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Hedge Funder Who Bet $100 Million On Facebook IPO Is Furious

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21–30 of 127 posts

Re: Hedge Funder Who Bet $100 Million On Facebook IPO Is Furious

#21
If he admits that it never had a shot, why did he invest in the first place?

Additionally, would we be feeling bad for Facebook if they had underpriced the IPO and the trader had made 25% profit on day one (and Facebook lost out on a potential 25% of fundraising)?

Re: Hedge Funder Who Bet $100 Million On Facebook IPO Is Furious

#22

"Anonymous Hedge Fund Manager: No doubt. But this should have been a blockbuster. This should have traded to $60 or $70. This should have launched a wave of tech IPOs." I think Facebook just deflated the tech IPO bubble for a year or so. No average Joe is going to invest, because, "Well fuck, if Facebook didn't explode, why would any other new tech company? No thanks." The bubble is still there, but it isn't looking…

I think it's longer than a year. It'll take something really huge to overcome "Well, if Facebook couldn't break out, who can?" That will ripple back through all investment phases since the ipo is the dream payoff day for many investment rounds.

I think it's the kind of attenuation that the market needs right now because it basically discourages investors that buy in based on hype instead of intrinsic value.

Re: Hedge Funder Who Bet $100 Million On Facebook IPO Is Furious

#23

"Anonymous Hedge Fund Manager: No doubt. But this should have been a blockbuster. This should have traded to $60 or $70. This should have launched a wave of tech IPOs." I think Facebook just deflated the tech IPO bubble for a year or so. No average Joe is going to invest, because, "Well fuck, if Facebook didn't explode, why would any other new tech company? No thanks." The bubble is still there, but it isn't looking…

I think it's longer than a year. It'll take something really huge to overcome "Well, if Facebook couldn't break out, who can?" That will ripple back through all investment phases since the ipo is the dream payoff day for many investment rounds.

I agree with you. For all the startups that wanted to be the "Facebook of X"... if Facebook couldn't do it, why could they?

Re: Hedge Funder Who Bet $100 Million On Facebook IPO Is Furious

#24
There has to be some sweet, sweet irony in the idea being explored that high-frequency traders may have caused the NASDAQ breakage.

From an HN post earlier today (http://www.nanex.net/aqck/3099.html):

"...In brief, the problem was that the system took two extra milliseconds to calculate the opening price. Because of a decision before to allow continuous order placement during IPOs, cancellations kept “fitting in between the raindrops”, in the words of Bob Greifeld, Nasdaq’s chief executive, in the five milliseconds it was taking to determine a price."

Re: Hedge Funder Who Bet $100 Million On Facebook IPO Is Furious

#25

"Anonymous Hedge Fund Manager: No doubt. But this should have been a blockbuster. This should have traded to $60 or $70. This should have launched a wave of tech IPOs." I think Facebook just deflated the tech IPO bubble for a year or so. No average Joe is going to invest, because, "Well fuck, if Facebook didn't explode, why would any other new tech company? No thanks." The bubble is still there, but it isn't looking…

Is there really any meaning left in the term bubble if a bubble can deflate?

Re: Hedge Funder Who Bet $100 Million On Facebook IPO Is Furious

#27
post #12
post #7

I have a hard time drumming up sympathy for these guys. They're mad because they couldn't make a quick buck. Isn't a hedge fund just gambling? It's high time Wall St. learns that it's never a good idea to put more in the pot than you can lose. The part that is most striking to me is that share price and a company's intrinsic value are seemingly in different galaxies. This guy is talking about decisions based on hype…

He is complaining because he was sandbagged. He didnt know what his position was, and NASDAQ and MS both dropped the ball here. You can vilify hedge funds till kingdom come, but it sounds here that this guy played by the rules and lost due to a circumstance that he didn't believe was fair. If the opposite happened (price spiked) yet the same technology problems happened, you'd have a bunch of people complaining that…

Problem is there's no rules. Noone got in any legal trouble over at NASDAQ. People do insider trading without getting caught. It's a rigged game.

Re: Hedge Funder Who Bet $100 Million On Facebook IPO Is Furious

#28
post #17

Here's my favorite part: " The question is will NASDAQ do the right thing. They made $400 million last year and could pay out some." what the everloving...ffuuu.. I hear whine whine whine from the 99%, and now I hear whine whine whine from a freakin hedge fund manager who BET $100m on FB. IS this the state of affairs now? Country full of WHINERS??

That's the free market! Oh wait, that only applies to when you're winning. You ask/beg/sue for relief when it goes the opposite way.

Re: Hedge Funder Who Bet $100 Million On Facebook IPO Is Furious

#29

My favourite part was when the hedge fund manager called himself "blue collar". I couldn't care about the rest, boo hoo there were technical issues, NASDAQ had a clause covering them in the event of technical issues and Facebook stock didn't balloon into the $60 or $70 per share price range. I don't feel one ounce of sympathy for anyone who can freely gamble away $100M then have the audacity to complain about it, if…

To plenty of us in the tech field a successful Facebook IPO would have opened up a path for other tech business to IPO in the near term. On top of that a successful IPO would have opened up some funding in our hacker space (Paypal Mafia/Google Mafia..etc). We want them to be successful.

Kind of true, but I'm wondering if there is more to be gained in Silicon Valley by deflating and delaying the pop of the bubble a year or longer or by prompting a string of tech IPOs that will line the pockets of engineers that can fund many startups several years later after the pop. As someone working on a startup now and looking to move from bootstrapped stage to seed stage, I'd rather see the bubble deflate now. Lining the pockets of a Facebook Mafia and several other "mafias" doesn't do me and others like me a whole lot of good in the near to medium term.

Re: Hedge Funder Who Bet $100 Million On Facebook IPO Is Furious

#30
I suppose as a hedge-fund manager he isn't an investor valued towards fundamentals, but if he really thinks Facebook should be valued at $60-70, then I'm not sure some NASDAQ crapping out on one day would change that. If Facebook turns out to be the next Google in terms of ever-growing profits, its stock will get to $70 (and higher) as a result anyway.
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