Nobody, Mr. Dean said, resisted ending a presidential campaign more than he did. Once a high-flying front-runner, he had a string of setbacks that left him feeling, by February 2004, much as Mr. Sanders does today: furious at an unfair system and determined to fight on.
Airlines Reap Record Profits, and Fliers Get Peanuts
Twitter Filing Opens Books on Highflier
By VINDU GOEL and MICHAEL J. DE LA MERCED
Twitter has taken the cover off its initial public offering, making
public its prospectus and setting the clock on one of the most
anticipated stock sales of the year.
Has Bubble 2.0 popped so soon? With Groupon's stock now 24% below its IPO price, not to mention other highfliers like Pandora Media and Zipcar that have now lost investors money since going public, many would argue yes. Groupon shares fell 9% Monday even as the broader market soared.
But there's another, more important threshold that Groupon has yet to fall below: its last private market valuation before going public. Even at $15.24, where shares closed Monday, Groupon still fetches a market capitalization of some $10 billion, more than double the $4.8 billion valuation at which the company was able to raise money in January.
The logic that the public values these new companies at a significant premium to private markets is still leading to impressive pre-IPO valuations. Groupon rival Living Social is reportedly seeking to raise $200 million at a valuation of roughly $5 billion.
If Groupon's valuation drops below its last private funding round, however, that will signal that tech's newest darlings aren't the guaranteed money-makers that many connected investors still hope they are.
This is what companies working on a new generation of biofuels want to change. Instead of ethanol, they plan to make hydrocarbons, molecules chemically much more similar to those that already power planes, trains and automobiles. These will, they say, be “drop-in” fuels, any quantity of which can be put into the appropriate fuel tanks and pipelines with no fuss whatsoever. For that reason alone, they are worth more than ethanol.
If this approach works, it will not only be beneficial in its own right—modestly reducing greenhouse-gas emissions while making money for its investors—it will also provide a lasting market incentive to scientists to devise better ways of turning cellulose into sugar. This gives the prospects for this generation of biofuels a plausibility that was missing from its predecessors. The drop-in firms are starting to come out of the laboratory, float themselves on the stockmarket, team up with oil companies and build their first factories. The dice, in other words, are rolling.
One of the leaders of the drop-in drive is Alan Shaw, the boss of Codexis, a firm based in Redwood City, California, which makes specialised enzymes that perform tricky chemical conversions. In Dr Shaw’s opinion, the industry’s problem has not been bad products so much as a failure to think big.
Dell said it will close one of its computer-manufacturing plants in Texas, eliminating about 900 jobs, and is mulling a possible sale of its financial-services group.
mull sth over phrasal verb [M]
to think carefully about something for a long time:
I need a few days to mull things over before I decide if I'm taking the job.
****
flier noun
plural fliers
Learner's definition of FLIER
[count]
1
: a person or animal that flies
◊ The usual spelling of this sense in U.S. English is flier. The usual British spelling is flyer.
2
usually flyer : a piece of paper that has something printed on it (such as an advertisement or an announcement) and that is given to many people
take a flier
US, informal
: to do something that could have either good or bad results : to do something risky
— often + on
上文的 drop-in 是新意
drop-in
(drŏp'ĭn')
n.
- One who casually drops in, as to visit or obtain an appointment.
- An informal social event.
Provided for short-term use: a drop-in center for runaways.
high-flyer
(also high-flier)
noun
Derivatives
high-flying
adjective
adjective
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