MGD, once again we are in chronic agreement.
On the topic of the NYSE rules, I actually deleted that post once I found the rule everyone was quoting about but hey ho, I'll take that as a learning point.
On that topic though, CHC (CD&R) can just do a 10:1 swap and miraculously the shares become worth $4 again. It's easy to do, Apple and Citigroup are among the companies that have altered their share structure in this way.
Mitchaa you too are right
Professional investors (of the buy and hold brigade) bought a huge chunk of the remaining 25% (ish) that CD&R didn't buy and now the available shares for joe public for private investment is a fraction of the total number of shares. On a daily basis around 350k shares are traded (current value about $170k) of the outstanding (ie shares that were issued at the IPO) 72m. It's a very illiquid stock, a very small company by NYSE standards and a bit of a tight spot (but emerging) with bad sentiment and some long term investors. We should all expect volatility.
Pitts, after this I'm done but I note that you didn't actually answer my 2 questions.
I've just bought 2000 shares and we can revisit this conversation in 2 years time.