Facebook IPO watch.

[The-Noid]

how come limit order above hasn't filled yet?

They are filling in blocs. Very small lots are grouped. It will fill.

$40 is hard support. Must be where HFT was told to keep it.

 

[kranky]

Well, already down to $38.

 

[akshatp]

Back to $38

Overhyped

 

[kranky]

Apparently people who couldn't get in on the IPO aren't lined up to grab shares now. Or if they are, a lot of people who DID get in are immediately dumping shares.

 

[Imported]

Can't even get on eTrade..

 

[KingGheedora]

They are filling in blocs. Very small lots are grouped. It will fill.

$40 is hard support. Must be where HFT was told to keep it.

Curious what you mean by this. Can anyone explain how HFT can keep the price of a stock at a target value? If there are two people who want to trade at some price, doesn't HFT just try to become the middleman? If they don't want to middleman the trade, won't someone else do it, and therefore how would HFT be able to maintain a specific price?

My understanding of this is very limited so feel free to school me.

 

[The-Noid]

Curious what you mean by this. Can anyone explain how HFT can keep the price of a stock at a target value? If there are two people who want to trade at some price, doesn't HFT just try to become the middleman? If they don't want to middleman the trade, won't someone else do it, and therefore how would HFT be able to maintain a specific price?

My understanding of this is very limited so feel free to school me.

Bid side gets flooded at $40 limits. HFT/Algo/Brokers syndicate have price targets. Same reason we couldn't break $38.

 

[alent1234]

People are naysaying FB because of the $100B market cap on $1B of earnings.

There is more to it than just that,. But really, how will they grow their earnings?

how did google grow their earnings?

facebook lets you target your advertising a lot more than google does. and that's been the trend for decades

first TV channels - you have 3 channels for advertising. prime time and 18-49 demographic is born

cable TV - first targeted advertising. if you want to advertise fishing rods, you can do so on the right channel and at a lot less than the general broadcast channels.

internet - google collects data about you to target advertising based on your web history

facebook - they do the same as google but with a lot better info

with social media it's not really the advertising, its the brand creation. some companies spend a lot of money on constant advertising to create a brand like coke, mcdonalds, etc. with social it's the same thing but cheaper to do. and small businesses now have a way to target advertising like they never did before

 

[kranky]

how did google grow their earnings?

facebook lets you target your advertising a lot more than google does. and that's been the trend for decades

first TV channels - you have 3 channels for advertising. prime time and 18-49 demographic is born

cable TV - first targeted advertising. if you want to advertise fishing rods, you can do so on the right channel and at a lot less than the general broadcast channels.

internet - google collects data about you to target advertising based on your web history

facebook - they do the same as google but with a lot better info

with social media it's not really the advertising, its the brand creation. some companies spend a lot of money on constant advertising to create a brand like coke, mcdonalds, etc. with social it's the same thing but cheaper to do. and small businesses now have a way to target advertising like they never did before

It remains to be seen if advertisers find it to be worth the investment. Targeted advertising is valuable but it is not the holy grail of marketing. If you are trying to broaden your market, you need to reach people who are not already displaying an interest in your product or service. It's great if you want to steal customers from competitors but that only goes so far.

A lot of Groupon customers have found that the investment doesn't pay off in profits. If FB advertisers come to that conclusion, they are in trouble. GM already made that decision.

What carries more weight with online users - advertisements, or reviews from the general public or what your friends recommend? I'd rather have a handful of positive Yelp reviews that cost me nothing over paying FB to put an ad in front of people who may or may not read it, assuming they aren't using adblockers.

I'm not surprised that companies have jumped on the FB advertising bandwagon because they don't want to miss out if it pays off. But in the near future they will be evaluating if it actually is worth the money.

 

[Baasha]

You guys are funny, comparing FB to Zynga and Pandora and Groupon and Myspace like it's even close. The only two giants of advertising will be Facebook and Google when the dust clears. Look at LinkedIn, you would have doubled your money if you bought last year. Yes, I know it's at 700 P/E or whatever, but let's not even try to compare diminutive LinkedIn to FB.

I'd also like to add that the very reason you guys are naysaying Facebook (everyone and their mom will buy it) is the very reason they're successful and will continue to make money (everyone and their moms are using it). Get in early and double your money, it's that simple.

My comparison to the recent IPOs was to show that the hype surrounding certain companies don't always play out.

With regards to getting in "early", if you buy shares on the open market, it's almost always too late. Don't quote exceptions like Google as they don't make the rule. The real winners are the investors who got in early when shares were less than a dollar each.

Facebook's 100x (1:100) valuation is downright ridiculous. The early investors are surely having the last laugh.

 

[The-Noid]

My comparison to the recent IPOs was to show that the hype surrounding certain companies don't always play out.

With regards to getting in "early", if you buy shares on the open market, it's almost always too late. Don't quote exceptions like Google as they don't make the rule. The real winners are the investors who got in early when shares were less than a dollar each.

Facebook's 100x (1:100) valuation is downright ridiculous. The early investors are surely having the last laugh.

136.57x

Only 84x consensus forward earnings though.

 

[OlafSicky]

This is the greatest day in human history. Facebook will grow and change the world.

 

[alent1234]

its not only ads, i found a nice coffee shop in NYC because someone i know was always checking into another location on foursquare. facebook allows any business no matter how small to build a brand.

google had about the same revenues/profit when they went public as well. they were just a search engine until they bought adsense and doubleclick. look at them now, biggest mobile OS

it might not be worth it to GM but to thousands of small businesses like restaurants and food trucks its a cheap way to advertise

with instagram they have a chance to be the platform that allows anyone to connect with their fans in the mobile space

 

[FM2n]

In for 1 - Has HDMI

 

[abaez]

its not only ads, i found a nice coffee shop in NYC because someone i know was always checking into another location on foursquare. facebook allows any business no matter how small to build a brand.

google had about the same revenues/profit when they went public as well. they were just a search engine until they bought adsense and doubleclick. look at them now, biggest mobile OS

it might not be worth it to GM but to thousands of small businesses like restaurants and food trucks its a cheap way to advertise

with instagram they have a chance to be the platform that allows anyone to connect with their fans in the mobile space

You're delusional. You know how those small business and restaurants advertise on facebook? By making their free business page and not paying a cent. They will not be buying ads on facebook.

 

[KingGheedora]

Bid side gets flooded at $40 limits. HFT/Algo/Brokers syndicate have price targets. Same reason we couldn't break $38.

I don't know what this means. But it still doesn't seem to answer the question of how HFT maintains a target price. Don't HFT's typically hold a stock for a couple seconds at a time? From what I saw on businessinsider.com it sounds like the underwriters and other insiders are buying up the stock at $38: http://www.businessinsider.com/this-is-why-facebook-isnt-falling-below-38share-2012-5

If this is true, it has nothing to do with HFT, right?

 

[Insomniator]

Very tempted.... I'd only buy $1k worth so its not like I could lose a whole lot of money. I just don't know! Seems like most of the advice is AGAINST buying right now though.

 

[gevorg]

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/facebook/...lion-class-action-user-tracking-lawsuit/13358

 

[alent1234]

You're delusional. You know how those small business and restaurants advertise on facebook? By making their free business page and not paying a cent. They will not be buying ads on facebook.

ok you win
a company with almost a billion users and who's product is starting to steal revenues from verizon and AT&T has no future

except for old people, social media has replaced email for most of us

 

[The-Noid]

I don't know what this means. But it still doesn't seem to answer the question of how HFT maintains a target price. Don't HFT's typically hold a stock for a couple seconds at a time? From what I saw on businessinsider.com it sounds like the underwriters and other insiders are buying up the stock at $38: http://www.businessinsider.com/this-is-why-facebook-isnt-falling-below-38share-2012-5

If this is true, it has nothing to do with HFT, right?

HFT's buy stock for inventory at levels that appear favorable, generally related to VWAP or other implementation shortfall metrics. There are also numerous algos that float stub quotes etc. Pretty obvious 40 was a number they attempted to hold before losing and having the syndicate come in at $38. The huge number of shares traded obviously was by computers and not be retail. I bet we finish the day very close to VWAP.

 

[SP33Demon]

My comparison to the recent IPOs was to show that the hype surrounding certain companies don't always play out.

With regards to getting in "early", if you buy shares on the open market, it's almost always too late. Don't quote exceptions like Google as they don't make the rule. The real winners are the investors who got in early when shares were less than a dollar each.

Facebook's 100x (1:100) valuation is downright ridiculous. The early investors are surely having the last laugh.

Exceptions like Google? You have got to be shitting me if you think any new companies will rival the advertising revenue of Facebook and Google in the future. If you bought in after the IPO for Google, you'd still have earned 600%+ today. As long as Facebook management doesn't fck things up then they are on the same path.

$40 now.

 

[abaez]

ok you win
a company with almost a billion users and who's product is starting to steal revenues from verizon and AT&T has no future

except for old people, social media has replaced email for most of us

No, it hasn't. At all and it won't ever.

 

[Imp]

it might not be worth it to GM but to thousands of small businesses like restaurants and food trucks its a cheap way to advertise

with instagram they have a chance to be the platform that allows anyone to connect with their fans in the mobile space

Every smaller business I know has: tumblr, twitter, wordpress, Facebook, myspace, youtube, regularly updated Craigslist ads, etc.....

Doesn't seem like they're really restricted to Facebook, In fact, you may say that these small businesses use every free and available piece of "social media" site available. That correlates to money for Facebook... somehow I guess.

ok you win
a company with almost a billion users and who's product is starting to steal revenues from verizon and AT&T has no future

except for old people, social media has replaced email for most of us

Facebook is stealing revenues. Okay... I bet they also have a huge network of cell towers, communications infrastructure, etc. Telecom is doomed.

 

[SP33Demon]

Every smaller business I know has: tumblr, twitter, wordpress, Facebook, myspace, youtube, regularly updated Craigslist ads, etc.....

Doesn't seem like they're really restricted to Facebook, In fact, you may say that these small businesses use every free and available piece of "social media" site available. That correlates to money for Facebook... somehow I guess.




Facebook is stealing revenues. Okay... I bet they also have a huge network of cell towers, communications infrastructure, etc. Telecom is doomed.

Actually, you're partially correct. Facebook is decimating every other social media site so bad they had to halt trading on the other companies to stop the bloodbath today, everyone is trading up for shares of Facebook.

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) - Shares of Zynga Inc. were halted in morning trades on Friday after the stock fell by more than 13%. Trading was halted after Facebook Inc. began trading in its much-awaited initial public offering. Other social networking shares were also down in morning trades. LinkedIn was trading down more than 5%, while Groupon was off 7.5% and Yelp Inc. tumbled more than 6%. Also in the red were shares of Renren Inc. , the China-based social networking company, which were down more than 12%. The social media shares sharply added to losses after Facebook's trading debut. Shares of Facebook were trading mostly flat at $38.

It's stupid to halt trading to prevent the bloodbath, eventually the cream will rise to the top. F Zynga.

 

[rcpratt]

I don't think that's the reason that Zynga fell. Zynga's success is largely tied to Facebook's. I think it was caused by the extremely disappointing IPO today.