Facebook closes at $38.23 first day NASDAQ trading, above IPO price $38.00 • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook closes at $38.23 first day NASDAQ trading, above IPO price $38.00

#101

Post by cookiecaper » Sat, May 19, 2012, 6:16 AM UTC

shangrila wrote: post #87

cookiecaper wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The prospect of that reality is frightening. Facebook is so large now that if it went away the amount of civil discontent would be a point of concern for politicians (primarily if Facebook's disappearance gets pinned on them).

The flipside of that of course is that they can pass whatever draconian regulations they want in regards to the internet, so long as Facebook gets a free pass and is allowed to keep chugging along. Surprised they didn't do that already for things like SOPA.

Facebook would in practice get a free pass on things like SOPA. AFAIK SOPA left discretion up to whatever agency would have been charged with enforcement (likely ICE or SS), so reports asking for the removal of Facebook would, of course, never be allowed, but reports on any/all of FB's competitors would go through.

That is one of the reasons lobbying is such an important game for conglomerates. Once you're on top, regulation is your friend; it's much cheaper to hire paper-pushers to fill out forms and submit them to the feds than it is to actively respond to and dismantle competitors. If only MySpace had gotten something like this in place a little sooner, FB would have been destroyed and MS would still be on top.

Re: Facebook closes at $38.23 first day NASDAQ trading, above IPO price $38.00

#102

Post by its_so_on » Sat, May 19, 2012, 6:19 AM UTC

aamar wrote: post #30

its_so_on wrote: post #13

(EDIT: Earlier this title read "barely above it's IPO price". It definitely used this word, "barely". My comment is now moot. I'm leaving it due to the replies.) what is with this title? It sounds like it's saying sullenly, "a year later, Facebook is barely above its IPO price". OF COURSE IT'S TRADING AROUND ITS IPO PRICE, GIVEN THAT IT'S JUST IPO'D. I mean, of ALL the times a company could be trading at its IPO pric…

Stocks can often pop on the first day after IPO, if there's a lot of demand building. There was a time when companies doing IPOs would consider a 100% increase ("shooting the moon") a realistic possibility. LinkedIn went up 117% a year ago[1]. I don't mean to indicate that these events are positive or a good expectation, just that it does frequently happen. [1] http://money.cnn.com/2011/05/19/technology/linkedin_IPO/…

I guess my thought is that that expectation is dumb. My thought is it's better this way. The difference between the 'high close' and 'low open' should instead have gone to these companies: they should have IPO'd at the high price, so they have more money in the bank. Selling at half of what you'll be worth later in the day is dumb, and means you don't really know what you're worth.

Re: Facebook closes at $38.23 first day NASDAQ trading, above IPO price $38.00

#103

Post by JamesPeterson » Sat, May 19, 2012, 8:00 AM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #71

JamesPeterson wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The shareholders control the board, and the board controls management. Thus, unhappy shareholders will mean new management. In FB's case however, Zuck still controls (through proxy) the majority of votes; Zuck cannot be ousted. There are other problems with a non-performing stock too; employee morale may be (and is increasingly?) tightly related to the share options they own. If management is not performing well and…

Do Facebook employees get options, or do they get actual stock?

Typically, they'll be offered options to buy stock for essentially nothing. Often there will be tricks though - for example it might take a couple of years in employment to be able to exercise all of the options.

Re: Facebook closes at $38.23 first day NASDAQ trading, above IPO price $38.00

#104

Post by joering2 » Sun, May 20, 2012, 4:02 AM UTC

encoderer wrote: post #84

joering2 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It means that underwriters were putting lots of stocks to buy at the exact $38 level so that this will scare people away from selling ( oh wow such a huge position someone wants to buy [$38 x 9999900 shares == $379,996,200], there is no chance someone will buy that much of a shares [and therefore stock will plunge deeper], so I better stick to my own shares and not sell ). They build rather fake barricade. edit: depe…

You're right on what it means, but not why . This is the reason IPOs work the way they do, with investment banks underwriting it. They get a large profit (potentially huge profit) in exchange for providing the services of a market-maker in the stock at $38/share. There was nothing nefarious, just market making.

I see what you are saying, but don't you agree: hadn't not demand got burned out quickly and drew the price down, they wouldn't have had to put a large buy order at $38.

I mean, do you really believe they were offering $300MM of stock ready to sell on an "open action". They would all shit their pants if someone would have actually execute that.

No, what they did was not illegal, But yes, what they did was unethical and anyone knowing anything about trading will take it as a negative sign in terms of this stock's performance.

Re: Facebook closes at $38.23 first day NASDAQ trading, above IPO price $38.00

#105

Post by joering2 » Sun, May 20, 2012, 4:04 AM UTC

loverobots wrote: post #28

gojomo wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More evidence of artificial support, a tweet and screen capture from Paul Kedrosky: http://lockerz.com/s/209964861 It's easy to overlook the graphic; it's the thin black bar with faint text. It shows: Bid (size): 38.00 (x9999900) Ask (size): 38.01 (x146300) ...and the tweet referencing it was about 20mins before the close. The earlier tweet was: @pkedrosky: Watching certain underwriters try to keep certain IPOs above…

Still, this isn't necessarily a negative for Facebook. They optimized their take, and Zuckerberg won't be needing the market's approval or capital again for a while. Technically, but the minute you go public you have to worry about the stock price. If the stock drops (IMO, it will drop here) expect a deluge of doom and gloom stories from the media questioning their business model and everything else in between. Then…

good read, I +1 you. And don't forget that Facebook does not have a special place in media when it comes ONLY to a positive news; they will write about them big time whether its good or bad news. This will definitely not play nice when there are some bad news, because lots of publicity around bed news will have an impact on their stock performance.