I just find it absolutely amazing how most analyst were hyping this and now they aren't.

This stock just proves that people in the industry are a joke and you are a fool to let them manage your money. Do your own research and manage your own money.

(Reuters) - Facebook Inc and banks including Morgan Stanley were sued by the social networking leader's shareholders, who claimed the defendants hid Facebook's weakened growth forecasts ahead of its $16 billion initial public offering.

The defendants, who also include Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg, were accused of concealing from investors during the IPO marketing process "a severe and pronounced reduction" in revenue growth forecasts, resulting from increased use of its app or website through mobile devices. Facebook went public last week.


click here for link

Originally posted by: crunkmoose

Well, Suckerberg has made a huge profit on this. Stock holders, however.. not so much.

funny how that always happens; screw over partners, become a billionaire, screw over stockholders, become an even bigger billionaire. sounds like he's found the recipe for success.

not that i'm terribly sympathetic to all the insider douchebags in the smug capital of the of the world losing some money after they went on a spending binge in silicon valley a week before the IPO. that 3rd article in the original post reads like something from larry david now.

"We're the best thing happening in America," said one tech entrepreneur, who asked to remain anonymous so he could speak candidly.

lol

won't be the first time an american company has tried to sell a well packaged box of nothing.







Shares of the social networking giant continued a precipitous plunge since the company's much-hyped initial public offering. The stock notched a 10% drop Tuesday and has lost about a quarter of its value since going public May 18.

Facebook is now trading below $29, a stunning drop for the biggest tech IPO in history. And traders are placing bets that the stock will erode further.

"It's been a one-way ride so far, and it's hard to say if the stock has hit bottom," said William Lefkowitz, chief options strategist at VFinance Inc. in New York.

It hasn't hit bottom yet. I would guess $12... being generous.

Facebook plumbs new lows as sales curbs start to expire


By Alexei Oreskovic and Ryan Vlastelica

SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK | Fri Aug 17, 2012

(Reuters) - Facebook Inc shares sank 6.3 percent to a record closing low after early investors got the greenlight to sell for the first time since the No. 1 social network went public, starting a string of insider lockup expirations that will pressure the stock for months.

More than 270 million shares owned by early investors became available for trade on Thursday after a 3-month curb on sales ended. That's more than half the 421 million shares sold in its initial public offering on May 18.

The company founded by Mark Zuckerberg in his Harvard dorm room became the only U.S. company to debut with a market value of more than $100 billion.

But investors have since grown disillusioned with Facebook's inability to articulate a plan to reverse slowing revenue growth - due in large part to its limited mobile advertising efforts - sending the stock down almost 50 percent from its $38 debut.

Many investors remain unnerved by the massive flood of shares still waiting to be released: More than 1.4 billion additional shares will be eligible for selling by year's end, nearly tripling the amount available for trade.

Analysts say Thursday's frenetic trading offers a taste of what may transpire in November, when many of the social network's employees get to cash in stock awards for the first time.

"An incredible amount, all the shares coming," said Steve Birenberg, president of Northlake Capital Management and portfolio manager for Entermedia Growth Partners, a hedge fund.

"It's important because it adds to the negative sentiment. You've got a big overhang of stock, you've got decelerating growth ..., everything out there now is sort of spun negatively."

With Thursday's selloff, Facebook has lost almost $50 billion, or just under half, of its value since its IPO. The stock, which debuted at $38, fell as much as 7.1 percent to a all-time low of $19.69 before ending the day at $19.87.

Facebook has been wildly volatile, moving more than 3 percent in most sessions. It was the most active counter on the Nasdaq on Thursday with roughly 157 million shares changing hands - five times its 50-day daily average of just under 30 million shares.

Analysts said it wasn't clear whether the selloff was actually driven by insiders or by other shareholders worried about potential insider selling.

Among the largest blocks of shares now available for trading are about 75 million owned by Russia's DST Global Limited and Mail.ru. Other potential sellers may have included venture capital firm Accel Partners and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel.

Facebook's IPO was to have been the culmination of years of breakneck growth that established it as the world's largest Internet social network with a billion users, challenging Google Inc for consumers' time and advertising dollars.

Its May coming-out party is often compared with Google's, which also debuted against a backdrop of intense investor enthusiasm. But the search company founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin fared better after its IPO, gaining more than 70 percent in its first 60 days on the market.

After staging one of the most highly anticipated IPOs in history, Facebook has felt the sting of investor disenchantment.

Concerns about the company's slowing revenue growth, and its ability to make money on mobile advertising, have pressured the stock.

With Facebook trading at just under $20, Zuckerberg, 28, who enjoys majority voting power, has now watched more than $9 billion evaporate from his net worth. Zuckerberg was ranked 35th on the latest Forbes' list of the world's richest billionaires published in September 2011.

"You've had a failed IPO, the stock has been cut in half, a sloppy quarter and a big lock-up expiring. Every one of those tends to erode faith," said Michael Binger, a portfolio manager at Gradient Investments, whose firm does not have a position in Facebook.

With Facebook still trading at 40 times its expected 2012 earnings - compared to 16 for Google and 14 for Apple Inc - Binger said he did not see a buying opportunity until the company's revenue growth starts to re-accelerate.

Another 243 million shares will be released from lock-up between mid-October and mid-November. On November 14, more than 1.2 billion shares will be available for trading. Zuckerberg will not be able to sell his shares until then.

"The biggest issue is not this lock-up; it's the November lock-up," said Pivotal Research Group analyst Brian Wieser.

If the company's perceived operating momentum doesn't improve by then, he said, "then there's real trouble ahead."

As the insider lockups started to expire, the number of Facebook shares shorted hit a new high of 92.6 million shares on Thursday, according to Sungard Financial Systems' Astec unit, which tracks short interest. That would represent roughly 13 percent of the company's float of 692 million shares.

Short sellers borrow shares to sell them, betting that they can buy the securities later at a lower price and make a profit.

On Thursday morning, 600,000 shares were shorted, "due in part to the relatively inexpensive rate at which short sellers must pay to sell short," said Tim Smith, executive vice president of Sungard's Astec unit.

"Even though Facebook's market cap has almost been cut in half since its IPO, many investors believe that shares are still overvalued," Smith said.





an emperor without clothes

It will only make a handful of people good money.

Originally posted by: Spiritinthesky

It will only make a handful of people good money.

The spirit of the 21st century economy... make a quick killing then burn all your investors to the ground.

Bottom line is: people are starved for an easy way to distance yourself and create social connections. Hate to say it but is this site to much different?

Originally posted by: Kadesh

Bottom line is: people are starved for an easy way to distance yourself and create social connections. Hate to say it but is this site to much different?

Different than facebook? I can't speak for anyone else's experience of it, but I would say yes... quite different.

not by much....just in a different way.