Stocks, Groupon | featured news

Groupon lost more than a fifth of its value in early trading after reporting a quarterly loss late Wednesday that fueled criticism of the daily-deals site's aggressive growth strategy.

Stocks often make big moves after earnings reports. When there's a big move right before a report, regulators take notice. The obvious question: Who knew what when? Ergo, FINRA, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, has launched an investigation of the 18.6% spike in Groupon shares on May 14, ahead of the company's better-than-expected financial results ...

Many retailers are enjoying a Thanksgiving shopping spree lift from investors, but not Groupon. Its shares closed today down nine percent, settling at $15.24 after bouncing off a new low of $14.85. That’s less than half the $31.14 that some investors paid at the stock’s high point, just after it went public in early November. More recently, it has been trading in the low to mid-$20s.

Groupon, the company that pioneered online group discounts, saw its stock climb by nearly a third in its public debut Friday, showing strong demand for an Internet company whose business model is considered unsustainable by some analysts. Groupon's stock jumped $6.40, or 32 percent, to $26.40 in late morning Friday after trading began at about 10:45 a.m. Earlier, the stock was trading as high as $31.14. Big fluctuations are common for companies that have just gone public as investors gauge what to do with the stock. The stock is trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the ticker symbol "GRPN."