Facebook, IPO and Panic
Investors have been swamped with Greek polls and Spanish Bank(ia) imploding, so we feel many might just be forgetting about the hottest IPO in recent years, namely Facebook. The IPO has been a rather pathetic show, where investors now are suing Facebook, Morgan Stanley etc. What if Facebook screwed up “solo”? From Washingtonm Post.
There’s been a ton of coverage about the Facebook IPO disaster, but very little of it looks at the crucial point two weeks ago where things went terribly wrong. It’s becoming increasingly clear that Facebook itself messed up at that juncture.
The screw-up resulted in a major disappointment in Facebook’s stock debut: The stock’s 15 percent decline since the IPO last Friday may not in itself be tragic. But worse, lawsuits are flying saying that legal guidelines weren’t followed. And there’s the sad fact that regular mom-and-pop investors were apparently left with the more losses on average than large institutions who got privileged information. This all was aggravated by a separate annoyance: glitches in the Nasdaq stock market trading process, which caused delays in trade and cancel confirmations, among other things.
However, based on a number of interviews VentureBeat has had with observers and other sources close to the process, it’s apparent that Facebook itself may be most to blame for the fallout. Facebook chose to be more furtive in public announcements about its business than it was in private talks with large investors.
Long term Med investing….
On the fallacy of long term “long” investing, at least in some of the Med countries.
Charts below.
Heading for the Grexit?
Greece is still the talk of the town. Pundits talk of the Grexit across media. Below are some great charts by Thomson Reuters describing the Grexit dilemma.
In the wake of Greece’s inconclusive elections, a caretaker government has stepped in to run the country until a new round of voting can take place and – hopefully – a coalition of some sorts can be cobbled together that is able to formulate some kind of coherent policy response toward the Greek economic malaise and reduce the political turmoil. Meanwhile, those same Greek politicians that must find a way to appeal to an angry and disaffected electorate also must combat pressure from outside the country. The president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, simply stated bluntly what many pundits have been saying quietly since the elections early this month revealed the magnitude of the challenges confronting any new Greek government when he took to the Italian airwaves recently. “If a member of a club does not respect the rules,” he proclaimed, “it’s better than he leaves the club.”
Spain-Is Rajoy improvising?
Rajoy inherited Zapatero’s mess, but what is Rajoy’s plan to save Spain from the abyss? The day to day job seems to be concentrated around bringing the risk premium down, providing promises with regards to the banking sector, bringing down unemployment and much more. The real problem is,all of the above are actually going the totally opposite direction. Risk premium is spiking higher, the arguments “our banks are fine” are breached s few days later (Bankia needs more…) and the unemployment is breaking further into uncharted territory. Rajoy is trapped in a vicious circle, as the Spaniards are starting to lose their temper. From El Pais.
If there was ever a plan, there’s no trace of it left. All of the government’s forecasts have come up short. Just a few weeks ago Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, of the Popular Party (PP), was promising that there would be no public money for the banks. But Bankia alone will now be receiving 23.5 billion euros in public funding to save it from disaster. That’s after Economy Minister Luis de Guindos said on Monday that the amount would be no more than seven billion. On Friday, Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría was calling it a loan. On Saturday, Bankia’s new chairman, José Ignacio Goirigolzarri, explained that it is a capital injection, not a loan. In other words, the state is investing in Bankia, and only if things go really well will it recover its money — that is to say, the taxpayers’ money.
Euro shorts at record levels
Suddenly the crowd is “all in” on the right trade?
Chart Scott Barber.
News That Matters
Ft.com
The technocratic government of Mario Monti has made significant progress towards overhauling Italy’s economy since it came to office last year, but has not done enough to combat tax evasion and the country’s sizeable black economy, an EU finding to be released this week has determined. The European Commission report, which is still in draft form and was obtained by the Financial Times before its publication on Wednesday, carries significant weight under new EU rules that give Brussels the right to fine and sanction eurozone countries that do not follow its recommendations.http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/960e4250-a7f2-11e1-b8a9-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1w8XyzKzt
In a country where wealth matters more than most – if only because of its extreme shortage – being a teacher once meant making a decent living. However, as salaries for corporates ector jobs have soared and those for professors have stagnated, the respect afforded to academics – and the subsequent desire of students to become them – seems to have done the same. A government panel said recently that India’s shortage of faculty staff could be “significantly higher” than the 40 per cent widely estimated. While the prestigious Indian Institutes of Management and Indian Institutes of Technology – which cater to less than 40,000 of India’s roughly 16m college students – are largely immune to the overall shortage, even they have come under fire for lacking top-quality professors.http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/6e5725ee-7cd0-11e1-9d8f-00144feab49a.html#axzz1w8XyzKzt
Newedge, a leading broker, is abandoning the Greek stock market in a sign of mounting concern over the country’s future in the eurozone. The broker has told clients that it will process only sell orders, and stop extending margin loans for existing positions in Greek securities, according to a memo obtained by the Financial Times. A list of securities subject to the new restrictions include foreign-listed shares and American depositary receipts for Greek companies including Alpha Bank, Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling and Paragon Shipping, a New York-listed shipowner that is headquartered in Greece. http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/a2123114-a690-11e1-aef2-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1w8XyzKzt
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