Few of the people that called Groupon a pump and dump before it happened ever had much regard for the institutional[1] and retail investors they dumped the stock on.
Interestingly enough, one of the founders disagrees with all those listed "buy" ratings to the extent of selling >90% of his shareholding on the open market at well below their price targets at the back end of last week. http://sleekmoney.com/bradley-a-keywell-sells-500000-shares-...
[1]although some of the mutual fund investors the article sniggers at for rushing to buying secondary market shares in the private market probably made out before the post-IPO bubble burst too...
Edit: I stand corrected on the founder share sale, which appears to be part of a more orderly divestment than my source claimed.
He's been selling 500,000 shares every month since they've IPO'd. That link totally misquoted how much he has remaining. He has over 30 million shares still. I have no idea where the author pulled out that 40,000 share remark.
[1]although some of the mutual fund investors the article sniggers at for rushing to buying secondary market shares in the private market probably made out before the post-IPO bubble burst too...
Edit: I stand corrected on the founder share sale, which appears to be part of a more orderly divestment than my source claimed.