<p>Facebook was founded by a thief. It’s motto should be to do as much evil as possible. A Dutch auction would not be evil enough for Facebook.</p>
<p>The market expects nonfarm payroll to be 162K. Briefing.com thinks it will be 140K. Prior was 120K.</p>
<p>Doesn’t a Dutch auction maximize the amount of money the company gets?</p>
<p>Not letting anyone else make money sounds pretty evil. :)</p>
<p>A Dutch auction lowers the cost to shareholders by letting shareholders set the price rather than the investment banks. That share price will be lower, all things being equal. It also prevents investment banks from holding shares in reserve and then adding to the total number of shares sold so they get more money. If you are an investment bank, a Dutch auction is evil. If you are a shareholder, a Dutch auction is much better and you will make more money.</p>
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I would think a company would only do a Dutch auction when they suspect the evil investment bank is not accurately pricing the shares, which often seems to be the case when an IPO doubles right out of the gate.</p>
<p>So what is more evil - extracting every penny from shareholders for shares that give you no say in how the company is run, or screwing the investment banks?</p>
<p>Hmm.</p>
<p>Those are not the options available.</p>
<p>Typically an investment bank guarantees a set amount of money to the corporation for the issuance of a set amount of stock. The investment bank then tries to price the shares at an amount beyond what is guaranteed to the corporation. The higher the investment bank prices the shares, the more money it makes but the amount paid to the corporation remains the same. A Dutch auction eliminates the middle man, namely the investment bank. Much more of the money paid for shares goes directly to the corporation and not to an investment bank. </p>
<p>Facebook does not need an investment bank marketing its shares. It is so well known it could do a successful Dutch auction and get the same money it would with investment banks but costing shareholders less money to pay for the shares.</p>
<p>There can be variations of the above, but that is how it happens most of the time.</p>
<p>Wait a Second…</p>
<p>Facebook was founded by a thief? </p>
<p>What difference does that make?</p>
<p>The founder is one of the wealthiest people on the planet. Therefore he is a great and moral person. And a job creator too.</p>
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<p>Ok, I stand corrected. If dstark says its ok to become a billionaire (Zuckerberg) by stealing someone else’s idea as part of your employment contract to work for them (Winklevoss), then it must be ok. What was I thinking?</p>
<p>I think you were influenced by the movie Social Network. ;)</p>
<p>And i have a bet ,2 years long now, that Facebook will not be a dominant presence in 5 years, (3 years from now) …admittedly, i may be a year or two off…</p>
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<p>No, I read the pleadings and various news articles about the litigation including comments from the Winklevoss twins. Suckitberg agreed to build their idea and then stole the idea and if that wasn’t enough he lied to them about working on their social network in order to gain a competitive advantage over them. He said he was going to “f” them in the ear and sure enough he did so.</p>
<p>I hope you are right about facebook. I intend to short it big time.</p>
<p>Am i the only person who doesn’t have a Facebook account?</p>
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<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/04/business/aig-posts-net-income-of-3-2-billion.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/04/business/aig-posts-net-income-of-3-2-billion.html</a></p>
<p>I never thought I would be saying I wish I had invested in AIG.</p>
<p>I refuse to have a FB account. Ever. I hate what FB did to my children, to this generation.
I have girls. Maybe if I had boys, I would be ruing video-games…
p.s. My girls are now FINALLY less obsessed by FB, but it is still a fixture of great importance in their lives.</p>
<p>I think The Social Network is a great movie…</p>
<p>The opening scene with Rooney Mara is one of my favorite opening scenes of any movie.</p>
<p>The pace of the conversation and the dialogue…Brilliant.</p>
<p>(I was a fan of Sports Night too).</p>
<p>Rooney Mara…I find her incredibly attractive in the movie…and especially in that scene.</p>
<p>Maybe because of all the Facebook talk…I have repeatedly watched clips from that opening scene this week. </p>
<p>I think I will go watch it again.</p>
<p>Hmmmmm…unemployment number comes out here was a spurt of activity…and now a slow…small drop…</p>
<p>I don’t know how that number can be spun positively…</p>
<p>Feb and March were revised up by quite a bit.</p>
<p>I think that we need better methodologies in collecting this information.</p>
<p>We’re getting to the point where we get a bunch of datapoints that are somewhat conflicting (ADP, first time claims, employment) with some subject to wild revisions. What do you look at?</p>
<p>Markets pushing down a little more.</p>
<p>I saw that…</p>
<p>I am not excited about that…</p>
<p>Yesterday Investor’s Business Daily was the uptrend was under pressure and that another day or two of distribution would change that to a correction. At least that is how I read their commentary. Hoping for a better afternoon.</p>
<p>I think that masters of the universe will need the weekend to figure this out.</p>
<p>Hmmmm…might be joining you in owing intc shares. Stock broke 28…</p>