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.
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.
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 you money. Stay the hell away from them unless you know what you're doing. And you probably don't.
EDIT: maybe I'm mis-remembering, but didn't the problem of mobile users and ad revenue come out before the IPO day?
It is not the responsibility of the purchaser to know information which is purposefully withheld from them. From the article
> Scott Sweet's multi-billion dollar hedge fund client flipped the stock at $42. His subsequent short made his firm its "largest profit of the year," Sweet said. There's "no way" a retail investor could have known about the lowered projections, unless he or she "had a friend at a multi-billion dollar institution," he added.
Please explain to me, when information is withheld from the purchasers and only specific clients notified as to circumstantial and meaningful changes to the state of the offering, how anyone could ever "know what you're doing?' In fact, Morgan Stanley was actively misleading investors by continuing to adjust the specifications of the offering to make it look better.
Analogy: If an automaker produced a new car which was secretly designed to become worthless (engine would fuse together) after 3 months and only told one rich people not to buy it, would that be fine? What if there come back was 'you could always open the hood and see our computer components which execute after 3 months, its not our fault you don't know what you're doing'
The article makes it sound like the only research she did was:
> and came to know of the phenomenon known as the first day "pop." On the day that companies would debut on the stock market, the price would tend to shoot up before stabilizing
If that is really the limit to her research, I'd have the same sympathy as someone who put their life savings on black and complained when it came up red.
And seeing as investment 101 is "diversify", it seems very likely she really did put that little thought into it.
I have no problem with retail investors buying stock because they believe in the company and have the patience to hold on to it. That can be a very good, low on stress investment.
But trying to outsmart people living in Bloomberg terminals at their own game, buying on IPO and trying to dump it the same day? Her loss is no ones fault but hers.
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:
========================
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.
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.
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.
==================
Am I reading this correctly that she attempted to cancel the order and it just failed? Is that really tolerable?
She only lost about 10% of her life savings on that trade on the first day.
"Her son advised her to hold onto her shares until she either resolved the matter with Vanguard or the price bounced back."
That would be an interesting malpractice lawsuit, mom vs son. Just sayin.
How dare her trade not profit! I know, file a lawsuit for a 400% rate of return for, um, well, not winning in the casino, thats what.
This is what is known in the business as catching a falling knife. By the time the legal stuff wrapped up, she lost more like 90% of her life savings as the stock cratered. A legal maneuver attempting to cash in on the situation was the gamble that lost most of her money because she caught a falling knife and stubbornly refused to let go. Really its two back to back gambles both of which failed.
Yes, actually I remember that day. Transactions sent in even buys took hours and _hours_ to execute. I didn't know the final state of my fb trades until the next day.
The problem as I understood it:
(1) Consumer brokers often consolidate trades/buffer them up and send them on
(2) More centralized entities actual have access directly to the trading systems and execute these batches of trades coming in
(3) The trading system does it's magic and responds
My understanding was that (2) and (3) became _incredibly_ overwhelmed and latency spiked, queues filled, and trades took _forever_ to go through.
Unfortunately, the consumer broker is stuck at the mercy of waiting for responses from (2). So yes, they can take in customer requests, but they are not the ones that finally execute and latency can become huge.
Regardless of you how feel about FB, Banks, etc... In this case, the IPO underwriters DID serve the founders/company, which is their job.
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, & are just gambling) the benefit of that new, higher price.
No "pop" means it's priced about right, and serves the interest of early investors, who took far more risk & often built the company.
The underwriter's job is a little bit more complicated than just maximizing the offering for the company. They actually serve many interests including those of their own clients and stakeholders.
A "pop" does not necessarily mean the issue was underpriced. Besides, an increase in share price benefits the founders too
This issue didn't just fail to "pop," it subsequently tanked which suggests that it was overpriced/oversold and while Facebook, Inc. received more cash for the offering, the net value of the enterprise was worth less because of it.
Stock is a form of currency too. For compensation, acquisitions, and more. I think Facebook was out to get all they could, probably still expected a pop (hubris) and the bankers who did the issue let them because they're all shells of their former selves, and they were hedged with the way the deal was structured anyway (greenshoe).
Think of it in terms of taking a cash-out refi on your home with an artificially inflated appraisal. You might maximize the cash you can get, but what's the value of that cash when the actual value of the house is realized and you're at break-even or worse, underwater? Is the bank just "doing their job" structuring deals that way?
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.
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?
She'd never placed such a big bet on just one stock, but she felt a personal
connection to Facebook. She had been using the site to connect with family
and friends since 2009, and almost everyone she knew had an account.
Kind of like feeling a "personal connection" to a TV show you've been watching since the first season.
Odd, just minutes ago that was the title (and was the only reason I clicked on it). I refresh and now it's shortened. I don't know about "link bait", though, as the title is now less appealing to me personally.
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.
[+] [-] mikestew|13 years ago|reply
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.
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 you money. Stay the hell away from them unless you know what you're doing. And you probably don't.
EDIT: maybe I'm mis-remembering, but didn't the problem of mobile users and ad revenue come out before the IPO day?
[+] [-] campnic|13 years ago|reply
> Scott Sweet's multi-billion dollar hedge fund client flipped the stock at $42. His subsequent short made his firm its "largest profit of the year," Sweet said. There's "no way" a retail investor could have known about the lowered projections, unless he or she "had a friend at a multi-billion dollar institution," he added.
Please explain to me, when information is withheld from the purchasers and only specific clients notified as to circumstantial and meaningful changes to the state of the offering, how anyone could ever "know what you're doing?' In fact, Morgan Stanley was actively misleading investors by continuing to adjust the specifications of the offering to make it look better.
Analogy: If an automaker produced a new car which was secretly designed to become worthless (engine would fuse together) after 3 months and only told one rich people not to buy it, would that be fine? What if there come back was 'you could always open the hood and see our computer components which execute after 3 months, its not our fault you don't know what you're doing'
[+] [-] shawabawa3|13 years ago|reply
> and came to know of the phenomenon known as the first day "pop." On the day that companies would debut on the stock market, the price would tend to shoot up before stabilizing
If that is really the limit to her research, I'd have the same sympathy as someone who put their life savings on black and complained when it came up red.
And seeing as investment 101 is "diversify", it seems very likely she really did put that little thought into it.
[+] [-] revelation|13 years ago|reply
But trying to outsmart people living in Bloomberg terminals at their own game, buying on IPO and trying to dump it the same day? Her loss is no ones fault but hers.
[+] [-] AJ007|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] melling|13 years ago|reply
http://www.businessinsider.com/exclusive-heres-the-inside-st...
NASDAQ had problems filling orders. People and institutions didn't find out their orders were filled until hours later.
[+] [-] swalkergibson|13 years ago|reply
========================
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.
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.
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.
==================
Am I reading this correctly that she attempted to cancel the order and it just failed? Is that really tolerable?
[+] [-] VLM|13 years ago|reply
"Her son advised her to hold onto her shares until she either resolved the matter with Vanguard or the price bounced back."
That would be an interesting malpractice lawsuit, mom vs son. Just sayin.
How dare her trade not profit! I know, file a lawsuit for a 400% rate of return for, um, well, not winning in the casino, thats what.
This is what is known in the business as catching a falling knife. By the time the legal stuff wrapped up, she lost more like 90% of her life savings as the stock cratered. A legal maneuver attempting to cash in on the situation was the gamble that lost most of her money because she caught a falling knife and stubbornly refused to let go. Really its two back to back gambles both of which failed.
[+] [-] theonewolf|13 years ago|reply
The problem as I understood it:
(1) Consumer brokers often consolidate trades/buffer them up and send them on
(2) More centralized entities actual have access directly to the trading systems and execute these batches of trades coming in
(3) The trading system does it's magic and responds
My understanding was that (2) and (3) became _incredibly_ overwhelmed and latency spiked, queues filled, and trades took _forever_ to go through.
Unfortunately, the consumer broker is stuck at the mercy of waiting for responses from (2). So yes, they can take in customer requests, but they are not the ones that finally execute and latency can become huge.
[+] [-] johnvschmitt|13 years ago|reply
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, & are just gambling) the benefit of that new, higher price.
No "pop" means it's priced about right, and serves the interest of early investors, who took far more risk & often built the company.
[+] [-] spinchange|13 years ago|reply
A "pop" does not necessarily mean the issue was underpriced. Besides, an increase in share price benefits the founders too
This issue didn't just fail to "pop," it subsequently tanked which suggests that it was overpriced/oversold and while Facebook, Inc. received more cash for the offering, the net value of the enterprise was worth less because of it.
Stock is a form of currency too. For compensation, acquisitions, and more. I think Facebook was out to get all they could, probably still expected a pop (hubris) and the bankers who did the issue let them because they're all shells of their former selves, and they were hedged with the way the deal was structured anyway (greenshoe).
Think of it in terms of taking a cash-out refi on your home with an artificially inflated appraisal. You might maximize the cash you can get, but what's the value of that cash when the actual value of the house is realized and you're at break-even or worse, underwater? Is the bank just "doing their job" structuring deals that way?
[+] [-] ixacto|13 years ago|reply
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1067983/0001193125132...
[+] [-] vagarwa|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bluetidepro|13 years ago|reply
For more context, the real title of the article is "Facebook, One Year Later: What Really Happened in the Biggest IPO Flop Ever."
[+] [-] mortenjorck|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikestew|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yvoschaap2|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] D9u|13 years ago|reply
Only a fool plays the stock market without access to insider information
[+] [-] magikbum|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whatsup|13 years ago|reply
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