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Morgan Stanley bought 63M Facebook shares ($2.3B) to create a floor around $38

ca.reuters.com

11–20 of 64 posts

Re: Morgan Stanley bought 63M Facebook shares ($2.3B) to create a floor around $38

#12
post #4

I'm confused by this "greenshoe" business. To prevent the price of something from falling, you can: (1) Increase its demand. (2) Decrease its supply. Which one does the "greenshoe" do?

The greenshoe increases the demand. MS placed a 38.00 bid with an enormous size, so if you were to look at the live feed, you would have seen something like: Bid: 38.00 x 9999999 Ask: 38.01 x 1234

Re: Morgan Stanley bought 63M Facebook shares ($2.3B) to create a floor around $38

#13

Anyone know if FB employees with shares can sell them immediately after the IPO or do they have to wait after a certain period?

There is generally a lock-out period to make sure people are buying the company's shares, not all the employees' shares.

Re: Morgan Stanley bought 63M Facebook shares ($2.3B) to create a floor around $38

#14

Anyone know if FB employees with shares can sell them immediately after the IPO or do they have to wait after a certain period?

There is generally a lock-out period to make sure people are buying the company's shares, not all the employees' shares.

Can employees still sell their shares on secondmarket now that FB is public?

Re: Morgan Stanley bought 63M Facebook shares ($2.3B) to create a floor around $38

#15
post #4

I'm confused by this "greenshoe" business. To prevent the price of something from falling, you can: (1) Increase its demand. (2) Decrease its supply. Which one does the "greenshoe" do?

The greenshoe increases the demand. MS placed a 38.00 bid with an enormous size, so if you were to look at the live feed, you would have seen something like: Bid: 38.00 x 9999999 Ask: 38.01 x 1234

I feel like its worth adding, for those who don't trade. If the stocks goes down, you are looking for short/long terms supports it may [temporarily] stop on. Those are usually backed up by either history of the stock (recent supports) or psychological barriers (like a round number). In situation of a stock with couple hours of history those will be psychological like number 38. Then a trader looks how much support there is on certain level. In this example there were about $300MM (IIRC) worth of stock somebody asked to buy. So if you ready to sell because there is a panic and stock does not want to go up, you see so much cheddar [of support at $38] that someone is willing to buy that you tell yourself: "there is no chance someone will sell so much stock, so it won't go lower". So you don't sell at this point of time. Less people want to sell, more demand for the stock. Stock then stops or goes up, BUT at least the fall was indefinitely defended.

But again, depends what decisions big fish will do over this weekend, Monday morning you may see shit on $38, or if they offer plenty for sell at any price, you may see a gap down like start trading at $36.

Hope this helps.

Re: Morgan Stanley bought 63M Facebook shares ($2.3B) to create a floor around $38

#17
post #3

We know it was MS that's supporting them at that psychologically important $38 figure, but that $2.3B figure is just speculation. Still, I'm sure there are some very nervous traders this weekend over at MS. Would not be surprised to see a lot of shorts on stocks like Yelp, Zynga as a hedge. What a disaster this IPO was (for the banks, not for facebook). Though, I'm sure the people at Facebook aren't exactly happy wit…

I honestly can't see them caring a whole lot. Scrutiny and bad press can only impact your stock prices in the short term; in the long run they'll revert to the mean. If Zuck and co. feel like facebook is a fundamentally strong bet, then they'll be inclined to ignore fluctuations in the price and look to the long term a la Amazon. Also, Zuck owns 57% of the voting shares, so it's not like he really gives a damn what t…

Ok and this is what I don't get. Usually companies that are traded publicly have responsibilities toward stockholders to do anything in the power (reasonably) for the stock to be going up. That the simplicity of a stock market - no investor is willing to lock its money knowing a company is not willing to grow.

Now, if you have one guy (that to average person is called a "hacker in the hoodie"), how do you trust a stock? What if there is some terrible decision he is about to make and the board can do shit to stop him because he has the majority of vote.

Basically, fatum of all stockholders money in this stock lays within one single guy and his 57% of vote. Can you imagine, hypothetically what would happen if tomorrow Mr. Zuckerberg is hit by the bus? ? Yes, I am sure they have backup plan for the backup plan in situations like that, but cant you imagine what kind of signal would that send to media? The stock would dive like a scubadiver on a deep-dive mission!

Re: Morgan Stanley bought 63M Facebook shares ($2.3B) to create a floor around $38

#19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly can't see them caring a whole lot. Scrutiny and bad press can only impact your stock prices in the short term; in the long run they'll revert to the mean. If Zuck and co. feel like facebook is a fundamentally strong bet, then they'll be inclined to ignore fluctuations in the price and look to the long term a la Amazon. Also, Zuck owns 57% of the voting shares, so it's not like he really gives a damn what t…

Ok and this is what I don't get. Usually companies that are traded publicly have responsibilities toward stockholders to do anything in the power (reasonably) for the stock to be going up. That the simplicity of a stock market - no investor is willing to lock its money knowing a company is not willing to grow. Now, if you have one guy (that to average person is called a "hacker in the hoodie"), how do you trust a sto…

The bus factor is priced in, as is the assumption that Facebook will dramatically increase its revenue in the long run. If Facebook would not grow anymore, the stock would instantly collapse.

Re: Morgan Stanley bought 63M Facebook shares ($2.3B) to create a floor around $38

#20
A lot of misunderstanding about the greenshoe...

It's really simple: The IPO sells X+Y shares, where X is the big IPO number of shares and Y is the "over-allotment".

If the stock trades above the IPO price, the money from selling Y shares is given to the IPO company along with the rest of the money from selling X shares.

If the stock drops below the IPO price, the underwriters start buying back (up to Y shares * IPOprice) using the money from the initial over-allotment.

It is one of the few times outright price manipulation is allowed (which should be a completely different discussion, and likely why MS declined comment.)

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