
NASDAQ:FB - teoruiz
http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3AFB
======
rauljara
[Kilgore Trout had written a novel call the Big Board.] It was about an
Earthling man and woman who were kidnapped by extra-terrestrials. They were
put on display in a zoo on a planet called Zircon-212.

These fictitious people in the zoo had a big board supposedly showing stock
market quotations and comodity prices along one wall of their habitat, and a
news ticker, and a telephone that was supposedly connected to a brokerage on
Earth. The creatures on Zircon-212 told their captives that they had invested
a million dollars for them back on Earth, and that it was up to the captives
to manage it so that they would be fabulously wealthy when they were returned
to Earth.

The telephone and the big board and the ticker were all fakes, of course. They
were simply stimulants to make the Earthlings perform vividly for the crowds
at the zoo--to make them jump up and down and cheer, or gloat, or sulk, or
tear their hair, to be scared shitless or to feel as contented as babies in
their mothers' arms.

The Earthlings did very well on paper. That was part of the rigging, of
course. And religion got mixed up in it, too. The news ticker reminded them
that the President of the United States had declared National Prayer Week, and
that everybody should pray. The Earthlings had had a bad week on the market
before that. They had lost a small fortune in olive oil futures. So they gave
praying a whirl.

It worked. Olive oil went up.

-Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse 5

~~~
option_greek
Makes me wonder if each of us are in such environment already.

~~~
jiojioiogrt
Pathetic extra, only I am real and you are all just extras.

~~~
zuss
The me-simulation, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulated_reality>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism>

------
ramanujan
This is Hacker News. The top-voted comment on this thread really should be
words of praise for what Zuckerberg and his team have accomplished.

Every hacker, every entrepreneur, every creator should derive inspiration and
uplift from Facebook's story. It's a rare bright day in the middle of the
worst economic environment since the 1930s. It doesn't matter whether the
company will grow into a $100B valuation. It does matter that it was started
in February 2004, by a single guy with a computer, and has affected the lives
of billions of people and created billions of dollars in wealth.

Maybe the markets won't be kind to them. Maybe they won't grow into the $100B
valuation. But outside of those who are direct competitors, I can't understand
anyone who actually wishes them ill. As a creator, as an entrepreneur, as a
hacker, if you tear down Facebook you're just tearing down yourself.

~~~
jacquesm
> The top-voted comment on this thread really should be words of praise for
> what Zuckerberg and his team have accomplished.

The top voted comment actually is an excerpt from a book by a man that I
respect a whole lot more than I respect Mark Zuckerberg. For one he seemed a
genuinely nice and modest human being. He also influenced the lives of
countless people by being creative rather than by selling off their private
details to the highest bidder. I really like that top voted comment, instead
of gushing admiration for a pile of virtual money it causes you to reflect and
think.

Making a lot of money does not automatically equate accomplishment.

Contrast this with the SpaceX announcement on the homepage at the moment. If
Elon Musk succeeds, which I certainly hope for then _that_ will be an
accomplishment. Even if SpaceX fails it will still be a huge and daring move.
Compared to giving humanity a new window on access to space photo sharing
seems a little underwhelming.

If you can't understand anyone who actually wishes them ill then please
consider that we do not all have the same goals and we do not all have the
same vision of what the internet could be like. As a creator, as an business
person and a hacker I would happily see facebook replaced by a company or an
entity that gave us 80% of the functionality with our joint privacy in tact.
That would be progress.

Facebook is just AOL re-invented for the new millenium.

~~~
staunch
It must be thoughtlessness. You can't honestly look at Facebook's contribution
to the Arab Spring (and similar social justice causes) or the millions of
people it has reconnected (long-lost family/friends) and think that SpaceX has
any chance of creating comparable positive impact at any point in the near
future.

I like SpaceX too. It's every geek's childhood fantasy. It's a great thing.
Elon is the real Tony Stark. But the reality is that _far more_ humans benefit
from relatively mundane advances in things like cell phones and social
networking than rockets.

Facebook is connecting humanity together in a way that's never been possible
before. Improving the lives of billions of people in a meaningful way is an
undeniably Big Fucking Deal.

~~~
beedogs
> You can't honestly look at Facebook's contribution to the Arab Spring (and
> similar social justice causes) or the millions of people it has reconnected
> (long-lost family/friends) and think that SpaceX has any chance of creating
> comparable positive impact at any point in the near future.

You absolutely can. The telephone did those things, too. So does Twitter. If
it weren't Facebook, something else would've been used instead.

This is like celebrating the "success" of a new hammer design. There will be
another tool in five years' time that will replace Facebook, too.

~~~
kamaal
>>You absolutely can. The telephone did those things, too. So does Twitter. If
it weren't Facebook, something else would've been used instead.

Why wasn't something else you say was actually present when it was needed?

Why didn't somebody else execute it and build it.

The fact is that <somebody> who can build awesome <anything> is difficult to
find is the crux of this whole debate.

~~~
jiggy2011
I imagine it was useful simply because it was the biggest social site online.
If facebook had not existed I'm sure they would have found other ways to
accomplish similar goals.

It's not as if they set facebook up with the intent on making it easy to
organise revolutions.

If they could have got similar eyeballs by posting a video on xtube.com would
that have made xtube a great innovation?

------
randomdrake
The opening ceremony was actually kind of cool:

[http://www.livestream.com/nasdaq/video?clipId=pla_80cca9bb-4...](http://www.livestream.com/nasdaq/video?clipId=pla_80cca9bb-4637-4286-b343-42552074576b&utm_source=lslibrary&utm_medium=ui-
thumb)

Seeing the sheer joy on Mark Zuckerberg's face was nice. I thought he was
going to shed a tear, actually.

It's always inspiring to see a geek get his day.

~~~
Munksgaard
Are they just clapping for 3 minutes straight or am I missing something here?

~~~
timr
Those things are just PR stunts so that news directors have nice clips for the
evening news -- they're gathered up, told to clap for a long time, and the
cameras roll. In this case, it's particularly transparent because they're
doing it in the park. The NYSE at least does this on that balcony overlooking
the "trading floor", which gives it a look of legitimacy.

~~~
zeroonetwothree
It's at the FB campus, not "in the park".

------
alecco
This is like a NASCAR race, many (most?) of us watching secretly hope for a
spectacular crash. It's wrong, but the potential of schadenfreude is very
tempting.

~~~
mmaunder
I'm guilty of wishing FB a bit of schaden myself, but if they actually have a
business on their hands and the market reflects that in the coming months and
years, the effect is that access to capital for all of us will not be a
problem for the next decade.

Think of the effect that the Google IPO has had on access to angel and other
investment capital. Two of my angels are former Googlers and my previous
business was a vertical search sold right after Google IPO'd.

All our destinies are in one way or another wrapped up in this little ticker
symbol for the next few years.

~~~
joering2
I think if most wishes it to tank, its not because of envy, but rather because
we all see how people lose control over their private data in the name of
chilling out with friends on the cool website. This is extremely sweet candy
that feels so good right now, but eventually you will throw up and have
cavities.

To me a wake-up call was a huge investment that FB accepted from DST.

~~~
fear91
So are we rooting for the fall of Google, too?

~~~
joezydeco
I respect Google. The search engine they built was made out of the hard work
of their own employees. They didn't build an empty bucket and wait for
everyone else to do the hard work and fill it up.

Sure, Facebook is full of clever hacks and nice features but the gas in that
engine is the data happily supplied by their users, for the low low cost of
free.

~~~
fear91
Doesn't change the fact that both companies show little regard for their users
privacy.

I haven't heard about facebook sniffing wi-fi packets though.

------
twakefield
Seems like Morgan Stanley and friends priced/played it perfectly for their
client. Isn't that their role...to get the highest IPO price for the company
they represent? It seems like the companies get screwed when there is big post
IPO pop. It's a way for the banks to reward their customers at the expense of
the company.

~~~
brown9-2
This assumes that Morgan Stanley was firmly in control of most of the details.
Some reports, like this one, make it seem like Facebook had them by the short
hairs (notice how FB knocked down the usual 7% commission to 1%):
[http://www.businessinsider.com/morgan-stanley-goldman-
sachs-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/morgan-stanley-goldman-sachs-
facebook-ipo-2012-5?page=5)

------
mmaunder
Trading in Zynga halted due to 13% drop and a circuit breaker tripped.

~~~
alecco
This is a very serious warning sign, FB IPO didn't take off as some people
expected. This is going to be a very important day to the valley.

[http://www.businessinsider.com/zynga-shares-crushed-and-
halt...](http://www.businessinsider.com/zynga-shares-crushed-and-halted-after-
weak-facebook-ipo-pop-2012-5)

~~~
Aqua_Geek
Is it a bad sign? Doesn't it mean that shares were priced appropriately and FB
didn't leave much on the table?

~~~
ChuckMcM
My take on it, its a non-IPO IPO, this is my reasoning.

Facebook has been trading for a while on secondmarket (a secondary market for
'qualified' investors). The prices have been pretty stable there. These people
evaluate the markets in much the same way that every other trader does, and so
their value calculation is going to be in line with what any 'real' trader
might come up with.

Retail investors, the folks who made the dot com bubble so spectacular, have
largely left the market as a mover. So any 'creative' valuations are probably
not going to drive a lot of trades.

So trading on the NASDAQ opens up the process to retail investors but they
aren't a significant factor, that leaves the more experienced investors and
they have already valued the company and shown that on second market, so that
the stock moves at all is probably more along the lines of the daily/monthly
variations you might see in a Google or Apple or Groupon, rather than the
sudden IPO pop of people who wanted to own the stock but were unable to get
their hands on it.

That makes it a 'good' sign in the sense that the folks who valued the company
in the secondary market were making pretty good guesses on the value. It is
also another 'non-bubble' sign in the sense of over-exuberant participation by
the retail investors.

Edit: replace 'going going' with 'not going'

~~~
EternalFury
You got it right, Chuck.

This is simply a transfer of wealth between Wall Street and Facebook's major
shareholders. (not a broad base at all)

It was made possible because Wall Street believed every Facebook user would
try to get in on the action in the open market.

It turns out retail investors and Facebook users didn't join the anticipated
mania and now, the valuation of the company is what Wall Street made it out to
be and not much more.

In other words, from here on, Facebook's valuation and Wall Street's ROI will
solely depend on Facebook's financial success. Obviously, for Wall Street,
this is much slower and much more work than having a stock take off on the
basis of a mania.

If the financials don't turn up in the next few quarters, watch out.

------
JonnieCache

        $> ping us.etrade.com
        PING us.etrade.com (12.153.224.21): 56 data bytes
        Request timeout for icmp_seq 0
        36 bytes from etrade-fina.edge4.atlanta2.level3.net (4.30.52.206): Communication prohibited by filter
        Vr HL TOS  Len   ID Flg  off TTL Pro  cks      Src      Dst
         4  5  00 5400 115d   0 0000  31  01 9939 10.0.232.100  12.153.224.21 
        
        Request timeout for icmp_seq 1
        Request timeout for icmp_seq 2
        Request timeout for icmp_seq 3
        Request timeout for icmp_seq 4
        ^C
        --- us.etrade.com ping statistics ---
        6 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100.0% packet loss
    

Now that's demand.

(etrade is an online brokerage service for independent traders, and their
network is _very_ unhappy right now.)

~~~
phalek
Communication prohibited by filter

No, that's restriction.

~~~
JonnieCache
As I understand it, that's their ISP cutting off the tidal wave of traffic at
the network edge to prevent it disrupting the core, like they do in the event
of a DDOS.

------
llambda
Please note that FB doesn't begin trading until 11AM EST[1].

[1] [http://money.msn.com/technology-
investment/article.aspx?post...](http://money.msn.com/technology-
investment/article.aspx?post=f931548b-9920-46d4-ae36-3d1256759102)

~~~
sounds
Definitely still not trading. Current time is 11:08AM EST.

~~~
sounds
Appears to have opened at 42.05 at 11:30AM EST.

------
mkr-hn
It's weird how I posted the exact same thing with a slightly different URL two
hours ago and it went unnoticed: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3991295>

edit: Not complaining. It seemed like an interesting accidental split test.

~~~
shocks
Look here for good times to post: <http://hnpickup.appspot.com/>

Hope this helps. :)

~~~
debacle
Can someone explain this graph to me? In particular, I don't understand what
the blue line signifies.

~~~
pygy_
You get the explanation by clicking the question mark in the top-right corner.
For convenience:

-

Some good stories posted on Hacker News are upvoted while some are not. Is it
always the story or is the time when it's posted? The graph should tell. It
follows these definitions:

\- _Newest stories top average score_ \- is an average of six most voted
stories on the HN newest page; indirectly, it measures the number of competing
stories or the number of story submitters.

\- _News stories bottom average score_ \- is an average of six least voted
stories on the HN front page; indirectly, it measures the number of fresh
stories or the number of story upvoters.

\- _Pickup ratio_ \- is equal to _Newest stories top average score_ divided by
_News stories bottom average score_ ; indirectly, it measures what is your
chance of getting from _newest_ to the _front_ page; you want a lot of
upvoters to be upvoting and very few submitters to be submitting.

\- _Now it's ... time_ \- gives four recommendations whether now is good time
to submit or not. There are four possible values mapped to top four pickup
ratio quantiles: _very good_ , _good_ , _so-so_ , and _bad_.

This small web application is an amalgam of ETL, data mining, and
visualization processes with focus on time series analysis. Data from other
websites is gathered, enhanced, and presented as decision support tool. Source
code is available at GitHub.

------
dirkgadsden
If you look at the bottom right under "Key stats and ratios"[1] you can see a
trace of Google creating a time with 0 (default I guess) and spitting out the
year (+/- 1 because of timezones) of the Unix epoch.

[1] <http://d.pr/i/sMYb>

~~~
pwang
I was about to post this same thing. It's the same for any stock that opened
this year, and doesn't have a comparable previous year of data e.g. Zynga:
<http://www.google.com/finance?q=zynga>

------
blantonl
First trade at 11:30:09 CST

2000 Shares at $42.05 (SELL)

~~~
alexchamberlain
It's falling fast... $40 atm.

Edit: $40 seems to be a barrier (not a surprise). It will take a little while
for all the limit orders to be satisfied there.

~~~
_delirium
Then back down to $38 for a bit, then back up to $40 for a bit. Oddly step-
like price graph, with steps on the even numbers. I guess I have no idea how
trading in this kind of opening works to hazard a guess.

~~~
mynameishere
JP Morgan or whoever was buying hard at 40, and they did the same at 38. The
behavior is very clear, and if it gets to 38 again I might gamble on it...

...not that we need another zerohedge link, but this makes it obvious

[http://www.zerohedge.com/news/facebook-ardennes-spot-
syndica...](http://www.zerohedge.com/news/facebook-ardennes-spot-syndicate-
stick-save)

------
justinweiss
This whole thing reminded me that there was a Facebook employee in my "class"
for an internship I had in 2004. Little did I know...

<http://cl.ly/0g3r3Q3W0K360g2y0g06>

A valuation of a whole $4 million!

------
j2labs
The reason for FB's drop seems simple. The options have been traded on
secondmarket for a long time already, meaning institutional investors have
already been playing the invest-in-facebook game for a long time.

The only folks left are the normal folks and I don't believe they have the
money to drive the price up significantly.

In short: this is a liquidity event for Facebook ownership and nothing else.

------
throwaway1979
Someone mentioned on CNBC that he had placed an order (and seem to have
gotten) 100 shares of FB via e-trade. Can retail investors (aka ...
unsophisticated Joes like me) get in on the IPO allocation? I thought the
initial shares were only offered to large investors (> 100K purchases). This
doesn't help me for FB, but would be useful info in the future.

~~~
apaprocki
Yes, brokerages offer qualified customers access to IPO allocation that the
brokerage has access to. It is at their discretion who they allow to
participate. Generally, most brokerages will ban you from IPO access if you
get allocated shares and sell them within a certain period, usually 90 days or
so.

Here is a description of the process for ETrade:
[https://us.etrade.com/e/t/prospectestation/help?id=130105000...](https://us.etrade.com/e/t/prospectestation/help?id=1301050000)

------
nicholassmith
Keep in mind everyone that they're trading at IPO price, making them worth
over $100bn.

If that's a failure then I hope one day to fail that badly.

~~~
rphlx
It's not a failure for Facebook obviously. It's a failure for their
institutional and retail investors, who were sold a very high initial
valuation with little near-term upside.

------
joe-mccann
The Nasdaq will be FLOODED with orders when FB begins trading. Will be
interesting to see how their systems handle every algorithmic trading machine
on the planet trading FB's stock...

~~~
minimax
This isn't necessarily true. Many algorithmic trading strategies are driven by
correlations between historical prices, none of which exist yet for FB.

~~~
northbranch
Exactly - without any data to train a model, most algorithmic and high-
frequency strategies avoid IPOs.

------
yumraj
Amazing.. Are there other examples of where on IPO, especially as hyped as
this, companies went flat, less than 0.1% change.

NOTE: IPO had 480 million or so stocks, and the net Volume was 486 million.

------
rondon1
They put in a floor at 38.00 because they cannot stand the idea of the stock
going down on the first day of trading.

------
kamaal
The share price is dropping. So far very exciting 20 minutes. The stock price
is fluctuating up and down.

It went to $40 its now back to where it started. Things volatile at this
moment.

~~~
jcfrei
if google finance' trading volume is accurate, it's pretty crazy right now:
Vol / Avg. of 119.31M shares after 20 minutes (out of 421,233,615 shares)!

~~~
emiranda
What exactly does that mean if you don't mind me asking?

~~~
jonknee
That 25% of the company has changed hands in 20 minutes.

~~~
ABS
25% of the shares offered, not of the company

~~~
etrain
Nope 2.8b is total shares outstanding. $38*2.8b or roughly 100b ~= facebooks
current valuation. That said, I'm pretty sure the volume info included the
offering of 10% of the company.

------
fname
Probably wont see the first trade for a couple more hours

~~~
tferris
Why?

~~~
mmodahl
IPO opening auctions are scheduled for the middle of the day. The regular
market open auction is a very busy time and if they happened at the same time,
everyone would be choosing between handling their normal business or the
excitement of the IPO.

------
jiggy2011
Facebook is (apparently) worth 80 Billion and it employs 3539 people and I
somehow doubt that they are employing many contractors either.

Is this possibly a scary thought for the future in terms of job creation? If
you can be on track to becoming the biggest communications (and advertising)
provider on the planet whilst employing close to nobody, what happens if other
industries end up following this model?

------
teoruiz
Apparently it starts trading at 11:00 EST.

~~~
toemetoch
17:00 Brussels time

~~~
eroded
20:00 in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan.

------
AhtiK
Enjoy the live broadcast and streaming by WSJ:
[http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2012/05/18/live-blog-
faceboo...](http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2012/05/18/live-blog-facebooks-
trading-debut/?mod=yahoo_hs)

Occasionally shows streams from the NASDAQ opening with Mark Zuckerberg and
the crowd.

------
mountaineer
How is The Motley Fool a related company?

------
jwilliams
There is a fair bit of talk about what this will do for the angel community in
SV -- Using Google as a bit of pre-history and what happened there.

Anybody got any insights into the different cohorts? Generalising like hell -
But, I'm assuming Facebook angels will be quite different flavour to Google
ones?

------
revorad
<http://www.livestream.com/nasdaq/>

------
emiranda
So... that percentage next to the stock price represents the change in value
since it opened? Mine currently says +0.99 (2.61%) but the stock opened at $42
and the current price is $39. I would think the number should be a negative
value/percentage.

~~~
clueless
It's based on the $38 pricing, not the opening.

~~~
emiranda
Why is that?

~~~
mertd
because "in theory" that's where it closed yesterday.

------
hiddenstage
If fb isn't worth $100B, how can Instagram be worth $1B? We are not in a
bubble.

Disclaimer: Bought some fb.

~~~
chestercheetaz
bad news: Instagram isn't worth $1B. sorry.

hope you have a good cost basis.

~~~
hiddenstage
How many stocks have the potential to be the biggest company in the world? Fb
is one of them.

~~~
chestercheetaz
well if it really is then i hope it turns around somewhere soon. As of now,
it's looking like 0% for the first day, and even that is an artificial level
supported by the underwriters of the IPO. I'd cut your losses, get out soon,
and wait until the stock corrects somewhere lower, mid-20s or even below.

~~~
hiddenstage
There are hedge funds and banks who NEED this stock to go up. They bought in
at 38. This thing will hit 55 way before it hits 25.

~~~
chestercheetaz
good luck with your investment.

------
glenntzke
And it ends at $38.2318. Looks like that desired $40 didn't pan out.

------
grecy
Lots of people talking about using etrade.com to get in on this... is there an
equivalent for those of us in Canada?

i.e. Super fast and easy to setup account where I can immediately buy some
shares?

~~~
biot
Scotiabank bought E-Trade Canada, now iTRADE:
<http://scotiaitrade.scotiabank.com/itrade/>

There are tons of options these days though.

------
babarock
Is there any way to know who owned the shares in Fb (and how much) as of
yesterday evening (pre-IPO)?

I don't know if such an info is made public. If it is, anyone has a link?

~~~
flavien_bessede
<http://whoownsfacebook.com/>

------
corford
Although I'm generally a market bear and have been saying we're in a bubble
for months, even I'm having a hard time seeing how there isn't going to be an
almighty pop today given the sheer amount of irrational exuberance over this.

My bet is FB closes somewhere between $55 and $65. Anyone else fancy making a
prediction?

[ edit: stuck an upper limit on my prediction to make it more interesting :) ]

~~~
pilom
My bet is it closes somewhere between $35 and $45. The owners pushed back
against the bankers at every turn to push for a higher price. If they don't
price at the start of the day effectively, the original shareholders lose
money to the bankers who set up the IPO like what happened to LinkedIn.

~~~
corford
That's a good point I hadn't considered. As it looks at the moment, I'm glad I
stuck to arm chair punditory (if that's even a word!) and didn't buy any
shares...

------
dr_
$45 opening per Bloomberg

------
KeepTalking
Is everyone able to access Facebook without any trouble ?

------
ahi
etrade seems to be down.

------
chestercheetaz
FB would have fallen more, but the underwriters of the IPO stepped in at $38
to support that level. This stock is bound to fall after today. I'm predicting
$25 by the first earnings call.

~~~
JonnieCache
_> the underwriters of the IPO stepped in at $38 to support that level_

What leads you to believe that, if you don't mind me asking?

~~~
chestercheetaz
Did you watch the stock? It was dropping like a stone, then all of a sudden
halted at $38, the IPO price. A WSJ article said that this was because the
underwriters stepped in to support the $38 price level:

"The weak start came after high expectations for the Internet giant. The
company's shares were recently changing hands up $1.58, at $39.62, after
touching the $38 IPO price about a half hour after it started trading. The
stock had opened at $42.05.

Underwriters stepped in to support the company's shares at the IPO price,
according to a person familiar with the matter. There were more than 30 banks
involved in the deal."

This, combined with the effect on other social media stock like ZYNGA (which
has halted trading twice today due to large volatility), is a sign of things
to come.

------
feronull
Heh nice on my birthday facebook went public :D

~~~
numbsafari
me too!

And in fine, facebook fashion, we both just leaked "personally identifiable
information" in a public forum!

Happy Birthday!

------
joering2
ok, so this started happening last night for me and some friends I pinged: I
clicked on a picture (multiple of them!) and each time I see this shit:
<http://postimage.org/image/rvdiya58z/full/>

I say Facebook IS in a lot of financial troubles!!

~~~
jessedhillon
I think you have a virus or other kind of malware on your box.

~~~
joering2
nope, sorry. I thought the same but after trying on 3 different browsers and 2
computers, same effect.

to downvoters: hello Facebook staff!

