When we quickly browse business news websites, we will surely find that one of the hottest issues is the launch of Alibaba(NYSE:BABA) in U.S. Stock. Not surprisingly, the share price of BABA soared on September 19-the first day of its launch. While most of the analysts and the shareholders focused on the closing price, however, an inflection point is worth attention as well.

We can see in the graph that at about 12:00 pm on Sept. 19, the share price once dropped to near 89 dollars, which is even lower than its opening price. The phenomenon catches my attention: why the price could not keep going up? Why it turned to be stable despite of obstructions? Firstly, we need to know about a mechanism of controlling stock prices called Greenshoe. As underwriters have access to strike price at low stage compared with issue price, they could actually control the high price by selling parts of their holdings as well as gaining profits. That’s why we can see a fall-back of BABA at about 12 o’clock. Similarly, they repurchased shares at a relatively low price to prevent an underpriced price.

Obviously, it is a complicated process of a launch in stock market, thus we have to lucubrate to get further analysis.

Citation:

1.”Greenshoe via Wikipedia”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenshoe

2.”The Market Value of BABA Exceeds 230 Billion Dollars “. Tech Sina. Sept 20, 2014
http://tech.sina.com.cn/i/2014-09-20/04189626968.shtml

Apple Mobile Payment was introduced to the public on Apple Event on Sept. 9 as an by-product(the main products are always the mobiles). Surprisingly, it is not difficult to find that the market expectation of Apple Pay exceeds that of mobiles or watch after browsing news websites. But why the market has such confidence on Apple Pay?

Let us recall the three core visions of payment and see how Apple Pay applys them. The first is zero risk. Apple Pay is a mobile payment method known as “card-not-present”. Compared with tradition online payments, Apple Pay allow users to trade by using fingerprint and device instead of account and password. This innovation immensely improve the security of transaction. The second comes to zero barrier. Apple Pay enables people to finish payments just in a few seconds, eliminating the head-achy payment barrier. The reconnaissance barrier is also wiped by Apple Pay since it uses mono-standard for payment access. The last one is zero rate. Apple is so influential that it could take advantage of its brand-power to drive commercial tenants to use the technology voluntarily, which means that Apple needn’t pay high B-side expenses.

Clearly, Apple Pay is worth high expectations.

Citation:

1.Maggie McGrath. “What Apple Pay Means For eBay And The Future Of Mobile Payments”. Forbes. Sept 9, 2014
http://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/2014/09/09/what-apple-pay-means-for-ebay-and-the-future-of-mobile-payments/

2.Stephen Lam. “The new iPhones handle nicely, but Apple Pay is why you should actually buy one”. QUARTZ. Sept 10, 2014
http://qz.com/262650/apple-iphone-pay-feature-is-why-to-buy-one/

The topic “Business Ethics” is one of the most important concepts as well as principles when people run a company. We can clearly see that Milton Friedman’s point of social responsibility in business ethics is merely based on Neoclassical Economics, which over-emphasizes the economic goal but pay less attention to business ethics by neglecting the historical inevitability of a company. Hence, I agree that a company should be responsible to the whole society as the business ethics instead of simply following the basic customs.

Take CVS’s plan of stopping selling cigarette as an example: according to Friedman’s perspective, CVS meddles with the duty of the government, which definitely damages our free-entrepreneur system. But is it true? CVS implements the plan, hoping help promote health-care awareness, which may in turn benefit the selling of other products. Companies are inextricably linked with the external environment and thus the process of personalization is unavoidable. Therefore, corporations should follow some ethics because they would gain a better economic-environment only if the firms have done good to the society. Keep in mind that corporations exist in pursuit of higher efficiency and better farewell, or they will be replaced by those which can achieve the goal.

Citation:

Stephanie Strom. “CVS vows to Quit Selling Tobacco Product.” The New York Times.
Feb 5, 2014