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Facebook Bankers Secretly Cut FB Revenue Estimates In Middle Of IPO Roadshow

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91–98 of 98 posts

Re: Facebook Bankers Secretly Cut FB Revenue Estimates In Middle Of IPO Roadshow

#91
post #2

I really don't want to mentally lump Facebook with Groupon. I hope we hear an official statement about this from Facebook.

It is a safe bet to group them. Given that we know that zynga constitutes 12% of their revenue, and zynga is useless - unless they charge for privacy, or other features - social networks will always simply be an ad platform and that, while still profitable, is not something eternally sustainable.

Google makes good money as an ad platform.

Re: Facebook Bankers Secretly Cut FB Revenue Estimates In Middle Of IPO Roadshow

#92

No surprises here. I always cringe when I see 'mum and dad' flotations. These type of deals are always plagued with bias, mostly in the favour of the big guys. The poor retail investors get sucked in by the allure of holding a brand name or having boasting rights. This thinking is dangerous when making an investment. I doubt most people would throw $1000 on a sports bet but quite happily to throw in more on buying a…

Sports bets are binary win or lose propositions. You can mostly control the amount of money you are willing to lose on a stock bet.

Re: Facebook Bankers Secretly Cut FB Revenue Estimates In Middle Of IPO Roadshow

#93
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A research analyst at Morgan Stanley cut his revenue forecast on FB close to their IPO. Following that, FB amended their S-1 to lower revenue forecasts. The latter may have been informed by the former but it cannot be said that the former was influenced by the latter without more information. It was the opposite. Facebook filed the amended S-1, and Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, and Goldman Sachs changed their fore…

So Facebook expressed caution about revenue growth, and the banks downgraded their earnings forecast? I really don't see what the story is here! In fact the WSJ suggests that if they had released these revised earnings forecasts publicly, they'd have been breaking SEC regulations: Underwriters are barred by Securities and Exchange Commission rules from publicly issuing research on the IPOs they are involved in. But a…

AFAIK, in the US, this doesn't prevent the Broker Dealer arms of the bank from publishing reports for an IPO underwritten by the Investment Banking arm of the bank. I know it doesn't in Brazil. There should be a Chinese Wall between the IB and the Broker Dealer and no meeting should happen between analysts from both arms without the presence of compliance. However, this is often not observed and difficult to enforce since members of both banking arms are often friends and socialize together.

Re: Facebook Bankers Secretly Cut FB Revenue Estimates In Middle Of IPO Roadshow

#94
post #4

It is not possible to trust Wall Street, the whole thing is built on insider trading. They call customers that are not on the inside "dumb money" and unashamedly try to figure out how to take their money.

> It is not possible to trust Wall Street, the whole thing is built on insider trading. As the old saying goes: If you don't know who the sucker at the table is, it's you.

It's not just Wall Street though. Wasn't it John Doerr that said, "No conflict, no interest"

Re: Facebook Bankers Secretly Cut FB Revenue Estimates In Middle Of IPO Roadshow

#95
post #84
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. The concept of 'diversification' was fabricated to convince 'dumb money holders' to give up more cash. That's the sole purpose of diversification. "You really need to diversify just a bit more. With as little as 50,000 dollars more, we can expose your portfolio to international rising growth stocks in Asia."

Are you being sarcastic? I genuinely can't tell.

That's the best kind.

For those that might be confused. Diversification is a genuinely useful tool for an investor. Since it is very hard to tell which stock is going to perform well you have to spread your bets. Interesting literature on how to do this dates back to the 1952 paper 'Portfolio Selection' by Markowitz[1].

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Markowitz#Selected_public...

Re: Facebook Bankers Secretly Cut FB Revenue Estimates In Middle Of IPO Roadshow

#96
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every employee who is locked into their shares for 6 months is losing money every day.

Find me one employee who would feel ripped off that their 5000, 10000, or 100000 sell at even $20 instead of some hypothetical number could have been achieved by better hypothetical management. Oh those poor people, should have taken the offer to work at _____ instead?

It's pretty easy to be on the outside and say, "Oh, boo-hoo, they're still millionaires", but it's a different story when it's your own wealth. I assure you I could find people around the world who would say the same about your earnings.

Anyway, the point was that the stock diving isn't victimless. There are real people losing real wealth.

Edit: http://www.reddit.com/r/finance/comments/u0om7/im_an_employe...

Re: Facebook Bankers Secretly Cut FB Revenue Estimates In Middle Of IPO Roadshow

#97
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does facebook actually lose anything? It sounds like they walked away with the maximum amount of money possible; the bankers might be upset, and I can see that might make it harder for facebook to raise money in the future, but they're unlikely to need to for a while yet.

Every employee who is locked into their shares for 6 months is losing money every day.

Not if what we're talking about is facebook getting a higher valuation than they "should" have. If facebook is "really" worth 90 billion, then the employees are going to get x% of 90 billion 6 months from now; that would still be true if the IPO valuation had been 80 billion rather than 100. No?

Re: Facebook Bankers Secretly Cut FB Revenue Estimates In Middle Of IPO Roadshow

#98
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Find me one employee who would feel ripped off that their 5000, 10000, or 100000 sell at even $20 instead of some hypothetical number could have been achieved by better hypothetical management. Oh those poor people, should have taken the offer to work at _____ instead?

It's pretty easy to be on the outside and say, "Oh, boo-hoo, they're still millionaires", but it's a different story when it's your own wealth. I assure you I could find people around the world who would say the same about your earnings. Anyway, the point was that the stock diving isn't victimless. There are real people losing real wealth. Edit: http://www.reddit.com/r/finance/comments/u0om7/im_an_employe...

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