Facebook, One Year Later

I wonder how common this is amongst retail investors: buying things they have no business buying. Whether it's an IPO or an options contract, there's a great deal of complexity behind many financial instruments, and just because your brokerage gives you the opportunity to pull the lever it doesn't mean you're qualified to do so.<p>On the other hand, it's hard to work up sympathy for the woman in the story. Yes, she wasn't privy to behind-the-scenes details. But it sounds like she put less research into her $200K "investment" decision than she did with the last car she bought. The Atlantic may have left out the details of her late-night scouring of web pages for information, but as a proxy for retail investors in general it's probably accurate.<p>Here's the only thing a retail investor needs to know about IPOs: FB isn't the exception, it's the rule. Buy an IPO on opening day and the vast majority of the time you're going to lose money. Why? (And I wish I could bold and underline this.) Because the IPO isn't to make <i>you</i> money. Stay the hell away from them unless you know what you're doing. And you probably don't.<p>EDIT: maybe I'm mis-remembering, but didn't the problem of mobile users and ad revenue come out <i>before</i> the IPO day?

Granted, she was extraordinarily foolish to have gambled her entire life savings on one stock's IPO. However, this is where things fall apart for me:<p>========================<p>She turned her attention to her computer screen only to realize that there was no sign of her having voided the order. She kept refreshing the page in hopes of seeing the notification. When no cancellation report appeared, she called her stockbroker at Vanguard. "What's going on?" she asked.<p>If the cancel order was placed, then it's probably cancelled, the broker told her. She got off the phone and went back to her computer screen. There was no sign of cancellation. She called Vanguard again. This time, she says, she waited on the line for a long time, but no one came to take her call.<p>Meanwhile, Facebook stock opened at 11:30 a.m. The mysterious delay was due to technical glitches. NASDAQ's electronic trading platform couldn't handle the high volume of trades. In the first 30 seconds, around 82 million shares were exchanged.<p>==================<p>Am I reading this correctly that she attempted to cancel the order and it just failed? Is that really tolerable?

Regardless of you how feel about FB, Banks, etc... In this case, the IPO underwriters DID serve the founders/company, which is their job.<p>Meaning, a "pop" means the IPO was priced too small, giving the early investors/founders/employees a low price, and giving the first-day IPO purchasers (who did no work, &#38; are just gambling) the benefit of that new, higher price.<p>No "pop" means it's priced about right, and serves the interest of early investors, who took far more risk &#38; often built the company.

Investing greater than 10-15% of your net in high risk stocks is crazy. If you look at Berkshire Hathaway 13F Facebook is nowhere to be seen. There is Amex, Coke, WAL MART, IBM... These corporations will probably be here in 2023. I have no idea about FB.<p><a href="http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1067983/000119312513222307/d535016d13fhr.txt" rel="nofollow">http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1067983/0001193125132...</a>

What's the point of discussing how at fault a poor old retired widow is. Why don't we discuss of how deliberately vague the last minute update to S-1 was! (I was a banker who has written a few S-1s and I can imagine what kind of discussions precipitated when Mr. Ebersman dropped the 'bomb' during the roadshow - if only those discussions could be recorded) Facebook and its bankers broke NO law. But IPO investing doesn't have to be this big of a crap shoot for retail investors. The prospectus should put anyone, who cares to read and parse it, at equal footing with the institutional investors. That's where the law is lacking a bit. The prospectus can not include any forward projections and institutional investors get to see all of those BEFORE the IPO (of-course making them available will bring their own sets of problems). I wish you guys discussed that part here as well. Being non-bankers and non-lawyers (for the most part), you can come up with better solution, maybe?

Link bait...<p>For more context, the real title of the article is "<i>Facebook, One Year Later: What Really Happened in the Biggest IPO Flop Ever</i>."

I once read a candid remark by one of the big time players on Wall St. To paraphrase:<p><i>Only a fool plays the stock market without access to insider information</i>

What the hell that lady was spending half of her retirement account on one investment. That is horrible financial planning no matter how the stock does.