Ask HN: Will you buy Facebook shares when it goes IPO?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3529968

by gdhillon • 14 years ago

10 17 14 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Just curious if anyone will invest in Facebook when it goes for IPO?

kruhft• 14 years ago

No.

noodle2• 14 years ago

I would consider it after the stock levels out. It'll almost certainly be overvalued early on and see some heavy ups and downs; I don't have time/interest to try and ride those waves. I'll wait until the knife hits the ground before I even consider trying to grab it.

gdhillon• 14 years ago

I was thinking the same but I do think you can make some serious money if you grab it on 1st day at opening bell.

noodle2• 14 years ago

You maybe could. You could also be late to the party and lose some serious cash. Hard to predict when a price will stop growing and start bottoming out on something volatile like this. Its just a game that I'm not experienced in playing, so I'll leave it to those who are.

CyrusL• 14 years ago

IPO shares are already allocated by the opening bell. It's a little bit confusing, but IPO shares are actually sold privately prior to opening day.

Another important thing to remember is that there are two sides to every trade. Presumably, the guy who has shares on opening day has at least as much information about the stock that a retail buyer does, and he's choosing to sell. To be a buyer, you have to have a stronger belief about the future of the company than the market price indicates.

jamesbritt• 14 years ago

I don't care for them or their business model. It's skeevy; they've shown themselves have little regard for personal privacy.

CommentTo• 14 years ago

Ya, I agree with jamesbritt, especially about the privacy part.

I actually won't be investing in fb. I'm on fb only because of my startup's presence. Otherwise, I wouldn't even be there. Not trying to bash fb or anything, but fb was good around 2007-8. Now, things have changed so much, it's not as much fun as it was before. Just my opinions..

carlsednaoui• 14 years ago

I agree with most here. Personally, I will consider adding Facebook to my personal portfolio only once the stock price has leveled off.

The main attractive point of Facebook is that it is a service that is used by so many - very few stocks have such a high market penetration around the globe.

dholowiski• 14 years ago

I agree too - there will be a huge boom and bust when they IPO, but once it has time to level off, I think Facebook has plenty of room for long term profitability. Of course they could flame out and end up the next MySpace too. I'm not saying I'd invest my retirement fund in them, if I had one.

Geee• 14 years ago

Maybe it could be time to iterate some opportunities for Facebook which will make stock prices go up in the future.

In my opinion, it quite obvious that they will expand their ad network outside of Facebook at some point, making it a serious competitor to Google's targeted ads. Facebook has such detailed information about people that when they really start to utilize it, it will crush any ad network out there.

United857• 14 years ago

Food for thought about FB's longer term viability: http://robgo.org/2012/01/29/will-facebook-be-the-next-yahoo/

anonhacker• 14 years ago

I will not be, its definitely overvalued in my opinion and I'd rather not risk selling too late in the big stock dump.

Overvaluing in this case is a no brainer, everyone knows what Facebook is and there will be buyers regardless of what price is set, in this case all the investors, angels, VC's etc can cash out on their investments and lock in profits. Later they can re-buy when the bubble pops if they have long term interests...

_delirium• 14 years ago

No, mainly because I don't have any reason to believe that current forecasts are underestimating their future growth. I do think they'll be quite successful in the mid-term future, but I think that's already priced into the stock.

I could be wrong, I just don't have any personal information or analysis that leads me to believe I can beat the market on this one, so not enough reason to divert money from an index fund to pick this stock.

millzlane• 14 years ago

No, I wouldn't. I feel there is no monetary value in Facebook. Okay so they sell ad's and harvest lots of data. Big whoop. From what I noticed people who visit Facebook do so because they simply want to communicate with their friends or people they know. Not look at ad's.

<rant> The reason Google's model works is people go there to look for stuff. because it shows me what I want with little to no effort. And it keeps getting better! For example. Last week me and the CEO wondered about Superbowl Sunday. "Just type in Superbowl 2012" I say. BAM! There is was, the first line in the SERP's was the date of the Superbowl.

I believe the popularity of the site has been exaggerated to the point where investors have given it lots of money because of it's global use. This only worsens the problem and increases the false belief that Facebook is worth billions. Take a look at the stats http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics with that many people visiting surely it must be worth something...

"More than 350 million active users currently access Facebook through their mobile devices"

I can tell you that more than half of these users only do it to see what their friends are up to or see pictures and comments from friends. Because Facebook does not give you a way to do it via email. This is no accident. They would make no money on ad's if they did.

Want to see which photo your friend liked? Sorry you must login. Want to see that comment on your status? Sorry you must login. Want to click that link in the Android app? "Here, I'll open the browser for you so we can get you logged in. -Facebook"

Wow, look how many people are visiting Facebook. You should invest!!

How many of us actually are influenced by Ad's on Facebook? How many of us actually click Ad's on Facebook? How many of us BLOCK Ad's?

We visit Facebook to socialize not to look for stuff.

Eventually this bubble will burst... showing me ad's when all I want to do is chat and share media with friends is pointless. This isn't a viable business model. Now If Facebook starts their own search engine...I would definitely think about it. For some FB is where the internet starts and ends. This would definitely increase the value of Facebook and maximize their advertising potential.

</rant>

callmeed• 14 years ago

Here here. After poor results in the past, I tried Facebook ads again this week. CTR is so low I can't even hit my daily budget of $10. Narrow or broad targeting, it doesn't matter.

blakehill• 14 years ago

One notion that I didn't really see mentioned much in the comments so far is the opportunity for facebook to expand their product. Facebook is essentially a browser. Almost anything can now be done inside that browser. As Geee mentioned, they are collecting so much data, they can expand their ad offerings. Their search product could be more useful than google's. They could become the hub of the internet where all shopping, media consuming, searching, communicating is done.

Because the sheer numbers of users, I am LONG Facebook for the long-term, but will not mess around with the IPO.

Right now, they're making about $2 a year per user. That's not very much. But they're growing users agressively and have only begun to tap the potential of the platform.

If you believe there's a greater than 50% chance they could execute well enough to be successful in just one of the different verticals they could expand to, then I think it makes sense to get in early on the stock.

vintagius• 14 years ago

No. I dont care if there is 850 Million or 1 Billion using it, what counts is how much money are those people spending on facebook.

Ask HN: Will you buy Facebook shares when it goes IPO?

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