NA: Who is buying Facebook stock today?

AuntPeggy said:
http://www.theatlantic.com/business...he-worst-performing-ipo-of-the-decade/257703/
Facebook is now officially the worst performing IPO of the decade.
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This, IMO, is the most rellevant statement in the piece:
That makes it news. But it doesn't make it indicative of anything about Facebook except that the IPO price turned out to be high.
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So, this is what we get when we infect stock markets with Lotto Fever.

So, now that the IPO dust has settled and everybody is in over their eyeballs in this stock, what are they going to do to make it perform? This is where management is supposed to earn their compensation packages, let's see how they do.
 
Henning said:
This, IMO, is the most rellevant statement in the piece:


So, this is what we get when we infect stock markets with Lotto Fever.

So, now that the IPO dust has settled and everybody is in over their eyeballs in this stock, what are they going to do to make it perform? This is where management is supposed to earn their compensation packages, let's see how they do.
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Can you say "layoff"?
 
Henning said:
This, IMO, is the most rellevant statement in the piece:


So, this is what we get when we infect stock markets with Lotto Fever.

So, now that the IPO dust has settled and everybody is in over their eyeballs in this stock, what are they going to do to make it perform? This is where management is supposed to earn their compensation packages, let's see how they do.
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This wasn't about investors it was about the employees cashing in their $6 options to become instant millionaires.
 
...and down another 8% (or more) today, down 23% from it's opening IPO day price (not the price during the IPO). Some are saying it will settle around $9. That's really what it's worth, or maybe $0 because they don't actually produce a product. I have an account and use it, but I don't play games, and AdBlock stops all the ads so they won't make a dime from me.
 
AuntPeggy said:
Can you say "layoff"?
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Ding!

The people at the top's only way to make money now is to innovate or cut costs by tossing lower level employees overboard after other cost-cutting measures.

The stock WIlL go up, but the company will languish unless they're able to get more money for advertising by mining the personal data even more heavily than they already do.

See: Yahoo.
 
EppyGA said:
This wasn't about investors it was about the employees cashing in their $6 options to become instant millionaires.
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There's no difference who is collecting, they are always the beneficiaries of an IPO, "it's the thought that counts" holds deeper meaning than most understand.
 
Why not divest in another direction with all this capital that's been leveraged in there and build a competitive media outlet on the lines of Netflix with a slightly higher cost, larger consumer base and broader range of selection. I think the ability to channel surf needs to be eliminated. I like the Netflix interface, I have to actively select something after being given some data to consider whether I deem to even expose myself to its nonsense, inflammatory tripe, or mind control and alien mutation factor ray ripening us for harvest, just never do know....
 
Badger said:
I personally think it will go up from it's open, then in a few days settle back, but my track record is pretty poor.:sad:

Anyone buying Facebook?
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Did you buy? Your track record seems to be intact.

I'm not involved in any way - but my personal feeling is that the stock was way overvalued at $38 and the only thing that supported that price was the desire of FB and the IP banks to get that much when they sold it.

My guess is that it will eventually settle in the 8-12 range in about 3 months.
 
Henning said:
Why not divest in another direction with all this capital that's been leveraged in there and build a competitive media outlet on the lines of Netflix with a slightly higher cost, larger consumer base and broader range of selection. I think the ability to channel surf needs to be eliminated. I like the Netflix interface, I have to actively select something after being given some data to consider whether I deem to even expose myself to its nonsense, inflammatory tripe, or mind control and alien mutation factor ray ripening us for harvest, just never do know....
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Netflix is severely under-water and beholden to the media companies. They're struggling to stay alive.

(Good Bloomberg article this weekend on how with all the "outrage" over Wall Street salaries for execs, media still outclasses those salaries by a couple orders of magnitude.)

Media is the ultimate ponzi scheme for the artists and performers. They do a good job making us all think the movie stars are the rich people in that game. They're not. Rich, yes. But their bosses are outrageously so.

Anyway, Netflix's problems are exactly what you recommend. They have significant competitors from the media companies doing their own things. (Hulu, HBO has their own thing, ESPN has their own thing, even Major League Sports have their own thing. And by thing, I mean they have their own streaming services and infrastructure. And of course, Apple and Amazon have competing services too.)

More competition won't help what ails modern media distribution. Forcing networks to unbundle channels so providers can offer them a la carte is what's needed right now. The reason you get 500 channels of crap is because media companies force distributors (cable, satellite) to take three or four channels to get one good one.
 
EppyGA said:
This wasn't about investors it was about the employees cashing in their $6 options to become instant millionaires.
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I'm sure that's a big part of it, I'm surprised it took this long for someone here to point that out.
Facebook stock, what a joke.
Their "campus" is right under the departure path of my home 'drome, fancy place:rolleyes:.
 
Exactly, the data mining is where the value is, or at least the perceived value. When people figure out that FB is using their personal information for advertisers, many will get away from it. Funny thing GM is dropping Facebook ads, Ford is increasing Facebook ads. As a Ford dealer, we have a page, not for advertising, we put community events, fundraisers etc on there, not used car specials. ;)
denverpilot said:
Ding!

The people at the top's only way to make money now is to innovate or cut costs by tossing lower level employees overboard after other cost-cutting measures.

The stock WIlL go up, but the company will languish unless they're able to get more money for advertising by mining the personal data even more heavily than they already do.

See: Yahoo.
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denverpilot said:
is because media companies force distributors (cable, satellite) to take three or four channels to get one good one.
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I say it is the FCC and not media companies that play the largest role here. I saw once an interview with some FCC official who was arguing that offering channels "a la carte" would destroy many small channels, in other words "a la carte" would not be politically correct because market forces would kill many small operators, there will be no 'subsidies'.

I say the reason you get 500 channels full of crap is that it is extremely difficult to come up with attractive content. You can have 1000000 channels and you simply distribute good stuff among so many channels, you dilute the content.

denverpilot said:
Netflix is severely under-water and beholden to the media companies. They're struggling to stay alive.
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Don't care what they are beholden to as long they offer me a product for a price I am willing to pay. Until someone else can deliver the content for such relatively low price as Netflix I think Netflix will always have a market. I am always on lookout if I can get the stuff I am getting from Netflix from someone else and I am not finding any reasonable alternative, not yet.
 
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olasek said:
Don't care what they are beholden to as long they offer me a product for a price I am willing to pay. Until someone else can deliver the content for such relatively low price as Netflix I think Netflix will always have a market. I am always on lookout if I can get the stuff I am getting from Netflix from someone else and I am not finding any reasonable alternative, not yet.
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Agree with you. My point was they're a middle-man and the upstream media companies could double their costs tomorrow and they could do nothing about it. Thus "beholden".

That was in response to the idea that someone should start up a competitor to Netflix which because they're already just barely hanging on by their fingernails, and because there's already massive competition, is a truly awful business idea. (Unless you are the content creators/owners or have buddy buddy access to them and figure out a way to scratch their backs.)

The upstream media companies could make Netflix disappear tomorrow. (Or once their content distribution contract is up for renewal.) Netflix is on really shaky ground. Always has been. They don't even have the rights to distribute everything online that they can distribute via physical DVDs. Not even close. They know it. Their upstream knows it. It's the classic middle-man squeeze play, business-wise.

And their upstream knows how much money they lost letting Netflix rent out physical DVD media all those years prior to the online streaming. Think they have any qualms getting a little "payback" and watching Netflix squirm at every contract renewal?
 
Forgot the "must-carry" stuff.

FCC only enforces "must-carry" rules under specific circumstances. Local broadcast channels seen by a large enough market mist be distributed if other local channels are offered.

The vast majority of the cable/satellite crud isn't "FCC must-carry". It's just forced on the middle-men by the media companies in contracts.

Example: You can't order ESPN 1 only and neither can the distribution chain of Cable, Satellite, etc. they are forced to carry ALL of ESPN's channels if they want to distribute ESPN 1. That's not the FCC doing that. That's ESPNs contract with DirectTV, Dish, Comcast, etc etc etc.

Same with HBO, Showtime, etc.

ESPN sells ads on ALL networks to the advertisers. Buy ad time on ESPN 1 only? No. We push it to all of our channels and the distributors are required to carry all of them.

It lets them say they have X channels worth of content on X, Y, and Z distribution networks to their advertisers. Until advertisers figure out a way to determine which ads are actually effective in closing sales, "number of impressions" is a significant figure on how much they pay for the ad space/time.

Basically, content providers get to dictate that all of their channels including the 24 hour puppy races channel (kidding but you get the idea) are carried. If not, you can't have the main channel everyone wants to see.

The problem for the distribution systems is bandwidth. They can't add it fast enough. Thus, they compress the hell out of the "HD" signals for unpopular channels and still compress to a lesser extent the popular channels. Sometimes switching compression on the fly for different shows and events.

And the content providers are writing "must not compress lower than X MB/sec type clauses into contracts now too, to stop that from happening.

End customers have almost zero choice in any of the above. You can drop all of HBO for example, but try dropping stuff that's in the core packages. You can't. You have to pay for it.
 
denverpilot said:
Agree with you. My point was they're a middle-man and the upstream media companies could double their costs tomorrow and they could do nothing about it. Thus "beholden".

That was in response to the idea that someone should start up a competitor to Netflix which because they're already just barely hanging on by their fingernails, and because there's already massive competition, is a truly awful business idea. (Unless you are the content creators/owners or have buddy buddy access to them and figure out a way to scratch their backs.)

The upstream media companies could make Netflix disappear tomorrow. (Or once their content distribution contract is up for renewal.) Netflix is on really shaky ground. Always has been. They don't even have the rights to distribute everything online that they can distribute via physical DVDs. Not even close. They know it. Their upstream knows it. It's the classic middle-man squeeze play, business-wise.

And their upstream knows how much money they lost letting Netflix rent out physical DVD media all those years prior to the online streaming. Think they have any qualms getting a little "payback" and watching Netflix squirm at every contract renewal?
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Like this? Estimates are a 10x increase in licensing costs! :hairraise:

http://money.cnn.com/2011/07/08/technology/netflix_starz_contract/
 
N747JB said:
Exactly, the data mining is where the value is, or at least the perceived value. When people figure out that FB is using their personal information for advertisers, many will get away from it. Funny thing GM is dropping Facebook ads, Ford is increasing Facebook ads. As a Ford dealer, we have a page, not for advertising, we put community events, fundraisers etc on there, not used car specials. ;)
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Yeah, and what people don't realize in the fine print, is that whatever you post on FB, they get a free, unlimited license to use any way they want. Gives me the shivers. And as I mentioned that to my friend on the phone yesterday, he points out this is what happens with that free license:

http://nbergus.com/2012/02/how-i-be...allon-drum-of-personal-lubricant-on-facebook/

http://gizmodo.com/5888669/facebook-ads-turn-unsuspecting-man-into-a-pitchman-for-giant-tub-of-lube
 
denverpilot said:
Netflix is severely under-water and beholden to the media companies. They're struggling to stay alive.

(Good Bloomberg article this weekend on how with all the "outrage" over Wall Street salaries for execs, media still outclasses those salaries by a couple orders of magnitude.)

Media is the ultimate ponzi scheme for the artists and performers. They do a good job making us all think the movie stars are the rich people in that game. They're not. Rich, yes. But their bosses are outrageously so.

Anyway, Netflix's problems are exactly what you recommend. They have significant competitors from the media companies doing their own things. (Hulu, HBO has their own thing, ESPN has their own thing, even Major League Sports have their own thing. And by thing, I mean they have their own streaming services and infrastructure. And of course, Apple and Amazon have competing services too.)

More competition won't help what ails modern media distribution. Forcing networks to unbundle channels so providers can offer them a la carte is what's needed right now. The reason you get 500 channels of crap is because media companies force distributors (cable, satellite) to take three or four channels to get one good one.
Click to expand...

If I could buy basic cable channels I could stream monthly for $.99 month streaming on top of my base Netflex bill I could have everything I want for under $20 on my Netflix bill, I only want maybe 7 channels.
 
Greebo said:
Sure, you keep buying. I'll sell short! ;)
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Well, I don't buy stock with a 100/1 PE Ratio. So this one needs to come down a "bit" more. :wink2:
 
Anthony said:
Well, I don't buy stock with a 100/1 PE Ratio. So this one needs to come down a "bit" more. :wink2:
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Oh sure, you're all up in the recommendations till its time to put your money where your mouth is!
 
Greebo said:
Oh sure, you're all up in the recommendations till its time to put your money where your mouth is!
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Did you see the BIG SMILEY :D next to my statement? It was hardly a recommendation, but I'm sure you understand that I was being facetious and just yanking my chain. :)
 
Anthony said:
Did you see the BIG SMILEY :D next to my statement? It was hardly a recommendation, but I'm sure you understand that I was being facetious and just yanking my chain. :)
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Bingo :)
 
It's good to have you back Chuck. :)
 
Anthony said:
Well, I don't buy stock with a 100/1 PE Ratio. So this one needs to come down a "bit" more. :wink2:
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I left a lot of money on the table playing by the usual "valuation" rules on Apple... :) (I like to say I still made money, but damn...)

Probably a bunch of folks thinking the same thing on Google.

Market is insane. Not tied to fundamentals at all -- on lots of stocks...
 
> Well, I don't buy stock with a 100/1 PE Ratio. So this one needs to come down
> a "bit" more.

Uh, yeah. I think Google was at 14:1 last time I checked.

I keep remembering the junior reporter (WSJ?) that essentially began the unraveling
of Enron. She asked, "How does Enron make money?" Ken Lay couldn't answer her
question.

When I look at the PE for Facebook ... it becomes yet another F-word.
 
4b94241c-5504-4a72.jpg
 
denverpilot said:
I left a lot of money on the table playing by the usual "valuation" rules on Apple... :) (I like to say I still made money, but damn...)

Probably a bunch of folks thinking the same thing on Google.

Market is insane. Not tied to fundamentals at all -- on lots of stocks...
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The dot com stocks, due to the rapid change in computer, and internet technology really changed the nature of the markets. They were insane before, but the volatility of the dot coms which led to the bubble, and people/analysts being OK with investing in companies with no real earnings was more risky than "normal".

It was/is speculation on steroids, not really seen since right before the first big depression. You can make A LOT of money, but the flip side is devasting. Greed, and Fear still rule humans.
 
NASDAQ just set up a $40M fund to cover losses. Not clear who's losses they're covering nor why NASDAQ is on the hook for them, to me anyway. Other that there's a whole lot of PO'ed people.
 
denverpilot said:
NASDAQ just set up a $40M fund to cover losses. Not clear who's losses they're covering nor why NASDAQ is on the hook for them, to me anyway. Other that there's a whole lot of PO'ed people.
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You can't fix stupid! (Ron White)But apparently you can help cover their losses! (Me)
 
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