<20 Minutes before FB goes live on Stock Market

[Twiddly]

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/fac...res-2012-05-22

Rats leaving a sinking ship :P They will get there money from it regardless of who they screw over with backroom deals. So much for the playful geek he is supposed to be.

---------- Post added 2012-05-22 at 11:41 PM ----------

"Facebook’s billion ‘friends’ in denial — deja vu the 1999 bubble mania

Behavioral economics is the new “psychology of denial.” Yes, it’s like falling in love. You can’t hear, can’t see the warning signs. Till after. After months of hype building up to this IPO, you’re convinced Facebook is your soul mate, that not getting shares in that IPO would leave you devastated, rejected by your true love. And nothing anyone says about the risks will change your mind. That’s the “psychology of denial.”

There are four main reasons for this pervasive psychology of denial among Main Street’s 95 million investors: First, investors hate admitting we’re irrational and ill-informed, cling to the fiction they’re rational. Second, optimism is the investor’s worst nightmare, but Americans still act optimistic no matter the odds. Third, Wall Street loves investors who are irrational, uninformed and optimistic, they’re easy to manipulate. Fourth, American investors are by nature trusting folks, want to believe Wall Street’s telling the truth, even though most of the time they aren’t.

The Facebook mystique is so powerful today that in our minds Facebook truly is too big to fail. Facebook will never fail, Facebook will just keep growing indefinitely at rates that would remind us of the old dot-com mindset of 1999, hail Facebook, you are too big to fail and nothing will change our minds.

And paradoxically, that’s exactly why Facebook is the ultimate economy-killer. "

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/how..._story_popular

[Deleted]

If I remember right facebook made $1billion in profit last year? In addition they brought a huge number of ideas to the table before the release of the IPO to show how they can make it a much more profitable and monetised operation than it is currently thus giving a view to fast future growth.

Big thing to note though is yes, their $100billion valuation compared to their profit was a ridiculous valuation as it relied upon a "perfect scenario" of how Facebook would work over the next few years and how much profit it could drag in. Perfect scenarios never happen and as seen stock price is now plummeting.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I can understand they make money, thought I didn't expect 1 billion, I admit, but from what?

[DeltrusDisc]

Oh, don't get me wrong, I can understand they make money, thought I didn't expect 1 billion, I admit, but from what?

If you use Facebook, then you know there are a LOT of advertisements all over the website. Companies/businesses use Facebook, the sheer user traffic is enough to get plenty from the ads, too. Then you have the stupid Facebook coins for games like Bejeweled/Farmville etc that you can buy. /barf

[Stanton Biston]

Facebook is a $12 stock.

And people forget- Zuckerberg made billions off of this. He's not just rich on paper- He was the one selling the first shares of stock. That's why companies go public- To get capital.

Now the question will be what will FB do with all the money and how much of it FB will get to keep after all this SEC crap.

[DeltrusDisc]

Facebook is a $12 stock.

And people forget- Zuckerberg made billions off of this. He's not just rich on paper- He was the one selling the first shares of stock. That's why companies go public- To get capital.

Now the question will be what will FB do with all the money and how much of it FB will get to keep after all this SEC crap.

Honestly I get the feeling Zuckerberg is just cashing in before Facebook falls flat on its face, he knows it is going to happen, and soon, thus he did the best thing a business man could do, and he made BANK off it. Was it moral? HELL NO. Was it a good business move? Oh you bet.

[Stanton Biston]

Honestly I get the feeling Zuckerberg is just cashing in before Facebook falls flat on its face, he knows it is going to happen, and soon, thus he did the best thing a business man could do, and he made BANK off it. Was it moral? HELL NO. Was it a good business move? Oh you bet.

It amuses me to no end that Ron Paul is as legitimate of a candidate as he's ever going to be, and big business is showing just how terrible it is at being anything other than terrible.

Profits over people. It's great.

[saberon]

Honestly I get the feeling Zuckerberg is just cashing in before Facebook falls flat on its face, he knows it is going to happen, and soon, thus he did the best thing a business man could do, and he made BANK off it. Was it moral? HELL NO. Was it a good business move? Oh you bet.

I don't think you could be more wrong. Facebook isn't just a website - It's a medium of communication. One that is used by tens of millions of people, if not more. It's not going to fail. It's going to grow.

The problem with the stockmarket is that people are always looking short-term. "OH NO ITS DROPPED 10% THE WORLD IS DOOOOOOOOMED!" is a ridiculous approach to the matter.
Hell, if I was in the US, or could be bothered to go through the trouble of buying stock overseas, now would be the time I'd be buying into Facebook. It's a great long-term investment.

[DeltrusDisc]

I don't think you could be more wrong. Facebook isn't just a website - It's a medium of communication. One that is used by tens of millions of people, if not more. It's not going to fail. It's going to grow.

The problem with the stockmarket is that people are always looking short-term. "OH NO ITS DROPPED 10% THE WORLD IS DOOOOOOOOMED!" is a ridiculous approach to the matter.
Hell, if I was in the US, or could be bothered to go through the trouble of buying stock overseas, now would be the time I'd be buying into Facebook. It's a great long-term investment.

lol I love how you make such assumptions about my knowledge. It's apparent also that YOU do not know what YOU are talking about. 10s of millions? Please. Try 870 million+ users.

And yet I still say it's not going to last forever. Yes it's a medium of communication, I use it as such, but so was AIM, so was Myspace. In fact Facebook really is no different from Myspace. Simply put, when over half your user base does not trust you one bit, if something better comes along, they will jump ship - and fast. Guess what? Surveys have shown that over half the Facebook user base does not trust Facebook/the ones running it. Don't believe that? Well, I don't trust it, none of my friends trust it, and perhaps you should ask YOUR friends if they trust it.

[Deleted]

In the current Facebook stock value there's a ton of expected growth in Facebook's profit over the next many, many years. If you expect this estimation of growth to be under or exactly its actual future growth then Facebook stocks are something for you. Personally I think the stock value is overpriced hence I wont be buying any.

[Rukh]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...8GMM1L20120522

Unless you're in on it, buying facebook was a sucker move. Congrats on getting played by wallstreet.

[Arganaut]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...8GMM1L20120522

Unless you're in on it, buying facebook was a sucker move. Congrats on getting played by wallstreet.

I have learnt more about stocks and shares today, in this forum post, then I could be bothered to understand in 30 years.

It's all monopoly money.

[Rooflesstoofless]

anyone remember myspace? or bebo? - facebook has a shelf life, and its coming to its end,

I wonder what the next big thing will be. Not being smug...I actually wonder what form it will take.

I know FB is insanely profitable, but I wonder how much of that is from direct sales to the users and how much of that is from the advertising of a product. Every single person I know has a FB account...but I rarely hear about anyone purchasing a product via Famville credits or clicking the ads on the side bar thing. My phone, my wife's phone, and all of my sister's phones don't even advertisements when I access FB via smartphone.

OT: I think its way overvalued right now.

[BLCalliente]

I have learnt more about stocks and shares today, in this forum post, then I could be bothered to understand in 30 years.

It's all monopoly money.

Check out the movie Boiler Room. Yes, it has Vin Diesel in it, and also one of the guys from That Thing You Do!

It's a good flick.

Essentially EVERY IPO is a watered down version of the scam they pull in the movie.

1)Insiders make their money
2)The stock gets offered to the public
3)The public either takes a bath or makes a small profit, ensuring future compliance
4)Repeat

[Deleted]

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-...want-users-pay

What is there to say about Facebook?

Why would anyone buy a company’s stock when they have no real profit pedigree? When their advertising profit in 2011 came to just over $1 billion, and their book value is the region of $100 billion, how can that really make any sense other than to the kind of nutcase zombie trader who takes Jim Cramer seriously? The sad truth is that people are just not clicking the ads; Facebook ads receive far fewer clicks than competitors such as Google’s AdSense.

If Facebook was floating with a book value of $5-10 billion (or around $2-4 per share) we would be talking about a serious business proposition, albeit one which is already rather saturated (given that there are 2.3 billion internet users, and Facebook already has its claws into 900 million of them). But at these levels? What are people paying for?

Some say the name recognition and momentum (but that’s just paying for hype) as well as the infrastructure and data that Facebook owns. Certainly five or six years of a big chunk of humanity’s likes and dislikes is a valuable database. But how do they monetise that? Does Zuckerberg have any credible plan?

The most under-reported piece of news of the day is surely that Zuckerberg does seem to have a plan. But it’s not very credible.

Zuckerberg plan is to fill his pockets now with the suckers' money buying his overpriced stocks.

[Maharishi]

It baffles me that people think there's a pattern to be found in the failures of myspace, xanga, etc. that applies to facebook. The social sphere has not been around long enough for anything relevant to be gleaned in the way of boom&bust cycles. Facebook is an inherently different creature than they ever were, it's reached an extremely important critical mass, much the way WoW has.

More importantly, new companies aren't trying to compete with facebook, they're integarting it. Spotify uses facebook as its backbone, as do a lot of mobile games. Almost every news site that has a commenting system uses facebook as a sign in method. It's created a massive feedback loop that is wholly unique from any other past sites.

Realistically, I forsee the "internet" in the next 10 years becoming heavily polarized around facebook and google. Facebook serving the social needs, and google serving the logistical needs.

[Deleted]

If you use Facebook, then you know there are a LOT of advertisements all over the website. Companies/businesses use Facebook, the sheer user traffic is enough to get plenty from the ads, too. Then you have the stupid Facebook coins for games like Bejeweled/Farmville etc that you can buy. /barf

I don't use Facebook, but when I visit pages of friends and companies AdBlock blocks everything there is. Didn't know about the coins thing, people buy that? Wow... well, their money.

[steveyboy]

I think facebook would be an ok investment. I can't see you earning millions yourself.

It seems to be at 900 million users at the moment........... I think it will just stay around that for the next 10 or so years.

[conscript]

I think facebook would be an ok investment. I can't see you earning millions yourself.

It seems to be at 900 million users at the moment........... I think it will just stay around that for the next 10 or so years.

If you honestly think that you know nothing about how fickle the internet is. There are about next to no social services still popular at all that were popular ten or even five years ago.

Facebook closed today at $27.72 now down $10.28 since its IPO and ~$15 dollars from the fake high point caused by Nasdaq screwing up and choking trading of the stock plus Goldman's massive infusion of cash. 27% of the money invested in this joke by pensions and common folk is now gone and unlikely to return.

[someotherguy]

I think facebook would be an ok investment. I can't see you earning millions yourself.

It seems to be at 900 million users at the moment........... I think it will just stay around that for the next 10 or so years.

I think 900 million users is a big lie, or a small misunderstanding.
The more realistic number is 900 accounts. My wife has 3, Erin Burnett mentioned she had a few - including some she no longer knows usernames/passwords for.

They made 1 billion profit on 3.7 billion in revenue: http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/01/fac...illion-profit/
Since they are a tech company, they should have some high P/E ratio, but google has P/E of 17.30, and FB is at 70.90, that's crazy (IMO).

People say that FB knows more about you than GOOG, so they can target adds better, but Google knows when you want to buy something - because you're searching. So adds on FB is like adds you get in mail. Adds on GOOG is like entering address into your gps for a car dealership, and getting adds for competing dealerships.

Big companies keep using FB to have a FB-page, but some are pulling their advertisement money. And since FB page is free, there's no income from it.

IMHO, the PE should be low. It seems to me that there's nothing technically stopping anyone else making the same website. There isn't much value on FB - only old photos. If someone makes a site that feels cool, it might be the end.

I say make PE slightly less than GOOG, and you got a reasonable price.

(if this looks like a nekro, I apologize, the thread was on only second page of forums)

[eriseis]

I think 900 million users is a big lie, or a small misunderstanding.
The more realistic number is 900 accounts. My wife has 3, Erin Burnett mentioned she had a few - including some she no longer knows usernames/passwords for.

901 million monthly active users at the end of March 2012. From their press release. So those accounts Erin mentioned she no longer remembers how to log into are not counted.