“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”
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Way back towards the end of May I wrote a post with a big ‘F’-ing title about the greed-inspired stupidity and madness that preceded the Facebook IPO. Remember, “Furious Flabbergasted Facebook Fools Face Frightening Falls From Fanciful Flagging Financial Flotation Farce”?
Launched at the ridiculous price of $38 a share, or about 100 times the company’s earnings, the price momentarily made it to $45, but then quickly plummeted to $34.
In my post in May I suggested that the shares were worth more like $18 a share rather than $38. As of yesterday (August 16th) the price had fallen below $20.
I’m not saying this by way of blowing my trumpet, because I now think that my $18 peg may have been rather optimistic too. Investors have by and large turned against Facebook.
Apart from the odd blip, the stock has been on a downward trend pressured by disappointing earnings and by the fact that from today the so-called “lockups” that have prevented some early Facebook backers from unloading their stakes begin to expire. This simply means they will be able to sell shares into the market and with around two billion shares eligible for a sell off between now and May 2013, with a big one coming in November, the signs for a price recovery are ominous.
In fact further falls are more than likely.
Those who can are shorting the stock like crazy. (Shorting is where your broker borrows shares which you sell immediately in the hope that you can buy them back later at a lower price.)
The number of Facebook shares on loan to short sellers has risen from 63 million a month ago to more than 93 million.
So is it a good buy now at $18? I think not. Not for a while anyhow, until these locked shares find their way into the market and the price stabilizes and that will probably be well into 2013.
In the short term the status quo is probably down down deeper and down.
Forget Facebook and enjoy some music from the 70s instead.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKe2OfXLxuc
The small print.
Fasab disclaimer: this blog post does not constitute professional advice as regards investments on the stock exchange, such advice would only be given and indicated thus if an outrageous fee were being charged and this blog is being given to you for free. Also any investor should always be aware that shares can fall as well as plummet and should act accordingly by not investing any money they can not afford to lose.
fasab 
Want to be my stock picker!
LOL Thanks for the offer. Unfortunately I’m not that good 😦 but then neither are most of the pros doing it for a living.
Sure glad I didn’t jump on the IPO or thereafter … then again, I didn’t consider it. 🙂
Very wise. I don’t set out to be a contrarian as such, just find that most of the time I’m not part of the herd.
Thanks for your comment.
Thanks for clearing up something completely incomprehensible to me. Just the mention of facebook, in any context, has me looking for the nearest exit.
Thanks for commenting. You could maybe tell that I’m not a Facebook fan myself.
Facebook, stocks, bleugh. Thumbs up for the Status Quo though, it’s in my head without even opening the link 😉
LOL Glad you’re a fan. Thanks for your comment.
I just saw this morning that it is still dropping. You are wise!
My goodness you’re the first person to say that to me in ages. Thanks for commenting.