 minute “Winter Haven-based CenterState and South State, headquartered in Columbia, S.C., announced the all-stock merger valued at $3.2 billion in a Jan. 27 statement. If approved by regulators, the combined bank, which will take the South State Bank name, will be the eighth largest bank in the Southeast with a market value of about $6 billion and assets of $34 billion,” writes Kevin Bouffard of the Winter Haven News Chief.  Bouffard spoke with Richardson Faculty Fellow Jim Parrino, an expert on

Car keys, car model on the signed agreement document, Buying & Selling car concept

The decline in secured debt

January 30, 2020

Reading Time: < 1 minute “What role does collateral play in corporate borrowing?” ask Assistant Professor of Finance Nitish Kumar and his colleagues Efraim Benmelech of Northwestern University and Raghuram Rajan of the University of Chicago. The researchers explain that collateral comforts and protects a lender against the threat of a default. “When an effective system of seniority of claims is not available, creditors who register the collateral backing their debt with a collateral registry effectively establish the seniority of their debt claim, at least

Mustafa Emin and Sang Kuy Park

Finance and marketing PhD students honored with teaching awards

January 28, 2020

Reading Time: 2 minutes GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Ph.D. students Mustafa Emin and Sang Kyu Park were awarded Warrington College of Business Ph.D. Teaching Awards for their teaching efforts in the fall and spring 2019 semesters.  The award is presented by the Teaching & Learning Center at Warrington to recognize outstanding graduate student teaching and instructional innovation. The recipient for each semester is selected by the Warrington Teaching Committee. Emin is a Ph.D. candidate in Warrington’s Department of Finance, Insurance and Real Estate. His current

Side view of an electric car being charged

Money-losing companies mushroom even as stocks hit new highs

January 10, 2020

Reading Time: < 1 minute “Tesla Inc. shares have doubled in three months, while General Electric Co. shares are up 44%. The pair are the two most valuable loss-making companies, part of a shockingly high proportion of listed companies that have been losing money—despite, or perhaps because of, the long bull market,” writes the Wall Street Journal.  Cordell Eminent Scholar Chair Jay Ritter shares research showing how about three-quarters of IPOs were made by loss-making companies last year in a story from senior WSJ columnist James

Jay Ritter

Mr. IPO

December 10, 2019

Reading Time: < 1 minute Having spent his career tracking the emergence of new public companies, Cordell Eminent Scholar Chair Jay Ritter has earned the moniker “Mr. IPO” from industry professionals and journalists alike. Read more about why Ritter decided to start tracking IPOs, why IPOs are important for the economy and what he thinks is the better investment option for small investors instead of IPOs in this story from UF Explore. 

3D rendering of pump jack in an oil field

When to Buy Into Aramco

December 9, 2019

Reading Time: < 1 minute As Saudi Arabia’s oil giant Aramco is set to go public, investors should consider a number of factors when thinking about buying shares. Cordell Eminent Scholar Chair Jay Ritter comments on when to consider buying into Aramco in this story from The Wall Street Journal.