Tag Archives: ipo

May 23, 2012

facebook tanks and so do i!

By arlynnpresser

last week, it was all about the facebook initial public offering (ipo) making billionaires out of the facebook team, about the ipo revitalizing the united states stock market, about investors clamoring for a piece of the $38 per share pie!  facebook was bigger than elvis, jesus, and the beatles combined!

last week, mark’s fiancee priscilla graduated from medical school, he had a birthday, there was the great day when facebook shares were made available to the public for the first time and, of course, there was the wedding. this week? maybe it’s a good idea that mark and priscilla are on their honeymoon. because investors think their honeymoon with facebook is over!

 

shares opened at $38 and have struggled to keep above $32 ever since.  one startling accusation/development has occurred:  jp morgan, morgan stanley and goldman sachs cut their price estimates and VERBALLY advised their largest institutional investors to be wary of the facebook ipo.  the smaller investors were not given the benefit of this advice.  and where did this negativity come from?  the  three companies have indicated that a facebook executive, again VERBALLY, that the facebook financial situation wasn’t all that great and that expected revenues were going to be lower than expected.

there will be investigations, there will be further drops in the stock price, i suspect it will bottom out at $16 per share.  at least, that’s when i’m going to start chipping in.

so a downer day for facebook and a bit of a downer day for me.  i woke up with an anxiety attack  that i tried to ward off with meditation and then with a run.  i tried writing down ten things i was grateful for–a mental exercise that usually does the trick–but i couldn’t get past three before the internal “i’m dying of a heart attack” scream took over.  i caved, and took four ativan.  spent the rest of the day in a  bit of a haze.  but as the great philosopher and femme fatale said “tomorrow is another day!”

and it will be a new day for facebook as well!

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May 19, 2012

what a busy day for my facebook friend mark zuckerberg!

By arlynnpresser

i’m not actually friends with mark zuckerberg — or the other founders of facebook, dustin moskovitz, eduardo saverin, and chris hughes.  but i feel like we should be.  after all, mark and his friends started facebook in 2004 at harvard university as a way for students to check out other students–it replaced a paper bound directory that couldn’t keep up to date on everybody’s relationship status.  by 2007, i was posting pictures, tracking down folks i went to high school with and playing online scrabble with facebook friends i’d never met.

about that relationship status.  i was separated from my husband and mark had still not figured out that “it’s complicated” is a good status.  i listed “single” and a few short months later my husband joined facebook, sent a friend request and was pretty darned unhappy that i was jumping the gun on the american divorce court system.  we agreed to defriend each other and although we are very much divorced we are very friendly.  it’s . .. complicated.

but mark, we were talking about mark.  and the founders of facebook and the other private shareholders of facebook. up until yesterday, they were the sole investors in facebook.  with an initial public offering (ipo), those shares are let loose on the public market and anybody can be a facebook shareholder.

ah, the winklevoss twins! they went to harvard with mark and they thought they were part of the creation of facebook. this was the point of two lawsuits between the twins and mark. as part of a settlement of one of those suits, the winklevoss twins own six million shares of facebook. caution: do not invite this trio to the same potluck supper!

 

so the offering of shares yesterday was a little like the story of goldilocks and the three bears–set the initial price of the shares too low and the private shareholders don’t get as much dough, set the price too high and institutional traders won’t bite and the price will plummet and everybody will think your company sucks.

the facebook shares were initially offered at $38 a share when mark rang the opening bell at nasdaq trading headquarters. after rising and abruptly falling the price of the shares returned to just under $40 per share at the closing bell. does that mean the initial price was just right?

 

thursday was a big day for mark, the founders, the shareholders, and new investors!  but it was a regular day for facebook employees (many of whom, by the way, own shares in the company).  at one of the company cafeterias at the menlo park, california headquarters, the day began with a breakfast of strawberry banana soy smoothies, coconut mango smoothies, whole wheat cranberry orange scones, sausage and biscuit hash with cream gravy, whole wheat choco-chip pancakes with vanilla whipped cream, whole wheat low fat flax waffles, and old-fashioned buttermilk pancakes.  Meals are always free for facebook employees.  i would totally screw up my diet!

best wishes to mark and facebook!  mark and some other visionaries are very rich now.  so rich that they can’t attend occupy wall street rallies anymore.  but they provided us with a service we needed to keep in touch, to play that scrabble and to share with the world cute pictures of our cat.

last year, i made a new years resolution to meet all my facebook friends. i was a scaredy cat who didn’t leave the house much and i wanted to know who all these friends were! the resolution changed me. i have to say . . . thank you, mark!

 

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May 14, 2012

happy birthday, mark zuckerberg!

By arlynnpresser

i would jump out of a cake but i think it would be alarming.  i am, after all, fifty one years old and while i have been adhering to the atkins diet and am nearly back to my fighting weight of 138 there have been some, ahem! changes to the general physique since i was twenty eight.  which is mark’s age today!

mark is not even my facebook friend! yet, i wish him a happy birthday! i don’t feel too bad about not sending a birthday present because next week is the fabulous facebook IPO — facebook is valued at nearly 100 billion dollars!

 

mark could wake up tomorrow morning, spend $300,000 and do it again the next day and the next until he’s eighty and he’d have some left over.  talk about being ready for your retirement!

i’m fifty one years old.  i’m packing up a lifetime of stuff.  in t minus forty three days i will say goodbye to the house i have lived in for so long.  i am scared.  i was weepy this morning, so much so that i cried when the grocery clerk said “have a nice day”. . . so i wonder:

 

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May 9, 2012

how to (finally) make money off facebook!

By arlynnpresser

all those posts about what you’re having for dinner and your position on the election.  all those status updates–single, married, it’s complicated and single again.  all those photos of you at the aforementioned wedding and you tagged at the bachelor(ette) party!  and those links to the song that captured the feel of the relationship status — the power of love, better that we break up, i will survive!

all of that is worth money.  a lot.  like an estimated $86 billion dollars.  that’s what facebook is valued at.  and next week, for the first time, YOU have a  chance to cash in on it.  you oughta get SOMETHING for the time your cousin took a picture of you passed out on the sofa.

i am in brooklyn visiting facebook friends. the neighborhood i’m in is full of folks who are houseproud. sometimes they decorate their front doors with modern artwork!

 

how do you work this?  how do you actually make money on facebook?  first, get yourself a broker.  fidelity, e-trade, oanda, charles schwab.  tell them you want some.  however, you should know that some brokerage houses are limiting who gets shares.  for instance, fidelity investors must have $500,000 in qualified balances with the company.  td ameritrade is allowing investors to grab some of the action if they have an account valued at at least $250,000.

in addition to seeing new facebook friends, like #316 carolyn quinn on monday, i see facebook friends that i first met last year–like #58 john r. douglas. we were in manhattan, where everything is bigger, faster, louder, taller. . . . i told john this shirt was too big for him!

 

some brokerage houses are concerned that investors will “flip” their shares and so they are also putting limitations on how long investors have to hold a share. fidelity will punish investors who resell their shares in fewer than two weeks with a bar on investing in future ipo’s.  and investment houses are warning their clients that shares are at such a premium that there’s no guarantee that they’ll get any or all of the shares they want.

so . . . what’s it all mean?  facebook may be a great investment.  there’s also a possibility that it will be all hype and no heft–online coupon company groupon and the radio company pandora bought saw their share value drop by more than 40% after going public.  at that point, get out your wallet!

tucked away in a corner of grand central station in manhattan is the campbell apartment, once the hideaway of tycoon john w. campbell. he supposedly gave wild parties here. most commuters and tourists never notice this door. and i got ushered out of the hallway about two seconds after i took this picture. i pretended i didn’t understand english and allowed myself to be gently led back out onto the concourse.  with much wealth comes many surprises.  i guess mark zuckerberg understands that already!

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January 28, 2012

on wednesday mark zuckerberg will send us a nice thank you note!

By arlynnpresser

last year, in florida, i took off my sandals and swung on a tire. i didn't know that the grass had been spread with fertilizer. when i went to the airport, i was put in a bulletproof glass cage by tsa. fertilizer combined with other materials can be a component part in a bomb. i'm not a terrorist, really, i just look like one.

on wednesday, facebook will go public.  offering shares to the general marketplace, mark zuckerberg is going to find himself a billionaire.  and what exactly does he own?  everything about facebook users.  pictures, even the stupid ones.  updates, status, posts, comments, notes. . . all the timeline of our lives.  i’m grateful to facebook because it has allowed me to meet and keep friends.  last year, i made a promise to meet all 325 of the facebook friends i had on new year’s eve.  i did pretty okay, meeting 90% of them.  still, there’s a lot of information out there that mark and facebook own.  i assume a thank you note is coming after he collects his check.

this year i am trying to pay it forward on last year’s resolution.  last year, every facebook friend did their best to encourage and support me in my efforts.  and even a few friends who aren’t even on facebook!  i traveled around the world with my eldest son and met so many people!  i reinforced friendships, reviewed histories, suffered some disappointments but it was all worth it!

tomorrow i get back on an airplane for the first time since just before christmas.  i’m believing that my fear of flying is returning.  half of my fear dissipates when i make it through security.  i seem to have a veritable talent for attracting the “random” search and the “we just need to take apart your bag”. . . really, do they have to paw through my panties quite like that???

today, i heard from molly parshall that yesterday she hadn’t really been able to take the index cards and start on her goal of a) taking a train ride with her son blake and b) becoming a psychiatrist (or other professional) who helps those with agoraphobia.  instead, she was stuck in the house a little paralyzed with fear.  i wish i could have stayed longer in coldwater.  and maybe i should have.  but i know i’m going back.  because i promised that i would.

molly is a beautiful talented and very witty agoraphobic. we made up a program using small steps to get her out of the house. then i drove home to chicago.

 

those goals are pretty big ones, and the small things in between are just like my visits to facebook friends–

while i know she feels disappointed in herself–i think it’s a good sign that she’s spending a lot of the day playing farmville on facebook.  because if she wasn’t a little intimidated that would mean that her goals aren’t big enough.  last year, when i first decided i’d strike out into the world, i spent about a week utterly out of my mind with fear.  i feel for her, but i know she’s strong, brave and going to be okay.

tomorrow i’ll be in boston to meet lisa tabbi-fuller.  it’s her birthday and we’re going to play with heights.  mastering one fear is a good way of proving to yourself that you can master all fears.

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