Companies and their stock can live amazingly independent lives.

Take the example of [link|http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=BIDU&d=t|Baidu], a Chinese Google-like internet stock that went public recently at $27/share. It shot up like a rocket (to as much as 153.98.share) on wild expectation of its future. It's down to $99.19 as I write this. It's the internet bubble all over again. David Farber on CNBC called the company Baidu-doo. :) Well, maybe that's because he's not allowed to own stocks.

But, it's clear that Baidu got shafted on the IPO. It could have raised much more cash.