Friday, May 18, 2012

Your Turn

Today, Facebook shares go public. Would you ever buy any shares of Facebook? Think it will be around forever?

22 comments:

auntliddy said...

No, because here's what I know about the stock market: they ring a bell every morning. There is a dow jones industrial something. Dometimes famous people ring the bell. There are bulls and bears. If it goes down, everyone shits a brick. If it goes up, everyone congratulates themselves. The end.
And that is why I dont invest.

Jennifer H. said...

I wouldn't be against owning some shares for the near future.

I do not believe FB will be around forever. As soon as someone comes up with an actual Holodeck, FB will be toast.

auntliddy said...

No, because here's what I know about the stock market: they ring a bell every morning. There is a dow jones industrial something. Dometimes famous people ring the bell. There are bulls and bears. If it goes down, everyone shits a brick. If it goes up, everyone congratulates themselves. The end.
And that is why I dont invest.

Jennifer H. said...

There is a really awesome poem or limerick in there somewhere.

Snapdragon said...

Nope. Two primary reasons:

1) MySpace.
2) Dotcom bust.

Vikingwench said...

No and no.

Beth said...

I'd only buy it if I were in a position to whip around and sell it at a profit ASAP. It will not hold it's value.

Little Miss Smoke and Mirrors said...

What cracks me up is I still get emails from Classmates.com trying to get me to upgrade to gold membership (for a fee). Does Classmates.com not know about FB?

Another Josh said...

I have no money to invest, and nothing is going to be around forever. So there you go.

Anonymous said...

No. No.

Lisa (not original) said...

As soon as someone comes up with a Shockwave/Flash platform for mobile devices, FB is gone.

Seachica said...

I won't invest, because the numbers aren't there. Have you seen the P/E ratio? It's way out of whack with other companies.

In the dot.com bubble, you saw IPO prices jump dramatically in the first day. Great deal for the inside investors who were able to get in on the IPO, but it left a lot of money on the table that didn't go to the company, and created an artificial sense that companies were going to grow into their valuations. Hence, bubble.

Post-dot.com, the hoopla around inflated stock prices is taking place in the runup to setting the IPO price. Companies get to maximize the cash they get out of an IPO, leaving no bubble money for the inside investors. As a result, you're seeing the same high, out-of-whack day 1 prices, but without the runup.

It's still a bubble.

I work in the digital advertising industry, and advertisers are finding that Facebook is a great place for marketing, but lousy for advertising. Until FB either a) figures out how to charge companies for the marketing opportunity, or b) builds its own ad network to maximize the potential of it's knowledge about users (which is far superior to anything anyone else in the industry has), FB won't make the type of money it will take to justify their share price.

FB is smart to IPO. Now let me see what they do with the cash. If they continue to invest $1b on a mobile app (Instagram) with no clear way of making money, then no way. If they continue to ignore where their users are going (various FB product changes, lack of mobile for a very long time -- and even now without ads), then no way. The price is out of whack with the underlying value.

Middle-aged Diva (Carol) said...

Funny you should ask. Here's why I wouldn't:

http://www.middle-aged-diva.blogspot.com/2012/05/why-you-shouldnt-invest-in-facebook.html

KPeony said...

No. Facebook is starting to decline. A lot of my friends have deactivated their accounts. Too many employers are looking up facebook accounts for new hires so it's just becoming a liability. I think it is just a fad.

selenakyle said...

No and Hay-ell no!

I was on it for exactly two weeks and it creeped me out so bad I quit that bitch ASAP.

Anonymous said...

uh....nah. Those FB CEO turds have enough money. This isn't like Apple or Microsoft. Something will come along and compete. FB is getting old. I am bored on it lately.

Never. Bored. On. CDAN. Though.

Bleu said...

No. Facebook basically doesn't produce a product it sells. It's product is its users' personal information -- that's what it's selling to marketers that makes it so valuable. I suppose it could last forever but I think (hope) there's a limit to people letting Zucerkberg ride their personal information into billionaire-dom.

Sherry R. said...

A very dissapointing day for Facebook.

mooshki said...

Zuckerberg cares more about shaping facebook into what he thinks it should be than in making a profit.

Bally said...

I'm thinking about selling my Excite, Alta Vista, MySpace, InfoSeek, and Ask Jeeves shares to buy some. I haven't checked on them in years, so they must be worth a fortune by now. Right?

Comma Chaser said...

Don't do it. GM just pulled all of their ads from them. That is a big revenue hit. I was in Seattle during the entire doctor rise and bust, and this has shades of that. I like the site okay, and it keeps me in touch with a couple of good friends from my high school days, but beyond that, no, I'm not adding this company to my portfolio.

LinkedIn _might_ be a better way to go, for those interested in this particular sector.

Lelaina Pierce said...

^Thats exactly my husband just told me.

No and no.

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