UK Telegraph sez: Worst. IPO. Ever.
LINKAnd...they also say that now that the stock is below $30 and has lost over 20% since its open it will be on the sell list of all of the major investors...
“When something is this broken this quickly, they sell and move on,” said Sam Hamadeh, managing director of US research firm, PrivCo.
“Historically, initial public offerings that trade down this quickly don’t ever recover. Brokers have lost quite a bit of money and many will have their own rules about dropping out when it passes that [$30] barrier.”
Very likely true. I wouldn't bet against it.
Today its drop (10%) forced an automatic stop to short selling. Think that might happen again? Tomorrow?
The sad part is that Zuckerburg will always be wealthy. Why sad? Because he got there so quickly and took so few people with him. This is not the story of Microsoft or Apple. Or Walmart. Or any of the dozens of hugely successful publicly traded companies that have improved the lives of millions of people with their products and the jobs they created. Instead, this is the story of vapor...of nothing...and how it made a very, very small handful of people rich and screwed over many thousands who thought they were investing in something real. Not that I am advocating for a bunch of victims, I'm not...they took their chances and they screwed up...that's investing. Instead I am bemoaning the state of things in our country where a big load of crap was successfully sold on the public market as if it was gold. Compared to other (tech) companies, Facebook sucks hind tit. It's a joke. It's nothing. So it's sad that Zuckerburg will always be wealthy, that he will always be treated with the respect of a Jobs or a Gates or a Walton...for so little actually created.
I didn't buy it. I wouldn't buy it. It never made any sense to me as a revenue generator. It still doesn't. And now a lot of other people are realizing it. Facebook is supposedly busy right now as i write this, desperately trying to buy up some other companies (Opera was mentioned today) and hire a whole lot of engineers to try and do something, anything to improve it's image as a revenue generator. The thought is that Facebook is somehow going to become the next iPhone or Android or something. Good luck. The market is saturated with quality products...innovative products. Unless Facebook can somehow, after entering the market years late, cobble together some kind of gee whiz product that everyone just has to have this will be yet more money wasted.
The brand is tarnished. Probably forever.
Zuckerburg is not Steve Jobs. Zuckerburg couldn't shine Jobs shoes. He isn't capable of waxing Bill Gates' car. He is a one trick pony and he has had his moment. It's over. It was, admittedly, a very profitable moment but that's it. He's done. He will always be wealthy...even an idiot can't spend that much money in a lifetime...but he won't be an empire builder. That notion died with the IPO.
So the big money investors might be fleeing the stock tomorrow. That will drop it another ten plus percent. After that the less sophisticated investors will cut their losses. Or maybe not. Maybe some foolish types will rush in to buy the stupid thing at a "bargain" price. The price will shoot up again...maybe a point or two...but then in a few days (or even hours) the selling will begin as people try and take advantage of a momentary rise to minimize their already sizable losses. But either way it's going to keep going down until it reaches some point where it is correctly valued.
This will be a sad but interesting ride. I could be wrong, of course. The stock could turn around tomorrow or next week and zoom up to $100/share. More likely though, I think, is a slow death spiral down the NASDAQ toilet.
And now a few parting comments for Facebook investors from Otter...
