# Are you buying shares in Facebook? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 17, 2012, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-buying-shares-in-facebook/622222 "2012-05-17T16:28:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Covered\_In\_Bees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7ab992/32.png) [@Covered\_In\_Bees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Covered_In_Bees)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2012, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-buying-shares-in-facebook/622222/21 "2012-05-20T00:14:14Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > You’d get more long term value from the money by taking it out back, burning it and turning the ash beneath the soil. Finally something to do with all this extra cash I have just burning up my wallet and bank accounts! ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2012, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-buying-shares-in-facebook/622222/22 "2012-05-20T00:33:25Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > You’d get more long term value from the money by taking it out back, burning it and turning the ash beneath the soil. > [@Covered\_In\_Bees](#): > > Finally something to do with all this extra cash I have just burning up my wallet and bank accounts! _Helpful Hint from Heloise_: Use your cash to wipe your ass before you burn it and turn the ash under the soil. Waste not, want not! ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2012, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-buying-shares-in-facebook/622222/23 "2012-05-20T00:48:44Z")
I’m considering it. The amount I would buy would be a half-portion of the amount I use for wild-ass ideas and pure speculation and would represent far south of 1% of my portfolio (which is invested entirely in US and international index funds). ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2012, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-buying-shares-in-facebook/622222/24 "2012-05-20T00:56:43Z")
I wouldn’t buy at this price. If this isn’t too much of a tangent, let’s guess what it will be at on close of Fri 5/25 My guess: $33 ---
**Author:** ![fifty-six](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@fifty-six](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fifty-six)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2012, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-buying-shares-in-facebook/622222/25 "2012-05-20T01:02:24Z")
It all depends on what they do with this cash they have now. They can either save it up and make relatively cheap changes to this site and revenue streams or buy up a few good companies that can actually make money or ensure their position at the top. Netflix,their competitors, a gaming company or two I dont know, whatever. Even then with super smart buyouts and increased revenue this company has a long way to go to prove the current valuation. I feel Mark will make a stumble and likely shave off over 20% of its user base by late next year. He is just not the Guru like the leaders of some other great tech companies. Facebook and the like probably wont ever go away. It works on our ego and desire to be gossipy and snoopy. But people that are really into that tend to be fickle and will jump ship at the slightest provocation. Stock price 18-21 by the end of the year. At best. ---
**Author:** ![fifty-six](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@fifty-six](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fifty-six)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2012, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-buying-shares-in-facebook/622222/26 "2012-05-20T01:05:10Z")
> [@RaftPeople](#): > > I wouldn’t buy at this price. > If this isn’t too much of a tangent, let’s guess what it will be at on close of Fri 5/25 > > My guess: $33 There was a lot of shares sold at the 38 mark yesterday. FB had severe downward momentum. I am going with 29.50 ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2012, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-buying-shares-in-facebook/622222/27 "2012-05-20T01:06:41Z")
I’ll confess. We bought one hundred shares at $38 each. We’ll see what happens a few years from now as I rarely buy and sell that quickly. Hey you never know. We bought Apple when it was under $100 per share. The last time I checked it was over $500 per. Most of my friends and family are on Facebook including my 67 year old mom who isn’t exactly a technophile. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2012, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-buying-shares-in-facebook/622222/28 "2012-05-20T04:02:49Z")
> [@LavenderBlue](#): > > I’ll confess. We bought one hundred shares at $38 each. We’ll see what happens a few years from now as I rarely buy and sell that quickly. Hey you never know. We bought Apple when it was under $100 per share. The last time I checked it was over $500 per. Most of my friends and family are on Facebook including my 67 year old mom who isn’t exactly a technophile. Given their current position with ad revenues - is there something that makes you think they will improve their ability to make money from ads to their current audience? ---
**Author:** ![sparky\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/77aa72/32.png) [@sparky\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sparky_1)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2012, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-buying-shares-in-facebook/622222/29 "2012-05-21T14:45:41Z")
Yikes! It’s trading at $33.62. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2012, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-buying-shares-in-facebook/622222/30 "2012-05-21T14:53:05Z")
Stayed well away from it. Facebook is a decent company that was massively overvalued. The one bright spot is they raised a ton of capital on IPO day for the company itself, so they have a nice war chest to try and develop revenue streams. Ultimately I expect Facebook to probably be profitable long term, but that’s a lot different than saying it will be worth what its stock price suggests it should be worth anytime in the near future. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2012, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-buying-shares-in-facebook/622222/31 "2012-05-21T15:06:25Z")
I’d say that the recent drop is a bad sign-the rubes have been fleeced. Still-could be another Amazon…give them a few years. ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2012, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-buying-shares-in-facebook/622222/32 "2012-05-21T16:51:37Z")
Yeah, I knew it would be bad, but I didn’t think it would be _this_ bad. I think I just felt a little tingle of schadenfreude. ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2012, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-buying-shares-in-facebook/622222/33 "2012-05-21T19:07:25Z")
> [@RaftPeople](#): > > Given their current position with ad revenues - is there something that makes you think they will improve their ability to make money from ads to their current audience? Honestly? I don’t know. My husband made the decision this time as I’ve been completely buried in work the last few weeks. I generally favor slightly safer investments such as dividend paying blue chips with a good p/e ratio. He’s willing to take a flyer sometimes. It often works out for us. He was the one who picked Apple when it was under $100. We have a 20 year time horizon and it was relatively tiny investment compared to the size of our portfolio so I’m not that worried. I really don’t know where else to put our savings other than the market at this point. Neither banks nor t-bills really pay any significant interest at this point. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2012, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-buying-shares-in-facebook/622222/34 "2012-05-21T22:19:43Z")
Facebook: Earnings: $1 billion. Initial Valuation: $100 billion Price to Earnings Ratio: 100x To give you a few other examples (in whole numbers); GE 16x Google 14x Apple 13x Walmart 13x Need I go on? ---
**Author:** ![DrumBum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e79b87/32.png) [@DrumBum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrumBum)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2012, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-buying-shares-in-facebook/622222/35 "2012-05-22T13:24:17Z")
I voted “No” but a more accurate choice would have been “Not now.” I will watch it and might be interested if/when it gets to $15. ---
**Author:** ![kombatminipig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b5ac83/32.png) [@kombatminipig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kombatminipig)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2012, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-buying-shares-in-facebook/622222/36 "2012-05-22T13:28:07Z")
Mine would have been “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to short it”. We’re in an IT-bubble. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2012, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-buying-shares-in-facebook/622222/37 "2012-05-22T13:51:45Z")
> [@Rigamarole](#): > > Yeah, I knew it would be bad, but I didn’t think it would be _this_ bad. I think I just felt a little tingle of schadenfreude. Me, too. My Econ students have to listen to me chortle every morning about this IPO. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2012, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-buying-shares-in-facebook/622222/38 "2012-05-22T13:54:59Z")
Underwriters secretly [cut Facebook earning estimates](http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/facebook-bankers-secretly-cut-facebook-revenue-estimates-middle-133648905.html)before the IPO: > [@](#): > > Reuters’ Alistair Barr is reporting that Facebook’s lead underwriters, Morgan Stanley (MS), JP Morgan (JPM), and Goldman Sachs (GS) all cut their earnings forecasts for the company in the middle of the IPO roadshow. > > This by itself is highly unusual (I’ve never seen it during 20 years in and around the tech IPO business). > > But, just as important, news of the estimate cut was passed on only to a handful of big investor clients, not everyone else who was considering an investment in Facebook. ---
**Author:** ![Death\_of\_Rats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a6a055/32.png) [@Death\_of\_Rats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Death_of_Rats)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2012, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-buying-shares-in-facebook/622222/39 "2012-05-22T14:11:31Z")
> [@Jamicat](#): > > Facebook isn’t even real, how does a room of servers equate to 120 billion dollars? > > The Oil Industry has Real Stuff…Gold is Real Stuff. > > Buy shares in Zynga instead, they got at least 20 bucks from me, till’ I woke up one day and said screw this Farmville shit. :dubious: It’s not the servers that are worth $120B. Its 900 Million idiots freely giving Billions of dollars worth of marketing information to them on a daily basis. Facebook is not the product they are selling. YOU are. ---
**Author:** ![fifty-six](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@fifty-six](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fifty-six)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2012, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-buying-shares-in-facebook/622222/40 "2012-05-22T14:25:30Z")
Do not believe that 900 million number. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-buying-shares-in-facebook/622222.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-buying-shares-in-facebook/622222.md?page=3)