Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2022 March 8

= March 8 =

Help identifying aviators in photo
I'm trying to name the women in Women's Air Derby. I'm not that good at this, but I think that's Louise Thaden third from the right. Clarityfiend (talk) 08:33, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Presumably San Diego Air & Space Museum got it right and this is a photo probably from the 1930 women's air derby Long Beach to Chicago and not the 1929 Santa Monica to Cleveland? The description has 1930-31, but i think there wasn't a "powder puff" race in 1931 and women competed in the men's race, but haven't confirmed. fiveby(zero) 16:07, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
 * This cites Unites States Women in Aviation 1930-1939 for six participants in the 1930 Pacific Derby Gladys O'Donnell, Mildred Morgan, Jean LaRene, Ruth Stewart, Ruth Barron Nason, and Margery Doig, and also "it would not be until the 1932 National Air Races that women were allowed to compete against men". With seven in photo maybe looking for 1931. fiveby(zero) 16:32, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Here are the sixteen participants in the 1931 from Smithsonian, including Barnes, but this is Santa Monica to Cleveland.fiveby(zero) 16:53, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Here's a captioned photo of the six contestants for 1930. Pancho Barnes, Claire Fahy, and Bobbi Trout's aircraft were declared ineligible and did not compete. fiveby(zero) 17:54, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Another, makes things look more doubtful. fiveby(zero) 18:53, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Suppose it's possible with perspective distortion, different footwear, and Barnes a late disqualification that it's the same order in all the photos: Doig, LaRene, Barnes (in article photo), Stewart, Barron, O'Donnell, and Morgan. Barron and Morgan weren't in the 1929 derby so if those are correct then along with the description for the museum the photo probably shouldn't be in the article. fiveby(zero) 19:34, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
 * D'oh! It was there in the caption all the time: "circa 1930-1931". Thanks all. Clarityfiend (talk) 20:31, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
 * That's a shame, it was a good photo. Trying to find the status for the second photo from here as a replacement. fiveby(zero) 20:49, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

Stock market questions.
Suppose 2 companies A and B with NYSE stock both agree to merge. Then is it best to buy the cheaper of the stocks A vs. B? 67.165.185.178 (talk) 15:20, 8 March 2022 (UTC).
 * When the merger is announced it will say something like "Company A is acquiring B. Anyone holding stock in B will give up their stock and receive one share of A for each 3 shares of B." Then if (for example) A is trading at $60 a share, the price of B will quickly become $20 a share.  So it won't matter which one you buy, you'll end up with the same holding of A after the merger for the same dollar amount before. --184.144.97.125 (talk) 19:01, 8 March 2022 (UTC)


 * Company A may pay a premium (valuing B's stock as higher than it's currently trading) to convince B's management and shareholders to merge, but when it's announced, the price of B's stock will quickly rise accordingly, so there's really no time to take advantage of it, unless you indulge in insider trading. Clarityfiend (talk) 20:23, 8 March 2022 (UTC)


 * When you say Company A is acquiring Company B, is that assumed A's stocks is worth more than B? Can the other way around happen? 67.165.185.178 (talk) 14:52, 9 March 2022 (UTC).


 * Relative stock prices are irrelevant. It's the same situation either way. Clarityfiend (talk) 20:40, 9 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Apple's stock price is somewhere around $160+, while a share of Berkshire Hathaway Class A would set you back $488,000+, but if you look at List of public corporations by market capitalization, you'll see that Apple is #1, while Berkshire Hathaway sits at #10. Price alone doesn't tell you anything about the relative values of the companies. Clarityfiend (talk) 23:55, 9 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Also, small companies can take over big ones, though that's rarer than the other way around. There was one such example recently, but I can't recall the details. Clarityfiend (talk) 23:57, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Okay, so if company A is $20 stock and company B is $30 stock, and it doesn't matter which 1 you buy, what about if you compare to buying both amounts equally? 67.165.185.178 (talk) 00:00, 10 March 2022 (UTC).
 * I'm not quite sure what you're asking, and I'm in no way a business expert, but if company A announces it's going to pay a premium for B, then I'd expect A's stock price to dip and B's to rise prior to the merger. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:07, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
 * So, it is possible that the smaller stock goes down, and the larger stock, goes up? Intresting. 67.165.185.178 (talk) 00:46, 10 March 2022 (UTC).
 * I think you still don't understand. A company's stock price doesn't mean a whole lot in and of itself; a bigger company's stock price doesn't have to be higher than that of a smaller one. A stock split reduces the price by a half, two-thirds, three-quarters or whatever, but that doesn't make the company more or less valuable. All it really means is that the management thinks that a high stock price makes it less attractive to buyers; as the article states, "there are more buyers and sellers for 10 shares at $10 than 1 share at $100." The opposite - a reverse stock split - can also happen. Clarityfiend (talk) 08:17, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Well, it depends a bit. As a small-scale investor, a significant part of your cost is fees. Normally it's cheaper to make one bigger transaction than two smaller ones. So unless you get lucky with short-term fluctuations (and that can go either way), it makes sense to structure your trading in as few transactions as possible. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:57, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm only charged 1 cent every time I sell or buy. From Fidelity. Also, I don't get how people can say a company bought 100% of another company's stocks, how can that be unless you forced all the other stockholders to sell that all that company's stocks? 67.165.185.178 (talk) 11:07, 10 March 2022 (UTC).
 * Read this article about holdouts being (legally) forced to sell. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:58, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Okay, hopefully this is my last question, what is meant of 100% utilization in stocks? 67.165.185.178 (talk) 00:46, 10 March 2022 (UTC).
 * "Utilization is the number of loaned shares divided by the available shares in the securities lending market, expressed as a percentage." So 100% utilization implies that it is no longer possible to short-sell the stock, since 100% of its available shares have been lent already and none are left to be short-sold. --Lambiam 09:48, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

When a small corporation acquires a larger one, it's usually for tax inversion purposes. I.e. the "acquiring" company is in a lower-tax jurisdiction than the larger company being "acquired". See our article on the subject for more details, if that's within your area of interest. Eliyohub (talk) 13:26, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

You know I still am slow about how the stock works, like how it goes up due to company performance? Look at The Batman movie, it grossed $300 million worldwide as of 3 days ago, but yet, AMC (theater) stock did not go up, it still continued to go down. And AMC being the largest theater. 67.165.185.178 (talk) 13:57, 11 March 2022 (UTC).
 * The stock market is all about future expectations, not about current performance. It's expected that there will be a couple of blockbuster movies every year, so there is nothing substantially unexpected about the Batman box office for AMC. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:58, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Then who controls future expectations, humans or companies? How do I control the stock market? 67.165.185.178 (talk) 11:59, 12 March 2022 (UTC).
 * Hashtag creativity ? (#) -- Askedonty (talk) 12:21, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
 * You don't. As far as we can tell, there is no internal signal in the stock market. As a small time investor, the best you can do is invest widely and regularly (e.g. via ETFs) and let time pass. To do better than that, you need to get an information advantage - either by insider trading (which is illegal), or by doing massive research (which is expensive and at best amortises for very large investors - and even then usually not, as can be seen by the average performance of managed fonds). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:03, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
 * The times when more shares want to be sold ASAP (by their owners) than the world wants to buy ASAP or vice versa so the price changes until there's a buyer for every seller. And other things could have some influence like someone who is ordering a buttload of shares at $108.78 when the current price is $108.79. Big traders will see that on their computer and it could influence what they do when it's above $108.78. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 15:17, 12 March 2022 (UTC)