Warrington in the News Articles: page 28

What a difference a day makes. On Thursday, Ostin Technology GroupOST –21.26%, a Chinese supplier of display modules, gave back most of the 892% gain from its first day as a publicly traded company.

The IPO market has seen quite a few low-float listings this year among the few firms that have gone public, said Cordell Eminent Scholar Jay Ritter, who studies special-purpose acquisition companies, or SPACS, and IPOs. Almost all are money-losing companies with little or no revenue, Ritter said.

Last year, Facebook rebranded itself as Meta, signaling its shift from traditional social media to a big bet on the so-called metaverse. This network of 3D, online spaces is accessed through virtual reality headsets like Meta’s Oculus and promises to revolutionize internet communications. But is there substance behind the hype, or is the metaverse just a fad? And if virtual reality worlds are here to stay, what do policymakers need to know about them? To answer those questions, Political Economy with James Pethokoukis brought Mark Jamison on the podcast.

Jamison is the director of the Public Utility Research Center at the University of Florida’s Warrington College of Business and a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Over the past several months, Jamison has been writing about the metaverse and the challenges it faces.

Steinway Musical Instruments plans to go public as it continues to mix tradition with innovation. But is this the right time for an IPO?

Cordell Eminent Scholar Jay Ritter weighs in.

With SPACs, “you’ve got the people involved as a sponsor and you can check their criminal record, but it’s not like you have to spend a huge amount of time in due diligence,” explains Cordell Eminent Scholar Jay Ritter.

“Elon Musk created a stir by becoming Twitter’s largest shareholder and then offering to buy the company outright,” writes Public Utility Research Center Director and Gunter Professor Mark Jamison. “He says he wants to create a public platform that is ‘broadly inclusive’ and ‘maximally trusted’ while putting little emphasis on profits. If this is what Musk wants to do, this is the moment.”

In 2020, City Furniture Professor Aner Sela researched how behaviors change when people do certain activities on their phones rather than on a computer or in person. The study found that when people purchased items on their cell phones, they were willing to pay more for items that they viewed as expressive and unique. He hypothesizes it is because people feel more in tune with their emotions when using the device.

While Beijing suggests a deal is imminent, there is “still quite a distance” between the two governments’ positions, says Cordell Eminent Scholar Jay Ritter, who focuses on initial public offerings (IPOs).

Cordell Eminent Scholar Jay Ritter shares his IPO insights for this story about the JOBS Act, which celebrated its 10th birthday on Tuesday. Signed into law by President Obama to great bipartisan fanfare, it was intended to increase the number of companies going public but has yielded mixed results.

Cordell Eminent Scholar Jay Ritter contributed his expertise to this PolitiFact investigation into what could be done to withdraw Florida’s investment in Russia-backed entities.

PolitiFact learned that the process by which Florida could begin to divest state funds from Russian-based entities is more complex than Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried presented. But there is more Governor Ron DeSantis could do to signal the state’s intentions.

Public Utility Research Center Director of Energy Studies Ted Kury shares his insights to help debunk a recent Facebook post claiming that a ‘gas out’ in April 1997 caused gas prices to dip by 30 cents a gallon overnight.