View Full Version : Facebook debuts, social-networking stocks fall
Facebook debuted on Wall Street on Friday with arguably the most high-profile initial public offering in history, but the lackluster trader response raised questions about how deeply investors are prepared to embrace social media.Facebook's stock gained slightly during the day, but also helped drag down prices for the handful of other social-networking firms that were already public. Trading on gaming site Zynga, which uses the Facebook platform and depends on the social-media company for its revenue, was halted twice after its stock plummeted about 13 percent."The market was very surprised that the Facebook pop was so tepid," said Sam Hamadeh, chief executive officer of PrivCo, which tracks private firms.Nevertheless, Facebook immediately signaled that no matter what the financial experts thought, the company is going forward with its "move fast and break things" philosophy. Not 30 minutes after the market closed came news that Facebook had made its first purchase as a public company, buying a social and mobile gifting service called Karma Science.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/05/19/MNJ91OK7IG.DTL
Note: Saturday, May 19, 2012
:up:Waiting for Facebook OS and then the empire of evil will be complete......http://www.shugashug.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/dr_evil_facebook.jpg
the_tyrant
05-19-12, 09:55 PM
Think about it logically:
Facebook is worth 100 billion.
That means, each user is worth 100$.
I genuinely do not believe that we are worth 100$ each, after all, I have only clicked on Ads on facebook ONCE.
It just might end up like these guys:http://www.zdnet.com/photos/tech-ipo-busts-from-the-internet-boom-gallery/6364428
em2nought
05-19-12, 10:14 PM
Derivatives are a much more attractive purchase, just ask the big guys. :D
Catfish
05-20-12, 05:31 AM
Anything that is traded on the stock market is not really worth it - all directions. From oil to money itself, it just gets more expensive by the second without being based on reality. It is just hype played by professional and criminal gamblers.
How to make money from nothing that makes money, the world has truly gone bonkers. :doh:
Wait a minute their is something...Your information! :o :stare: :shifty:
Platapus
05-20-12, 05:55 AM
When the service is free, the customer IS the product being sold. :yep:
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has ended a hectic week which saw his company valued at £106bn after a stock market flotation by getting married.
He wed his long-time girlfriend Priscilla Chan, 27, in a ceremony at his home in Palo Alto, California.
Chan also had a busy week, graduating from medical school on Monday, as Zuckerberg marked his 28th birthday.
The guests believed they were going to celebrate Chan's graduation - but found they were at a wedding instead.
The wedding ring, a "very simple ruby", was designed by Zuckerberg.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-18135564
Note: Update record, 20 May 2012 Last updated at 02:16 GMT
Din't he make some sort of comment calling people stupid BLEEPS for showing the world personal info. :hmmm:
Seem to recall reading some where on the Internet.
When it comes to money, so taken all necessary steps to reach the top...:arrgh!:
Skybird
05-20-12, 08:28 AM
Overhyped, over-valued, and considering that they produce no real value, no goods, no lasting qualities, facebook is a symptom of how ill our economy works and how ill it already is beign designed.
If we make such a celebration of a stockmarket entrance like this, and in the hype rate it as more valuable than Mercedes, Siemens and some third German major industry player all three together, then this tells me that our system is on autopilot to self-destruction.
Bubble-burst likely to be ahead. I will have no compassion with those who bought.
Tomorrow's stock market, will ensure that the shares will be "normal".
Tribesman
05-20-12, 10:55 AM
Anyone for tulips?
Possibly Zuckerberg, he's married ;)
Betonov
05-20-12, 11:13 AM
Anyone for tulips?
No thanks. I don't grow things I can't eat or smoke
No thanks. I don't grow things I can't eat or smoke Think of the horses they get over excited, :yep:
Betonov
05-20-12, 11:27 AM
Think of the horses they get over excited, :yep:
The area around the garden is mined :03:
No horses or wildlife can get there
The area around the garden is mined :03:
No horses or wildlife can get there Mined :doh: ... comes to stand steady on their feet :cool:
Betonov
05-20-12, 11:38 AM
My favourite Salami is the horse meat kind :Kaleun_Salivating:
So lets hope I awake to a KABOOOM one morning :O:
My favourite Salami is the horse meat kind :Kaleun_Salivating:
So lets hope I awake to a KABOOOM one morning :O: Got some nerve, waiting for breakfast, :D
nikimcbee
05-20-12, 01:32 PM
How to make money from nothing that makes money, the world has truly gone bonkers. :doh:
Wait a minute their is something...Your information! :o :stare: :shifty:
So how many shares did you buy Steed?
Onkel Neal
05-20-12, 08:58 PM
I admit, I have been very interested in Facebook since I first saw it in UH around 2007. I always enjoy seeing groundbreaking ideas come to life and change the world. (Just finished reading The Social Network, halfway through The Facebook Effect). FB is indeed a game changer, even though it is essentially a function of the Internet--connecting everyone. What FB does better than Subsim, MySpace, Geocities, Friendster, LinkedIn, etc is harness an effective strategic vision and execute it. Who doesn't admire that? And think--when you were 20, did you have the kind of snap that Zuckerburg had? Haha, I would have jumped out of my combat boots to sell FB to Viacom when they offered $800 million CASH in 2005.
There is a lot of value in a utility in a company like FB that has cemented itself as a cornerstone of the web. Now, at some point in the future, it's likely FB will be considered "unhip" and be replaced by the next latest thing. Will be interesting to see how that evolves.
Skybird
05-21-12, 04:46 AM
No chance I will ever join it. Call me a relic of the paper-notebook era, but I am far less dependent that way than if I always need to carry smartphone or laptop around with me. Facebook also does not offer me what real vis-a-vis meeting, or a paper letter that actually needs some time, heart and energy to be written down, are offering. It is an instant quicky disguising itself as a "social life". And in the end, it turns people into products to be sold.
When I hear from a close friend's husband (who is school teacher) that pupils refuse to join a school trip holiday if there is no guaranteed internet access (a spreading phenomenon that I recently also read about somewhere in the media), then I think something goes totally wrong.
Friends on facebook are no friends. Social networks are not really social. A circle of friends counting by the hundreds or even thousands, is an erosion of the term. - what remains of Facebook when you substract what I criticise, is nopthing that you also could not run and maintain in your real life, via phone, skype, or real meetings.
Plus you get not profiled inside out by people of whom you know nothing what they do with your data and profiles. If I should join Facebook and sell my data, then they have to pay me. With more real value than just this cheap strange "service". If I am seen as a product, than at least a more precious one.
And no, I am not headed back to the stoneage and am no principle enemy of technology, by far not. I just do not loose my head over running blindly after it.
Sailor Steve
05-21-12, 05:02 AM
Friends on facebook are no friends.
Bull. While I agree completely with almost everything you've said, including the whole hundreds-of-friends crap, it depends on how you use it. My friends on FaceBook are exactly the same as my friends on Subsim: Friends. Either some one I know or have known personally, people I've worked with online or seen post enough online to consider them actual friends. FaceBook is my only regular contact with my kids, and with friends in other cities. If you can't tell the difference then you should stay away from it.
Unfortunately you're right for the most part. Most people don't seem to be able to tell the difference, so they do have hundreds of "friends" whom they don't know and don't really care to. All my friends are people I care about.
Platapus
05-21-12, 07:29 AM
Perhaps a better way of wording it would be that facebook-only friends are not actual friends.
It is like that old joke: How can you tell how many friends a facebook user has?
Don't worry, they will tell you. :yep:
Facebook is a great way to maintain contact with your real friends and family. I get a bit leery when people claim to make "friends" with people they have never actually met or talked to.
It all boils down to what each person's definition of "friend" is.
To me, a friend is something really special. I only have about 2-3 friends and I consider myself very lucky. I have a buttload of acquaintances. But they are not the same as friends.
But, other people have a more liberal definition of friend. And that's ok. :up:
Betonov
05-21-12, 07:55 AM
All my friends are people I care about.
Thanks :DL
It helps if you run a bit of an alter-ego online. Don't tell people everything. Don't show people everything. While I am a product, I am a useless product. FB is for me a communication tool, not a broader ID card. I don't feel they taken advantage of me. More like vice-versa.
FB will certainly gain more ground after the stock market debut.
nikimcbee
05-21-12, 09:06 AM
There aspects of FB that are just creepy. I deep-sixed my personal FB account and I finally remembered my PW for my backup account. In my backup account, there is no personal info about me, and it is still able to "recommend" people I actually know:o.
So I added one friend to that account, and look out, here come the ads!:doh::dead:
Going down...
Facebook shares dropped below their debut price of $38 (£24) in trading on Monday raising concerns about the stock if its lead underwriter Morgan Stanley stops propping it up and investors who were hoping for a surge in price decide to pull out.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/facebook-shares-fall-below-ipo-price-133445572--finance.html
kraznyi_oktjabr
05-21-12, 11:35 AM
-snip- In my backup account, there is no personal info about me, and it is still able to "recommend" people I actually know:o. -snip-I was quite shocked when FB recommended my doctor to become my new "friend". No common friends, no profile information with any clue that I even knew him. :shifty:
AVGWarhawk
05-21-12, 11:52 AM
Overhyped, over-valued, and considering that they produce no real value, no goods, no lasting qualities, facebook is a symptom of how ill our economy works and how ill it already is beign designed.
Exactly. This has the .com crash all over it. I do not invest in the virtual world.
Skybird
05-21-12, 11:59 AM
Bull. While I agree completely with almost everything you've said, including the whole hundreds-of-friends crap, it depends on how you use it. My friends on FaceBook are exactly the same as my friends on Subsim: Friends. Either some one I know or have known personally, people I've worked with online or seen post enough online to consider them actual friends. FaceBook is my only regular contact with my kids, and with friends in other cities. If you can't tell the difference then you should stay away from it.
Unfortunately you're right for the most part. Most people don't seem to be able to tell the difference, so they do have hundreds of "friends" whom they don't know and don't really care to. All my friends are people I care about.
My fault. I lacked precision on the "friends" part. I wanted to refer to the infamous "friends" button that makes strangers your so-called "friends".
I was quite shocked when FB recommended my doctor to become my new "friend". No common friends, no profile information with any clue that I even knew him. :shifty:
maybe you have your doctor's email in your gmail's address book?
kraznyi_oktjabr
05-21-12, 04:27 PM
maybe you have your doctor's email in your gmail's address book?I don't have gmail. I have hotmail and yahoo! mail of which yahoo! has doctors email. I have used my hotmail account when registering to facebook and although yahoo! mail address is listed in profile I don't recall authorizing transfer of info from yahoo! address book.
That what you said is most likely explanation.
I don;t have FB. My friend had my non-gmail address in his gmail address book linked to her FB account. I used to receive e-mails with invitations to FB based on the following connection: my email-->people who had it in their gmail books--->her FB.
Wicked, still logical.
By now that must have had linked more that gmail into their "web"....
Skybird
05-21-12, 05:34 PM
11% drop after two days. Not bad.
Meanwhile a group action has been filed over massive prvacy violations. They could cost facebook several billions.
And in Germany it is reported a federal offcial for media law and rights has warned during the public presentation of the yearly "Grundrechtereport" in Karlsruhe that even if you are not registered at facebook and visiting the site as a guest only, using any of the buttons - the like/dislike button - will automatically target the visitor for Facebook prifilign action and the site startiung to track his activities for at least 90 days, storing the data and saving it for use if the visitor later should return and register an account.
In other words, you must not even register there to get spied on, just surf the site and the FB machine embarks on you already.
How do hackers call sites that you just need to visit intentionally or by chance, and the visit alone already launches an attack on your system? Drive-by attack or something like that it was?
Datenkraken like Google and Facebook I just wish as harsh a crash frokm high altitude right on their faces, and as tough as possible. IMO their drives to gain data for profiling, and bypassing elemental rules of politeness and even nation's laws protecting privacy, are deliberately criminal. And I do not know what should worry me more: these data in the hands of government agencies - or in the hand of private business that even avoids monitoring and public counter-copnhtrol of how these data get used.
There are some program, that you can install to prevent Facebook from tracking you.
The most used is Facebook blocker-Can only be used in Chrome, Safari, Firefox and opera. Do not work with IE.
for those who use IE there is Do not track +
Markus
Sailor Steve
05-21-12, 11:20 PM
My fault. I lacked precision on the "friends" part. I wanted to refer to the infamous "friends" button that makes strangers your so-called "friends".
I agree for the most part. I just get defensive where my kids are concerned. Yes, the "friends" button is an invitation to disaster.
"I have eight hundred and seventy-two friends! I've only met three of them, but you know..." :dead:
Onkel Neal
05-22-12, 12:02 AM
If FB falls enough, I'll certainly load up on it. :shucks:
kraznyi_oktjabr
05-22-12, 03:54 AM
What I don't get in this is that based on Finnish media Facebook is not planning any dividends in near future (if ever). What is a point in owning a company which does not generate any income for you? How such company can be more valuable than many industrial corporations?
Facebook's "stock" sounds more like chip in poker table than legitimate trade instrument. Gambling on imagined value.
Onkel Neal
05-22-12, 07:21 AM
What I don't get in this is that based on Finnish media Facebook is not planning any dividends in near future (if ever). What is a point in owning a company which does not generate any income for you? How such company can be more valuable than many industrial corporations?
Facebook's "stock" sounds more like chip in poker table than legitimate trade instrument. Gambling on imagined value.
:) FB generates tons of money, how could it not? It has over 500 million active users.
Yes, investing in any business is a gamble. You are taking a chance that the company will succeed and create value and profit. Just imagine you and I are neighbors, we live in a town where there is no taxi service and a lot of people who don't own cars. I may make a study and show that a taxi service would be a valuable addition to the town. I ask you to help me buy 4 cars, hire drivers, and radio equipment. You invest an amount with an agreement to share in the profits. If I run the business well and I am right about the demand, we make money and the town has a taxi service. A gamble? Sure, so is life.
kraznyi_oktjabr
05-22-12, 07:43 AM
:) FB generates tons of money, how could it not? It has over 500 million active users.
Yes, investing in any business is a gamble. You are taking a chance that the company will succeed and create value and profit. Just imagine you and I are neighbors, we live in a town where there is no taxi service and a lot of people who don't own cars. I may make a study and show that a taxi service would be a valuable addition to the town. I ask you to help me buy 4 cars, hire drivers, and radio equipment. You invest an amount with an agreement to share in the profits. If I run the business well and I am right about the demand, we make money and the town has a taxi service. A gamble? Sure, so is life.I understand this. What I don't like in situation (if information is correct) is that FB has no plans to pay dividends to investors. Therefore those who invest to company won't get any profit from their stocks unless they play speculation games.
Power in company is still strictly in its founders (and his friends) hands and with those stocks that have been sold in stock exhange has no power to overrule their decisions (as there is - at my knowledge - not enough stocks in sale to get past 50% without old owners support).
This may ofcourse change - or then not.
EDIT: From (http://www.aamulehti.fi/Talous/1194743055491/artikkeli/facebook+nosti+uudelleen+osakkeensa+tarjoushintaa. html):
Facebookin liikevaihto oli viime vuonna 3,7 miljardia dollaria. Yhtiö ei ole koskaan jakanut osinkoa. Se ei aio maksaa osinkoa myöskään pörssiyhtiönä.Translation: Facebook's revenue in last year was $3,7B. Company has never paid dividend. Its not planning paying dividend as stockcompany either. (quick translation, finns jump in and correct)
EDIT#2: Just to make sure that I get understood correctly: Facebook has effectively stated, that its not going to share its profits with those who invest into company. Same as if I helped you to establish that taxi company and you wouldn't share profits with me.
Skybird
05-22-12, 08:07 AM
:) FB generates tons of money, how could it not? It has over 500 million active users.
Yes, investing in any business is a gamble. You are taking a chance that the company will succeed and create value and profit. Just imagine you and I are neighbors, we live in a town where there is no taxi service and a lot of people who don't own cars. I may make a study and show that a taxi service would be a valuable addition to the town. I ask you to help me buy 4 cars, hire drivers, and radio equipment. You invest an amount with an agreement to share in the profits. If I run the business well and I am right about the demand, we make money and the town has a taxi service. A gamble? Sure, so is life.
Just creating money is not enough, Neal. Have you nothing learned from the abstract-value-hype of the past years? It's bubbles. Money needs to be covered by real value. But FB - amongst other stockmarket services - does not produce real value, just abstract value. Which means a devaluation of money.
You may take the gamble, and yes, in some case people can make a fortune. But only at a price. And that is the cost to the higher common good.
Alchemy wanted to make gold of lead. Stockmarkets want to make real value from nothing, which basicvally is the same thing. But all they do is make abstract value from nothing only (=mortagges on the future, that is), or real value that does not live beyond the moment, and thus is nothing to build a future on. Even if some ga,mbler makes a fortune from some present deal, the cost for that deal does not vanish - it just get shifted and hidden deepn inside the system, and produces a cost that gets payed by others, and/or the community. Such short-living welath that goes away again, we call hypes. A hype is nothing to buoild your community's future on. Once the hype collapses, the community'S gains from it collapse as well.
From nothing comes nothing. Do not spend more than you earn. Do not tansfer servicing youre debts endlessly into the future. Spend a little less than you earn, so that after servicing possible debts and hopefully kill them sooner or later, you have some rest left to save for bad times. - That is what reasons dicates a sane mind. Stockmarkets and endless-growth-apostles hate it. Which makes me conclude that the stockmarkets do not operate on the grounds of sanity and reason. Maybe that is where the troubles are coming from. Because some origin they must have come from, the problems do not come from nowhere, as if all by themselves.
Onkel Neal
05-22-12, 08:51 AM
Just creating money is not enough, Neal. Have you nothing learned from the abstract-value-hype of the past years? It's bubbles. Money needs to be covered by real value. But FB - amongst other stockmarket services - does not produce real value, just abstract value. Which means a devaluation of money.
FB's value is their userbase, the platforms they create, and their acceptance as the king of repeat visitors. They essentially have all the land alongside the information highway and plenty of companies want to erect billboards on this land. That's their value, and as long as FB manages this well, they will make money. Real money, not abstract :)
I understand this. What I don't like in situation (if information is correct) is that FB has no plans to pay dividends to investors. Therefore those who invest to company won't get any profit from their stocks unless they play speculation games.
Power in company is still strictly in its founders (and his friends) hands and with those stocks that have been sold in stock exhange has no power to overrule their decisions (as there is - at my knowledge - not enough stocks in sale to get past 50% without old owners support).
This may ofcourse change - or then not.
EDIT: From (http://www.aamulehti.fi/Talous/1194743055491/artikkeli/facebook+nosti+uudelleen+osakkeensa+tarjoushintaa. html):
Translation: Facebook's revenue in last year was $3,7B. Company has never paid dividend. Its not planning paying dividend as stockcompany either. (quick translation, finns jump in and correct)
EDIT#2: Just to make sure that I get understood correctly: Facebook has effectively stated, that its not going to share its profits with those who invest into company. Same as if I helped you to establish that taxi company and you wouldn't share profits with me.
Not all public companies pay dividends, a lot of investors will not buy a stock unless it has a structure for dividends (Mookie can explain this better than me).
But, if you buy a share of stock @ $30 and 5 years later it is valued at $90, you have tripled your investment. You can sell it, money!
"unless they play speculation games"
What does this mean?
FB has lost 17 percent of its value.
kraznyi_oktjabr
05-22-12, 09:11 AM
-snip- But, if you buy a share of stock @ $30 and 5 years later it is valued at $90, you have tripled your investment. You can sell it, money!
"unless they play speculation games"
What does this mean?Kind of what you say right above bolded part. I decided to use term "speculation game" (not very nice term) because I'm afraid that in case of Facebook its value won't rise faster than inflation. You maybe able to make profit if you buy when price is in low and sell when price is high but I don't see potential for great increase in value for stock itself. Its ofcourse possible that I'm wrong but my opinion currently is that unless Facebook is going to pay dividend its not worth of its current market value.
This means that I'm not investing to it. Others are ofcourse free to do as they please.
Onkel Neal
05-22-12, 09:49 AM
Yeah, that makes sense and I agree, if you as an investor do not see FB or any offering as a good deal, avoid it. Sure, there is some "speculation" involved, there has to be. If it was a "sure thing" the reward would be minimal if it existed at all.
mookiemookie
05-22-12, 09:54 AM
A stock that doesn't pay dividends simply means that the issuing company has decided to reinvest the profits in the business (assuming it's profitable.)
Let's look at an example of a non-dividend paying stock. Berkshire Hathaway, the company run by Warren Buffett, owns all or part of companies such as GEICO insurance, General Re, Fruit of the Loom, Acme Brick, Ben Bridge and Helzberg jewelers, Dairy Queen, Justin Boots, NetJets, Star Furniture (these are major major everyday household names in the U.S.)...also significant stakes in Coca Cola, Kraft, Moodys, Wells Fargo.
So for all of those holdings of profitable companies, Berkshire doesn't pay dividends. But shares of BRK A are trading at $121,000 a share. (Brk B, the shares with no voting rights are $80 a share, but still). Why are these stocks worth these huge amounts of money if they don't pay dividends? Because investors know that the company is going to reinvest its profits into more profitable acquisitions. The company has value because the value of its assets are huge, and that if they decided to start paying dividends, they could certainly do so and pay them well. Shareholders want to invest in good, strong companies. They've decided that Berkshire can invest those dollars and deliver strong growth and make smart decisions with the money so they reward that with a higher stock price.
Growing companies such as Facebook make better use of their revenue by reinvesting it back into the company instead of paying it out to shareholders. Investors reward this behavior with higher stock prices. You wouldn't want a company like Facebook to immediately start paying out all of its profits in dividends - there would be nothing left to grow the company with. It would stagnate and may even start operating at a loss. Then you'd have no dividends and no chances for growth. A lose/lose.
Now if a company reduces it's dividend, or stops paying one altogether....that could be a sign of trouble and is a whole other discussion.
Hope this sheds some light on why dividends are not the only measure of a stock's worth.
kraznyi_oktjabr
05-22-12, 10:12 AM
I understand your point mookie. I'm just not confident enough to Facebook's future to invest. Atleast not yet and certainly not in current price.
Again I maybe wrong. Wouldn't be first time.
mookiemookie
05-22-12, 10:56 AM
I understand your point mookie. I'm just not confident enough to Facebook's future to invest. Atleast not yet and certainly not in current price.
Again I maybe wrong. Wouldn't be first time.
I agree with you. I'm not sure if they're going to continue to be as important to the internet as they are now. I'm not a buyer.
AVGWarhawk
05-22-12, 11:43 AM
Facebook of old wasn't too bad, but once Zuckerman and his battalion of lawyers discovered they could just keep changing the privacy agreement in their favor, it became a free information orgy.
I believe FB will continue to erode. Stocks selling for that much should offer a dividend. I am not seeing more growth, either.
First My Space then FB and Google+. I see no longevity in FB.
mookiemookie
05-22-12, 11:58 AM
I believe FB will continue to erode. Stocks selling for that much should offer a dividend. I am not seeing more growth, either.
Still not as expensive as LinkedIn and Groupon...those are trading at a price/earnings ratio of around 152 and 67, respectively. They make Facebook's 58 look like a bargain. :88)
I wouldn't buy either one of those stocks either...you wanna talk about a short shelf life, it's Groupon who makes screwing people and burning bridges its business model and LinkedIn, where I know no one who actually uses it.
Rockstar
05-22-12, 12:01 PM
A stock that doesn't pay dividends simply means that the issuing company has decided to reinvest the profits in the business (assuming it's profitable.)
Let's look at an example of a non-dividend paying stock. Berkshire Hathaway, the company run by Warren Buffett, owns all or part of companies such as GEICO insurance, General Re, Fruit of the Loom, Acme Brick, Ben Bridge and Helzberg jewelers, Dairy Queen, Justin Boots, NetJets, Star Furniture (these are major major everyday household names in the U.S.)...also significant stakes in Coca Cola, Kraft, Moodys, Wells Fargo.
So for all of those holdings of profitable companies, Berkshire doesn't pay dividends. But shares of BRK A are trading at $121,000 a share. (Brk B, the shares with no voting rights are $80 a share, but still). Why are these stocks worth these huge amounts of money if they don't pay dividends? Because investors know that the company is going to reinvest its profits into more profitable acquisitions. The company has value because the value of its assets are huge, and that if they decided to start paying dividends, they could certainly do so and pay them well. Shareholders want to invest in good, strong companies. They've decided that Berkshire can invest those dollars and deliver strong growth and make smart decisions with the money so they reward that with a higher stock price.
Growing companies such as Facebook make better use of their revenue by reinvesting it back into the company instead of paying it out to shareholders. Investors reward this behavior with higher stock prices. You wouldn't want a company like Facebook to immediately start paying out all of its profits in dividends - there would be nothing left to grow the company with. It would stagnate and may even start operating at a loss. Then you'd have no dividends and no chances for growth. A lose/lose.
Now if a company reduces it's dividend, or stops paying one altogether....that could be a sign of trouble and is a whole other discussion.
Hope this sheds some light on why dividends are not the only measure of a stock's worth.
I thought when a company's dividends starts to rise to those 'too good to be true' payout percentages it too was a possible indicator it might be in trouble soon.
AVGWarhawk
05-22-12, 12:03 PM
Still not as expensive as LinkedIn and Groupon...those are trading at a price/earnings ratio of around 152 and 67, respectively. They make Facebook's 58 look like a bargain. :88)
I wouldn't buy either one of those stocks either...you wanna talk about a short shelf life, it's Groupon who makes screwing people and burning bridges its business model and LinkedIn, where I know no one who actually uses it.
The 2002 .com crash is enough for me to realize offerings such as FB should be avoided.
Betonov
05-22-12, 12:07 PM
Here's my conspiracy theory on this.
I bet fat cats were counting on the FB hype to drive up the stocks by massive buying by the small investors and then sell them when they rose ten fold. But something didn't go as planned.
mookiemookie
05-22-12, 12:18 PM
I thought when a company's dividends starts to rise to those 'too good to be true' payout percentages it too was a possible indicator it might be in trouble soon.
That's true also. If a company is paying out too high of a dividend, it could be a sign that they're trying to lure in people to bump up the stock price.
AVGWarhawk
05-22-12, 12:34 PM
Here's my conspiracy theory on this.
I bet fat cats were counting on the FB hype to drive up the stocks by massive buying by the small investors and then sell them when they rose ten fold. But something didn't go as planned.
Media hype.
Skybird
05-22-12, 02:38 PM
FB's value is their userbase, the platforms they create, and their acceptance as the king of repeat visitors. They essentially have all the land alongside the information highway and plenty of companies want to erect billboards on this land. That's their value, and as long as FB manages this well, they will make money. Real money, not abstract :)
No. Think it to the end. I admit, it is a very long chain, but still - try to think it to the end. Facebook produces nothing and creates nothing. No real value it creates at all, and the value (in the meaning of money) now spend for its shares -ideally - would represent the monetarian value of some other real assets: products, land, anything. Which means the money representing real values (the latter meaning) noiw suddenly is sucked up by something that represents no real values. In other words real assets get annihilated to value up unreal, non-real assets (FB). The ral value has not been increased, but to compensate the loss of money representing real assets, new money gets printed and brought into circulation, with inflation and all the rattail of unwanted follow-onb effects. So: while the buyer of FB shares may or may not make a short-termed gain when buying and selling FB shares, there still is a devaluing taking place that is absorb and compensated by the whole and complete system. It is a an intrinisc design flaw that temporary money theory and economc "theories" cannot evade, tried to solve and so far completzely have failed to solve, since centuries. And since as long it creates one cultural fall, one economic collapse after the other.
Economic theory even has a special term for it and recognises it as un unsolvable problem, but for the present moment the term just does not come to my mind.
If you think now that it is a very basic problem for any capitalistic monetarian system in general, than you are right. It is. That'S why capitalists tend to act as if it did not exist.
With the known results that hit civilisation every couple of time cycles. Provloem is that frequency and amplitude of such problems are accelerating by several factors in modern time, speeded up by the increased pace of modern industrial societies.
I grant you your monetarian win if your FB buys turn out to be profitable in the longer run. It's just that you have not formed and that FAB has not formed up additonal real value when that happens. A cost equivalent to your gain, and then plus X, has been also created, the price is higher than your gain, and even if the whole system and all the others swallow it, it nevertheless adds to the many other individual gains that come at a equivalent cost + X. Somebody has to pay for it, and it could be any part of the global system and communities.
So do not be surprised about the next econiomic-finacial crashdown. It is just a question of time. Profits like yours - drive the process of frequent collapses, since they keep the whole system running from one spike to the next in the race for "eternal growth" - instead of trying to maintain a dynamic balance that keeps things in a state of slightly fluctuating stability and size of human civilisdation tailored to what can be supported by this stable balance. That would be what "Nachhaltiugkeit" really means. We are lightyears away from that. And that is why I am pessimistic about human global civilisation.
From nothing comes nothing, lead does not turn into gold. It is so easy a fact to understand, but greed seems to blind people over it.
Jimbuna
05-22-12, 02:46 PM
Here's my conspiracy theory on this.
I bet fat cats were counting on the FB hype to drive up the stocks by massive buying by the small investors and then sell them when they rose ten fold. But something didn't go as planned.
Don't believe everything you read in comics :O:
:03:
mookiemookie
05-22-12, 03:06 PM
Sky, with all due respect, you're way off the mark here.
No. Think it to the end. I admit, it is a very long chain, but still - try to think it to the end. Facebook produces nothing and creates nothing. It absolutely creates a service and has produced a social media platform. In your world, only companies that manufacture tangible items would have any value. What about accounting firms? They don't produce anything. Advertising, financial services, insurance, travel? None of them produce anything at the end of the day. Are you going to argue that companies such as Norwegian Cruise lines and Deloitte and Touche are worthless? That's absolutely absurd.
No real value it creates at all, and the value (in the meaning of money) now spend for its shares -ideally - would represent the monetarian value of some other real assets: products, land, anything. What about the value of the eyes of the 800 million users that it has? You can argue about what exactly the value of that is, but you have to admit it does have value. Advertisers can't advertise without an audience to advertise to. Facebook has that audience.
Betonov
05-22-12, 03:08 PM
Don't believe everything you read in comics :O:
:03:
It was my dogs idea :O:
Skybird
05-22-12, 05:33 PM
Sky, with all due respect, you're way off the mark here.
It absolutely creates a service and has produced a social media platform. In your world, only companies that manufacture tangible items would have any value. What about accounting firms? They don't produce anything. Advertising, financial services, insurance, travel? None of them produce anything at the end of the day. Are you going to argue that companies such as Norwegian Cruise lines and Deloitte and Touche are worthless? That's absolutely absurd.
What about the value of the eyes of the 800 million users that it has? You can argue about what exactly the value of that is, but you have to admit it does have value. Advertisers can't advertise without an audience to advertise to. Facebook has that audience.
I make it easy and short: As long as you trade real value for real value (no matter whether you use the valued items themselves or their calculation representation: money), you are on the safe side. When you start to trade debts, trade real value for non-real values, you sooner or latter mess things up.
When money, which is just a calculation unit so that you must not carry a truckload of furs and sacks of grain when you make a deal, no longer is just a tool, but becomes the traded item itself, then all devils from hell are cooking in your kitchen, and debts start to rank as "products". And the cooking party starts once you allow that more money is in circulation than there is real assets it represents. Because then money starts to multiply by itself, and real values get devalued by that.
That's it in a nutshell, simplified a bit, but in principle that is the basic mechnaism. Any monetarian system allowing trades with interests included, or trades for m oney that somebody doe snot have, biut expects to gain due to the trade, are essentially a delayed doomsday machine. Always. May take its time, but in the end it explodes, always. Because money multiplies faster than real value, so the moment the first such trade is beign done, the spreading of real value and faster increasing money in the whole system has been launched, and it never stops again. real economy may increase real values, but the ammount of money always increases faster, so the gap between both is widening.
It's a very basic and principle argument against financial capitalism that involves any form of interests, and nobody wants to believe it. Overcioming this inherent design implication would mean a cultural revolution that is hard to be overestimated, I would rate it of same ranks like inventing the farming of grain, discovering fire, inventing the wheel. I am realist, and expect it not to happen. We will prefer to go to hell, even more so since our established elites of profiteers are too powerful as if they need to allow the waning of their control power and welath without massive and crushing resistence. A first taste of that we just have gotten when the repairing of the messed up stockmarkets and bank non-controls have failed both in the US and Europe. Others may fail for ideologic reasons like socialism, or bribing voters with fincial gifts that the system/nation/community cannot afford.
We will decide by reasonable arguments - yes, I mean that serious and not one bit sarcastic! - to prefer fall over survival, like Jared Diamond has so stunningly and convincingly demonstrated for so many societies before us, in his book "Collapse. I summarised his basic arguments in a separate long thread two years ago. These reasons also are valid for how our financial systems are working, and our globalised economy.
---
And the "product" that Facebook sells - is the user. ;) That'S what makes it different from a telephone company or a travel agent.
---
I posted this before, last month, but I love that tale.
In a book from 2011 ("Geld - Der vertrackte Kern des Kapitalismus"), financial journalist Lucas Zeise gave this nice anecdote:
There was a village, that lived by tourism until the financial breakdown 2008. Suddenly, tourists stayed away, and the people living in that vilage had to lend money from each other to survive. But then, one foreigner entered the localo hotel, and demanded a room. He payed in advance with a 100 Euro note. The hotel owner took the note to the butcher because he owed him 100 Euros. The butcher took the 100 Euro to the farmer whose cattle he still needed to pay. The farmer took the money to the whore in the village, whom he still did owe 100 Euros. The whore took the 100 Euros to the hotel owner, because she occassionally rented a room in his hotel, and still owed him 100 Euros. When she put the note on the table, the tourist came down the stairs, fetched the 100 Euros off the table, said he had changed his mind, and left. - Well, nobody in the village had won money, nobody had lost money, there were no gains and no losses for anyone. But for some reason everybody was suddenly free of debts.
mookiemookie
05-22-12, 06:26 PM
Originally Posted by Skybird
In a book from 2011 ("Geld - Der vertrackte Kern des Kapitalismus"), financial journalist Lucas Zeise gave this nice anecdote:
There was a village, that lived by tourism until the financial breakdown 2008. Suddenly, tourists stayed away, and the people living in that vilage had to lend money from each other to survive. But then, one foreigner entered the localo hotel, and demanded a room. He payed in advance with a 100 Euro note. The hotel owner took the note to the butcher because he owed him 100 Euros. The butcher took the 100 Euro to the farmer whose cattle he still needed to pay. The farmer took the money to the whore in the village, whom he still did owe 100 Euros. The whore took the 100 Euros to the hotel owner, because she occassionally rented a room in his hotel, and still owed him 100 Euros. When she put the note on the table, the tourist came down the stairs, fetched the 100 Euros off the table, said he had changed his mind, and left. - Well, nobody in the village had won money, nobody had lost money, there were no gains and no losses for anyone. But for some reason everybody was suddenly free of debts.
Your story doesn't illustrate what you think it does. All it does is describe a barter economy. There's no debt involved at all.
If the value of the hotel room was exactly equal to the value of the meat which was exactly equal to the value of the cattle which was exactly equal to the sex which was exactly equal to the value of the hotel room, money never needed to be entered into the economic system at all! Credit never had to be extended at all as the values of the goods and services were the medium of exchange, so your cute little point about the silliness of debt is completely wrong. There wasn't any real debt in the village's economy in the first place.
Look at it this way:
hotel owner - paid in lodging, received meat
butcher - paid in meat, received cattle
farmer - paid in cattle, received sex
whore - paid in sex, received lodging
No debt there, just a neat little chain of barter.
QED.
Skybird
05-22-12, 07:08 PM
Yes, that apparently was the point.
I now must wonder if YOU have gotten the point of why I quoted this again? Where are today's debt burdens come from? ;) Certainly not from a setting like in that anecdote.
And that is the difference I was after. Becasue as I exyplained, the real world is not like in that anecdote, but is a place where real value and abstract value are in increasing spread.
That spread can only be narrowed again by boosting inflation (which is the idea behgind the Fed'S doing). Money needs to be taken out of circulation, to boost value of the remainign money which becomes the more vlauable again the more the ration between money and real value it represents, come back to a state where they match again. Where is that money taken from in a controled inflation? Private savings. What is it in the end? Enforced mass exproriation.
Who gets hit worse by it, people with giant or peopel with minimum incomes, people with huge savings or people with little savings that can merely secure their high age life? Those who hjave little, are hit worse, of course. What is a loss of comfort for richg, is a threat to the very existence of the poorer.
There is a link between debt, and money in circulation, obviously. Taking money out of the total circulation (via the central notebank destroying it), is not the same like rich people stockpiling huge ammounts of money - the money is no longer in circulation, but it still casts an effect as if it were, devaluing money representing real values/assets, and boosting inflation. which seems to be a biot paradox, but is not at all. In other words, the huge savings of the very rich are a very big problem that causes the poorer ones being forced to pay for.
And now look at variuous Wetsern cou7ntries, or the rich in Russia, China, the Araba states, how the gap between rich and poor is widening, and how more of the circulating money and real wealth is accumulated in few and fewer hands, while a bigger and still growing part of the population shares less and lesser of the overall wealth there is. The spread is growing, and does so apparently everyhwere.
That is one of the two bars of dynamites our world probably will blow up over. The other is demographics: old versus young.
There is no pleasant solution of any of the two.
AVGWarhawk
05-22-12, 08:16 PM
Sky, with all due respect, you're way off the mark here.
It absolutely creates a service and has produced a social media platform. In your world, only companies that manufacture tangible items would have any value. What about accounting firms? They don't produce anything. Advertising, financial services, insurance, travel? None of them produce anything at the end of the day. Are you going to argue that companies such as Norwegian Cruise lines and Deloitte and Touche are worthless? That's absolutely absurd.
What about the value of the eyes of the 800 million users that it has? You can argue about what exactly the value of that is, but you have to admit it does have value. Advertisers can't advertise without an audience to advertise to. Facebook has that audience.
Goods and services. That is what manufactures offer. That is what companies like GE, Verizon and Comcast offer. Not a virtual world of friends showing pictures of their latest sexual conquest. The only value FB has is the constant advertising. It offers nothing else. All it takes is advertisers to see diminishing returns and pull the plug.
mookiemookie
05-22-12, 09:18 PM
Goods and services. That is what manufactures offer. That is what companies like GE, Verizon and Comcast offer. Manufacturers manufacture things, not services. Verizon is not a manufacturer. They're a service provider. Same with Comcast.
Not a virtual world of friends showing pictures of their latest sexual conquest. Verizon only offers people a virtual world means of telling their friends about their latest sexual conquest. Comcast pipes entertainment into your home. They don't manufacture anything at all. But yet these companies have value to shareholders - why? What's the difference between one service provider (Verizon, Comcast) and another (Facebook)? You can't say that Facebook's worthless because it doesn't produce anything, as you just named two other companies that don't produce anything either.
The only value FB has is the constant advertising. It offers nothing else. All it takes is advertisers to see diminishing returns and pull the plug. Now you're getting warmer. But I think you're mixing up Facebook's business model with their product. Their product is the website, the user interface, the platform for sharing pictures, updates, etc. That's what they've created. Their business model is to use that to sell advertising and to get fees from games. It's a key distinction to make. You can have a problem with their business model - and many people do. I think it's a valid concern, and a valid reason to value the company less. But the fact that they don't manufacture widgets that get shipped out from a warehouse somewhere is not.
I think the underwriters really screwed up on valuing this deal. Apparently the market does as well.
Onkel Neal
05-22-12, 11:04 PM
No. Think it to the end. I admit, it is a very long chain, but still - try to think it to the end. Facebook produces nothing and creates nothing. No real value it creates at all, and the value (in the meaning of money) now spend for its shares -ideally - would represent the monetarian value of some other real assets: products, land, anything. Which means the money representing real values (the latter meaning) noiw suddenly is sucked up by something that represents no real values. In other words real assets get annihilated to value up unreal, non-real assets (FB). The ral value has not been increased, but to compensate the loss of money representing real assets, new money gets printed and brought into circulation, with inflation and all the rattail of unwanted follow-onb effects. So: while the buyer of FB shares may or may not make a short-termed gain when buying and selling FB shares, there still is a devaluing taking place that is absorb and compensated by the whole and complete system. It is a an intrinisc design flaw that temporary money theory and economc "theories" cannot evade, tried to solve and so far completzely have failed to solve, since centuries. And since as long it creates one cultural fall, one economic collapse after the other.
Economic theory even has a special term for it and recognises it as un unsolvable problem, but for the present moment the term just does not come to my mind.
If you think now that it is a very basic problem for any capitalistic monetarian system in general, than you are right. It is. That'S why capitalists tend to act as if it did not exist.
With the known results that hit civilisation every couple of time cycles. Provloem is that frequency and amplitude of such problems are accelerating by several factors in modern time, speeded up by the increased pace of modern industrial societies.
I grant you your monetarian win if your FB buys turn out to be profitable in the longer run. It's just that you have not formed and that FAB has not formed up additonal real value when that happens. A cost equivalent to your gain, and then plus X, has been also created, the price is higher than your gain, and even if the whole system and all the others swallow it, it nevertheless adds to the many other individual gains that come at a equivalent cost + X. Somebody has to pay for it, and it could be any part of the global system and communities.
So do not be surprised about the next econiomic-finacial crashdown. It is just a question of time. Profits like yours - drive the process of frequent collapses, since they keep the whole system running from one spike to the next in the race for "eternal growth" - instead of trying to maintain a dynamic balance that keeps things in a state of slightly fluctuating stability and size of human civilisdation tailored to what can be supported by this stable balance. That would be what "Nachhaltiugkeit" really means. We are lightyears away from that. And that is why I am pessimistic about human global civilisation.
From nothing comes nothing, lead does not turn into gold. It is so easy a fact to understand, but greed seems to blind people over it.
Ah, human global civilisation. Got it.
Look at it this way:
hotel owner - paid in lodging, received meat
butcher - paid in meat, received cattle
farmer - paid in cattle, received sex
whore - paid in sex, received lodging
:rotfl2: I know how this works! have a spare room.....
PeriscopeDepth
05-23-12, 12:20 AM
The reason Facebook is valuable is the same reason Google is. They have tons of users, and these users show signs of what they want to buy. On Google, these users declare the intent by putting into the search box "digital camera". Then sellers of digital cameras advertise to this person.
On Facebook, it's less clear. They don't have a tried and true revenue model (though they do have revenue, in the billions). How the user communicates intent is different. They may put "photography" as one of their interests. They may "like" a photo studio. They may post about wanting to buy a digital camera.
However, the reason Facebook is potentially valuable (and why you invest is supposed future value) is because they might figure it (a revenue model) out. They might nail it, even. And with that many users, and that much data they could nail it better than Google does now. The potential is there. There are lots of smart people working at Facebook (too many, IMO). They have enough money and time to think things through.
However, the market doesn't seem to think much of their future right now. :)
PD
AVGWarhawk
05-23-12, 08:03 AM
Manufacturers manufacture things, not services. Verizon is not a manufacturer. They're a service provider. Same with Comcast.
Verizon only offers people a virtual world means of telling their friends about their latest sexual conquest. Comcast pipes entertainment into your home. They don't manufacture anything at all. But yet these companies have value to shareholders - why? What's the difference between one service provider (Verizon, Comcast) and another (Facebook)? You can't say that Facebook's worthless because it doesn't produce anything, as you just named two other companies that don't produce anything either.
Now you're getting warmer. But I think you're mixing up Facebook's business model with their product. Their product is the website, the user interface, the platform for sharing pictures, updates, etc. That's what they've created. Their business model is to use that to sell advertising and to get fees from games. It's a key distinction to make. You can have a problem with their business model - and many people do. I think it's a valid concern, and a valid reason to value the company less. But the fact that they don't manufacture widgets that get shipped out from a warehouse somewhere is not.
I think the underwriters really screwed up on valuing this deal. Apparently the market does as well.
Yes, Verizon and Comcast provide a service. Internet, TV, phone. This is what I mean by service and as stated by "goods and services." Hotel chains provide a service. FB does not have a product. FB has a virtual product and not much of a service. It is only a form of communicating without having to get a piece of paper and pencil to write a letter. Shove some snap shot in with the letter. The only difference is the information in the letter is not broadcasted for all the world to see.
Bottom line...Wall Street has screwed the public..again.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18180861
Note: Update record 23 May 2012 Last updated at 14:57 GMT
mookiemookie
05-23-12, 12:23 PM
Yes, Verizon and Comcast provide a service. Internet, TV, phone. This is what I mean by service and as stated by "goods and services." Hotel chains provide a service. FB does not have a product. FB has a virtual product and not much of a service. It is only a form of communicating without having to get a piece of paper and pencil to write a letter. Shove some snap shot in with the letter. The only difference is the information in the letter is not broadcasted for all the world to see.
I'll blow up your argument in one word: Google.
Skybird
05-23-12, 01:00 PM
Just read that now the mud throwing season has formally been opened. :D
I shall find it most amusing how they all sabber and whine, squirm and weasel, wanting the gold, but fearing to be caught by the searchlight...
mookiemookie
05-23-12, 01:22 PM
I've been watching this sort of on and off. The first allegation is that Facebook fed institutional analysts inside information that caused them to lower their estimates. This would be a big no-no.
The second allegation is that the analysts lowered their estimates and the rest of the investing public didn't know that. That's a gray area, but I see it as a case of "too bad, so sad" for those who didn't know. Analyst estimates are definitely material information, but analysts are under no obligation to make their research available to the investing public at large. They're also not insiders, so they can't very well be accused of being a tipper - UNLESS they had received non-public information from Facebook insiders. If they revised their estimates based on publicly available info - well, you can't very well buy your stock through E-Trade and then cry foul because you didn't have access to Morgan Stanley institutional research.
I think this is a case of those foolish to buy into the CNBC garbage cheerleader hype and buy a stock at a price that was 150 times earnings trying to find someone else to blame for their foolishness.
Bilge_Rat
05-23-12, 01:34 PM
I think this is a case of those foolish to buy into the CNBC garbage cheerleader hype and buy a stock at a price that was 150 times earnings trying to find someone else to blame for their foolishness.
I would agree. It reminds me of the worst days of the internet bubble of 1999-2000 where companies were trading at 100-200+ times earnings, 95% of which then disappeared.
When you buy a company like Facebook, you are not buying present earnings, but potential future value which may or may not be there.
kraznyi_oktjabr
05-23-12, 01:35 PM
Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat reports in its webpage about calculation by Thomson Reuters Starmine. Calculation which is based on 10,8% average yearly growth (said by article to be industry average) gives stock a value of $9.59 which would be 72% below IPO price. I don't have more info of that calculation.
AVGWarhawk
05-23-12, 01:39 PM
I'll blow up your argument in one word: Google.
And I will see your one word and Google this:
http://www.investopedia.com/features/crashes/crashes8.asp#axzz1vifbSiWo
Anyone who really puts their faith and money in a virtual .com is much more of a risk taker than I will ever be. FB offer nothing. I'll said it again. America has been hoodwinked by Wall St again.
mookiemookie
05-23-12, 02:37 PM
And I will see your one word and Google this:
http://www.investopedia.com/features/crashes/crashes8.asp#axzz1vifbSiWo
Anyone who really puts their faith and money in a virtual .com is much more of a risk taker than I will ever be. FB offer nothing. I'll said it again. America has been hoodwinked by Wall St again.
The tech crash had nothing to do with Google, so your rebuttal isn't much of a rebuttal. Google's a sound company with sound fundamentals and valuations. It came to market at $85 back in 04. It's now trading at over $600 a share, and at an 18 P/E. There's no comparison to the tech bubble where P/E's of over 100 for unproven companies were the norm. And my one word counter rebuttal to your non-rebuttal: Apple. $566 a share and that's at a PE of 13.81. To say all tech stocks are worthless because once upon a time people made stupid bets on things like pets.com is pretty narrow minded.
GOOG and AAPL are also the type of company that people so conveniently forget about when they wistfully get all teary eyed and say the U.S. doesn't make anything anymore. I'll take intellectual innovation over manual labor any day.
AVGWarhawk
05-23-12, 03:00 PM
The tech crash had nothing to do with Google, so your rebuttal isn't much of a rebuttal. Google's a sound company with sound fundamentals and valuations. It came to market at $85 back in 04. It's now trading at over $600 a share, and at an 18 P/E. There's no comparison to the tech bubble where P/E's of over 100 for unproven companies were the norm. And my one word counter rebuttal to your non-rebuttal: Apple. $566 a share and that's at a PE of 13.81. To say all tech stocks are worthless because once upon a time people made stupid bets on things like pets.com is pretty narrow minded.
GOOG and AAPL are also the type of company that people so conveniently forget about when they wistfully get all teary eyed and say the U.S. doesn't make anything anymore. I'll take intellectual innovation over manual labor any day.
I have said in every post that this smells of a .com crash. I did not say Google had anything to do with the crash. It was not a rebuttal. How strong Google is does not persuade me to invest. Facebook is another .com to me. Google is another .com to me and can take dump much like the .com bust of 2002. Google ticks because Google has become a noun and a verb in the English Language. The commercials for Bing and saying Bing when something is found using Bing just did not catch on.
Apple...offers products. Ipod, Iphone. What at Apple USA is made other than a program to go on devices made outside the US? The Ipods etc are made overseas. Sweatshops. http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/apple-sweatshop-problem-16-hour-days-70-cents-172800495.html But Apple says that's bunk and we all take it hook, line and sinker. Apple is not a .com company. What does Apple make in the USA?
Did I state anywhere that all tech stocks are worthless? Differing opinion does not correlate to narrow mindedness.
mookiemookie
05-23-12, 03:08 PM
I have said in every post that this smells of a .com crash. It was not a rebuttal. How strong Google is does not persuade me to invest. Facebook is another .com to me Google is another .com to me and can take dump much like the .com bust of 2002. Google ticks because Google has become a noun and a verb in the English Language. The commercials for Bing and saying Bing when something is found using Bing just did not catch on.
Apple...offers products. Ipod, Iphone. What at Apple USA is made other than a program to go on devices made outside the US? The Ipods etc are made overseas. http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/apple-sweatshop-problem-16-hour-days-70-cents-172800495.html Apple is not a .com company. What does Apple make in the USA?
Did I state anywhere that all tech stocks are worthless? Differing opinion does not correlate to narrow mindedness.
I think we're debating different things here.
AVGWarhawk
05-23-12, 03:14 PM
I think we're debating different things here.
:har: I think you are right! :up:
mookiemookie
05-23-12, 03:21 PM
:har: I think you are right! :up:
:woot:
AVGWarhawk
05-23-12, 03:29 PM
The true losers in the entire FB extravaganza is once again...the American public.
Zucker should be ashamed. I think I'm moving operations over to Google+. :DL
mookiemookie
05-23-12, 03:43 PM
Zuckerberg has been very quiet the past few days, hasn't he?
I read something that said he would laugh any investment banker out of the room that didn't value the company at at least $100 billion. That's how they ended up with the bloated and unrealistic IPO price they did.
Look who has been at it again...
Facebook banks under fire after helping bet against float
Anger at Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan loaning shares to hedge funds wanting to short the stock
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/facebook-banks-under-fire-after-helping-bet-against-float-7789316.html
Try Naked Shorting Stock which is illegal.
THERE were two grand illusions about the American economy in the first decade of the 21st century. One was the idea that housing prices were no longer tethered to normal economic trends, and instead would just keep going up and up. The second was the idea that in the age of Web 2.0, we were well on our way to figuring out how to make lots and lots of money on the Internet. The first idea collapsed along with housing prices and the stock market in 2007 and 2008. But the Web 2.0 illusion survived long enough to cost credulous investors a small fortune last week, in Facebook’s disaster of an initial public offering.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/27/opinion/sunday/douthat-the-facebook-illusion.html?src=me&ref=general
Note: May 26, 2012
Skybird
05-29-12, 06:01 PM
http://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-facebook-worth-2012-5?op=1#ixzz1vbjh273C
:haha:
http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-revenue-growth-2012-4
:har:
Onkel Neal
04-10-18, 02:42 PM
Zuckerberg on the hot seat. He's pretty adept at dodging questions by saying, "We give our users the option to...."
Btw the stock is at $160, from a high of $190. My mom bought a ton at $43 against the advise of her advisor.
In the news here they have said FB could be regulated through laws and the word divided have also been mentioned.
If the Senate or the Congress create some laws to regulate FB, what would prevent Zuckerberg from pick up his things(FB) and move to an another country where there isn't so much regulation on Internet.
Markus
Rockstar
04-10-18, 04:39 PM
Those on the investigating committee now have power over Zuckerberg he is in the hot seat. If he wants to see his job Facebook survive he has one option. Give government access to what it wants when it wants and all will be forgiven. The entire idea that he was involved in any wrong doing will be seen as just a simple mistake. Zuckerberg will be placed back upon his high horse, heck he might even get a public apology. But Uncle will have gotten what he wanted.
Facebook has build up a monopoly on the Internet in the social media sector.
The question is
is it FB who is responsible for this ?
Or
Is it the member them self.
Really don't know how to explain this
I have FB friends who seems to be on FB 14-16 hours per day and in the news I have heard about people who have FB up and running all day long, even when they sleep and wake when they hear this bling sound, so they can read a response and thereby write a comment
Is this FB's fault that people have been addicted to FB ?
Another thing
During the weekly hearing in the Danish Parlament the Prime Minister said in an answer to an another politic leader.
The Danish people is very restrictive when it comes to deliver personal information to the public, who are regulated by laws and regulations
While they don't have any problems or any doubts giving away information about they life, surf history and other things to FB.
Markus
Mr Quatro
04-10-18, 06:16 PM
Funny stuff the stock market that is ... from $195 a share to $160 and starting to swing back up due to the CEO's charisma probably. :yep:
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4161765-facebook-tremendous-buying-opportunity
Facebook is poised to swing back this week, as Mark Zuckerberg testifies in front of the Senate Judiciary committee on April 10.
Skybird
04-11-18, 03:04 PM
I contunue to see a busines smodle like that of big social media compoanies as almost a perversion. Its no business that could be covered and assessed by classicel standards of economy,a dn thus imo is as dangerous and unpreidctable as is nuclear fission without the technical knowledge of how to keep it within stable paramters.
Also, take note of the despicableness and law-bending basic attitude of Zuckerberg that can be read in these emails from a long time ago:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/may/18/mark-zuckerberg-college-messages
Zuckerberg appears to confirm in one message that he secretly hacked into the website of the Harvard University newspaper, the Crimson, by guessing the emails and passwords of two people in the college database.
"So I want to read what they said about me before the article came out and after I complained," he told a friend. "So I'm just like trying the email/passwords of everyone who put that they're in the Crimson. I wonder if the school tracks stuff like that."
In another message, Zuckerberg boasts about deactivating college students' accounts on the internal Harvard social network, ConnectU. "I got bored so I started deactivating accounts on ConnectU haha," the future cyber-grandee writes.
Zuckerberg jokes in another exchange that 4,000 people have submitted emails, pictures and addresses to his budding Harvard social network. "People just submitted it ... I don't know why ... They 'trust me' ... dumb ****s."
People do not change fundamentally. I learned that from Dr. House. :)
If you invets into this c0mopany, you help Zuckerberg to succeed and keep on going. If you think that is okay that he succeeds, then you only get from him what yoiu deserve. Probvlem is that by enforcing Facebook'S success, you pull a lot of people not nwanting that down with you as well.
The ethical dimension of "investing" is often overlooked these days. People invest into some health service provider and overlook that this compoany then must make profit to please its sharegholders by saving costs in the healths ector and hospitals. Other people invest into producers of controversial products and ignore what these products may mean for the wellfare of othe rpeople or nations. Or people inest into favcebook, and just do not care for the consequences of that company coming to power like it did.
Zuckerberg said he is sorry, and he said id so often over the past years, and avoided critical consequences, whereas some of the senators and congressmen were extremely badly prepared like this incompetent clueless fool asking how Facebook generates income. Zuckerberg's laconic reply: "We take out advertisments."
Maybe the plebs indeed deserves to get abused by Zuckerberg. Itzs just that there are the few of us who also get pulled down into the maelstrom of worrying changes and developments despite not wanting it and despite warning of it. This is the real injustice in all this. And the tragey is that many people in many countries need to invest into stocks of such quetionable, dubious businesses to form a safe founding for their high age, and cannot escape to also finance dirt like this. Becasue your bak adviuser or stocks broker doe snot tell you about these things, they only see numbers and graphs - and what they mean for themselves, their won profit that they make via your investment.
Its a situation that makes me wanting to voimit on it all. I had two reasons why I stopped being engaged in stocks: I found solid assessments to be made on business situations of comapnies becoming more and more unaccessible for laymen like me, althoiugh I taught myself over the past 6 or 7 years more abotu it than probbaly the average Joe does know, until I found that often I needed to acceopt foul compormises or throwing dice, and seocnd reason: increasing ethical scruples. I am well off, I coudl afford to not continue with that. But what should all those people (especially with families) do, who are not as well off like me (who is only responsible for himself and nobody else?
All this modern world's fundaments, its all a damn mess, me often thinks. A bloody damn mess.
Correct me if I'm wrong
These two hearings which have taken place in Washington
Is mostly about the American FB - members
And any coming regulation to FB will be domestic to USA and perhaps Canada.
Here in Europe FB is running under the EU-laws or regulation.
Markus
Skybird
04-11-18, 04:24 PM
For the US, the IT industry, namely he big name slike Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Apple, are of utmost importance for their economy, first for generating economic profits, and second to maintain technological leadership that Europe has given up on already, and to maintain dependence of Europe from these branches. That the internet traffic infrastructure practically gets controlled by the US, does not help to make it any easier for the EU.
Any attempt by the EU to rigorously regulate or boycott or punish these actors, will be met with severe diplomatic pressure, lobbying and blackmailing by Washington. With Trump, even a trade war over these things is possible, too. Europe lacks an equal tool mof counter-pressuring the Americans, for the EU without the German industry must and will falter, and the German economy is hopelessly export-dependent, with the US being an important market, last but not least for cars.
Germany has surrounded itself with its many dependencies and vulnerabilities. Idiots.
Mr Quatro
04-11-18, 05:22 PM
Facebook is useful to staying touch with family and friends that you use to have to send cards to in snail mail (post office).
Out of these hearings I have heard Zuckerberg actually say that there will always be a portion of FB that is free ... what does that mean?
FB is going to start charging for posting images or posting silly political stuff or something like that?
I think Zuckerberg are trying to or is planning on using people's fear
FB have become a mega huge addiction to millions if not billions of people and they are quite happy with a free FB
A FB that cost money is something these people fear and they couldn't care less if all of their information about their whereabouts on the Internet even the darkest information should be known by FB, as long as FB will be free of charge
That is how I understand it.
Markus
Skybird
04-11-18, 07:29 PM
Of course, a payware model always is the more transparent and fair one. Free ware models always are never free, but have the user being the product.
However:
why making yourself vulnerable to abuse by foreigners, strangers in the first, or a carrier company for such a service? Even if FB starts to charge users and promises it will no longer use user profiling to allow targetted advertising by companies - who says that they stick to it and resist the temptation of selling the users mevertheless? In last german national elections, we recently learned here in Germany, customers of the Postbank had their data sold to political parties for targetted campaign adverts. Legislation has been made in Germany so to allow, legalise and support big data selling from institutions, even federal institutions, to private business. The hunt is open - we all are the prey.
Zuckerberg's quote form back then really says it all:
"People just submitted it ... I don't know why ... They 'trust me' ... dumb ****s."
More you do not need to know.
em2nought
04-12-18, 12:52 AM
From what I see, Facebook is already going the way of Myspace into oblivion. It's for old people now after all. :03:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo0KjdDJr1c
Have just been informed by FB that some of my friends have been logged on to this "This is your Digital Life"
Went through what they(forgot their name) could have used/taken/stolen from my profil.
It wasn't much, or should I say almost nothing.
That's because I have removed almost everything or set it to just me.
Markus
Rockstar
04-16-18, 09:38 PM
Zuckerburg said Facebook doesnt collect information you don't want them too. But it seems Terrogence Biometrics does.
The Face-IntTM database houses the profiles of thousands of suspects harvested from such online sources as YouTube, Facebook and open and closed forums all over the globe.
https://www.terrogence.com/capabilities/biometric-database-enhancement/
I've heard just clicking on the link above makes you a suspect :03:
Catfish
04-17-18, 08:49 AM
^ "Tarrogance", nice company name. Ok, i clicked it a hundred times, i wonder what they think of me now lmao.
But this facebook thing is scary, and getting out of control
" [...] with the help of its "FBLearner Flow" AI technique, enables advertisers to serve targeted advertisements to users based on future behaviors and ways of thinking. ...[...]"
Minority report anyone?I bet China embraces this, but i fear they are far ahead.
Google translate:
https://translate.google.de/translate?hl=de?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A//www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Kuenstliche-Intelligenz-Facebook-sagt-Nutzerverhalten-voraus-und-verkauft-damit-Anzeigen-4024377.html
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has apologised to European Parliament lawmakers for its role in the Cambridge Analytica scandal and for allowing fake news to proliferate on its platform.
Cambridge Analytica, which denies any wrongdoing, is accused of acquiring data from 87 million Facebook profiles for use in political campaigns.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-44210800
About time Mark!
Eichhörnchen
05-22-18, 01:25 PM
A few minutes ago I published my final post on my Facebook business page... I've decided it's of no use to me at all
FB gathers data even if you are a guest! Some of my friends have now pulled the plug on FB and even Twitter.
Facebook wants your naked photos to stop revenge pornhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-44223809
Skybird
05-23-18, 08:22 AM
Nice illustration why every thinking reasonable man just laughs about the EU - there they have Zuckerberg made to appear before their parliamentary sit-in and even needing to accept that the meeting will be broadcasted live - and then these clever dicks are more concerned about to shoot selfies with Zuckerberg and allow him to get out with substance-free phrases and prepared announcements and avoiding and dodging - instead of giving him a super-tough grilling that he should have gotten.
Big mouth + no brain: EU. The operetta where narcissists and self-actors star.
Zuckerberg must have had champagne afterwards. Plenty of it, but he probably did not need the alcohol to laugh himself dizzy. Maybe he just used it to wash off the unbearable scent of stupidity and recognition craving.
Oh, and btw, the IT sector and so-called big data, like it or not, are key business trechnolgies of the present and future, and American and Asian companies play this game to itsa fullest degree and with gloves taken off. The new data legislation by the EU which just came or comes into effect this week, is an economic self-mutilation, weakening Eurpean intersts between US and China even more.
This will of course not stop the EU to morally lecture the other, stronger players. With all trumps lying on the American table, all key technology nodes of the itnernet being under USA control, the big companies in the business all being American and Chinese ones, what has Europe to say here? Nothing but moral lecturing, trying to increase itsaelf in relative strength by talking the others into agreeing to weaken themselves in relation to Europe.
Thats the difference between just wanting to have Jedi magic skills for free, and actually being a Jedi and having these skills from hard training for sure. :haha:
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Facebook is unlikely to compensate the 2.7 million European users whose data was improperly shared with political consultancy Cambridge Analytica because sensitive bank account data had not been shared, the company said on Wednesday.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-privacy-eu/facebook-suggests-no-compensation-for-european-users-affected-by-data-breach-idUSKCN1IO37W?il=0
Pretty, expected play from you Mark.
Jimbuna
05-24-18, 04:29 AM
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-44223809
Facebook wants your naked photos to stop revenge porn
You first.
You first.
I'm not on FB. :O:
I'm not on FB. :O:Just a matter of time before hanging there.:03:
The user growth rate for Facebook and twitter has stalled a while back and is steadily falling for both platforms.
Cant say I'm surprised given the scandals regarding personal data and censorship.
Twitter have recently admitted to 'shaddow banning'
Good video on here by Tim Pool - An Independent journalist I quite like.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLx9MucU4CI
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