Many records have been set by the Chinese e-commerce giant, Alibaba, in the course of its initial public offering (IPO) and listing on the New York Stock Exchange.
Indian investors are suffering from a sense of frustration.
They could not participate in the IPO, due to regulatory barriers and the lack of linkages between domestic and foreign brokers.
Those lacunae need to be dealt with.
But the very success of the IPO suggests that the market may have been over-optimistic yet again, about yet another online business.
The record $21.8-billion IPO could expand to $25 billion if certain options are exercised.
The IPO was priced at $68 a share and closed on Friday at $94.
Alibaba is valued at $231 billion, more than the combined value of its rivals, Amazon ($153 billion) and eBay ($65 billion).
Founder Jack Ma sold shares for $900 million and holds another nine per cent, meaning he has a fortune of around $18 billion.
There is every reason to congratulate Mr Ma.
When in 1999, he launched Alibaba out of his flat in the eastern city of Hangzhou, he was offering English tuitions; the potential of the Chinese online market was not so obvious then. Alibaba developed first-mover advantage.
Mr Ma was a pioneer of cash-on-delivery, and developed a no-warehouse, revenue-sharing model.
The company is on an acquisition spree.
It has bought 50 per cent of football club, Guangzhou Evergrande, taken over mobile browser developer, UCWeb, and taken a stake in online video platform, Youku Tudou.
These diversifications will drag down near-term profits. Alibaba also has a controversial structure; over 20 partners have a say in board appointments.
Can a global business operate efficiently with such a structure? But most of all, there are questions to be asked about Alibaba's future.
Online retail in China has grown at over 50 per cent every year for the last three years, and Alibaba has 80 per cent of the market; and the IPO frenzy was explained by the fact that Alibaba traded at 39 times its estimated earnings a share for the current fiscal year; for its United States equivalents, such as Amazon, price-earnings multiples can be 300 or 400.
But even so, Alibaba's valuations may be bubbly. Yahoo sold $8 billion of Alibaba shares and owns a residual 16 per cent, worth $42 billion.
However, Yahoo's entire market capitalisation as of Friday was itself only $42 billion - which would imply that the value of Yahoo itself was negative! In some circumstances, you can indeed be too profitable and hold too much market share.
Alibaba's margins and the growth rate may not be sustainable.
It made $8.5 billion in revenues in 2013; Amazon had $74.5 billion and eBay $16 billion.
Alibaba had net profits of $3.7 billion, while Amazon had $270 million in profits and eBay had $2.8 billion.
But margins may fall drastically as Alibaba expands outside China.
Even within China, economic slowdown and stiffer competition may hit growth.
Thus, investors who have bought at these prices could be disappointed. Alibaba is a well-run business, and its bid for world domination is certainly credible. But even then, both margins and market share cannot remain as high as they are at present.
Image: Alibaba's logo is seen at its headquarters on the outskirts of Hangzhou, Zhejiang province.
Photograph: Chance Chan/Reuters
