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

finance.yahoo.com

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

#71

Post by shock-value »

olefoo wrote: post #62
stewartbutler wrote: post #51

I still don't understand why Facebook has such an overblown valuation to begin with. The entire business is a house of cards based on the possibility that it might make someone else some money someday. Sure, there are some vultures like Zynga that make out like bandits preying on people with addictive personalities who shell out cash, and I'm sure there are a few success stories regarding successful social media adve…

Facebook has the biggest and most metadata rich direct marketing list ever created? Facebook has not even begun to do the things they could with the knowledge they collect every day. In theory you should be able to go to one of Facebook's ad sales pages and order an ad that will be shown exactly three times to every left-handed piano player in Ohio. That you can't do that in the next ten minutes means that Facebook i…

I think you overstate the amount of useful data Facebook has on people. Just to take your example: Facebook may very well know which state I live in, but they definitely don't know whether I'm left handed, for example.

On the other hand, Google might very well know this, if, say, I have searched for left handed golf clubs. Amazon would also know this, if I have bought said clubs through them. Google and Amazon almost certainly also know which state I live in (hell Google might know exactly where I am at any given moment if I have an Android phone).

So really I don't think Facebook is in an enviable position at all compared to companies like Amazon and Google.

"[...] they need to come up with a way to provide a compelling "We manage your online data for you." offering that a majority of their users would pay for"

What data? Dropbox and now Google back up all your files and documents, for FREE, now! How could they compete with this with a free service, let alone a paid one?

And from a privacy standpoint people trust Facebook far less than Google or Dropbox. There is an implicit assumption that anything shared with Facebook will some way or another be shared with one's Facebook friends. (People aren't ignorant of the way Facebook has tried to trick them into accepting more liberal privacy settings over the years.) Facebook would have to work very very hard to change this perception before a data storage service would ever take off.

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

#72

Post by philwelch »

sp332 wrote: post #8
dos1 wrote: 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…

You go to Vegas and put $5,000 on the roulette wheel and it breaks, it's like, hold on, I'm not going to do that. I like this analogy. You want to play the market, fine. But if NASDAQ breaks, is that really part of the game?

In fact, if an actual casino fucked up due to technical glitches, I think legally it's on them to fix it.

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

#73

Post by elorant »

dos1 wrote: 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…

What did you really think, that those guys are magicians who can trace trends and predict the future? Some may be but the vast majority isn't. The whole notion of markets is largely based on psychology.

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

#75

Post by DigitalSea »

Locke1689 wrote: post #54
DigitalSea wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the article points out, technical glitches are covered in the rules. When you invest you accept these rules, if the hedge fund manager has a problem with the rules then he should not be investing. Therefore no rules were broken as the article points out, it's a stock exchange they aren't dumb they know how to cover their bases (they're bankers after all). He isn't the only one affected by this situation. The botto…

If NASDAQ knew there were problems but continued anyway that may actually not be covered in the rules.

Well if that is the case (and at present everything is speculation) then the SEC will find out one way or another I hope, because if NASDAQ knowingly knew shiz was about to go down and didn't give a warning to investors, then the SEC will hopefully be all over NASDAQ like prisoners on a new inmate in San Quentin State Prison.

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

#76

Post by BoldAsAnEagle »

dangero wrote: post #52

I bought Facebook with a limit order when it went on sale to the general public last Friday, and I can confirm it was a terrible experience. Here's basically what happened: I put in a limit order through tdameritrade the night before with a max price of $44. I'm in front of the computer that morning to watch my order when the IPO starts. The price spikes up to 45, then treads around low 40s. I refresh my account. My…

I think this was done on purpose by Wall Street as a punishment for Facebook not licking their ass as most other companies.

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

#77

Post by greendestiny »

malandrew wrote: post #36
greendestiny wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yeah. Air keeps getting pumped in. It's unlikely that the Facebook IPO not blowing up on the first day will be enough to let out all the air of the bubble or at least let it out faster than it is getting put in. The truth is that the market for all other types of equity and debt based securities is pretty shit right now and that tech startups are relatively attractive psychologically to investors because they provide…

I understand, but it seems to me that bubble used to mean something more than just overvaluation. Specifically unsustained self fulfilling growth followed by a pop.

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

#78

Post by to3m »

nl wrote: post #44

I love this story on so many levels. Firstly there is the irony of a "blue collar hedge fund manager" There's the fact the lack of an IPO bump means Facebook equity holders are the people who made money out of it, instead of the investment banks buying at the opening and hoping to sell at the bump price. Then there's the whole "HN thinks Facebook is worthless and has the satisfaction of seeing the stock drop on the o…

This particular man presumably understands class as the English do - that in many cases, it's as much (or more) to do with your upbringing and background as it is to do with your current social status.

Perhaps "blue collar" isn't quite the term for this, though. I can't imagine there are many blue collar workers in a hedge fund. Maybe the cleaners...

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

#79

Post by sfall »

shock-value wrote: post #71
olefoo wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook has the biggest and most metadata rich direct marketing list ever created? Facebook has not even begun to do the things they could with the knowledge they collect every day. In theory you should be able to go to one of Facebook's ad sales pages and order an ad that will be shown exactly three times to every left-handed piano player in Ohio. That you can't do that in the next ten minutes means that Facebook i…

I think you overstate the amount of useful data Facebook has on people. Just to take your example: Facebook may very well know which state I live in, but they definitely don't know whether I'm left handed, for example. On the other hand, Google might very well know this, if, say, I have searched for left handed golf clubs. Amazon would also know this, if I have bought said clubs through them. Google and Amazon almost…

ok facebook may not know if your left handed, unless your in a left handed appreciation group, but think about all the information facebook does collect on you.

where you or others check in, likes, people you chat with, what you chat about, who tags you in posts and photos and who your with, not to mention all the tracking facebook does with other sites

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

#80

Post by hef19898 »

dos1 wrote: 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…

Yeah, these guys are funny. One day they agressivly take over companies. And the other day, as it happened with VW stock in Germany, the sue others when their gambles don't work.

What I remeber from the VW stock story happened back then was the following. Porsche tried to take over VW, so they bought every stock they could. Hedge funds bet on falling values and sold VW stock short. Since Porsche continued buying, stock prices raised. Then the hedge funds had to buy the stock short selled, values raised further (up to 1k € if I remeber well). The result were funds obliged to buy stock for almost 1K they sold earlier for a fracture of that.

And after that they sued Porsche for stock manipulation. Yes, these guys are funny. And yes, that FBs IPO stumbled over a computer system is ironic!

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