when will face book go public?

[Capitalist]

I want to buy facebook stock! I am sick of being a liberal left wing complainer. I wanna be the oppressor for once!!!!!!! I wanna live life lavish.

Anyway with that said i got a few grand saved up. Wondering when Facebook will go public. Because I heard the first days these companies go public there stock is cheap and then sky rockets!

I know there is risk but I am willing take reasonably risk. I am still living with my parents so I do have a safety net.
btw were do I go to purchase this stock? I am really new at this sort of thing but i can learn!
Joeyv

Are you saying the price will just go down from day one?
Btw joey I heard they will sell it on the nasdaq.

So that must be soon then?

[JoeyV]

Yeah, FB brings all the novices out.

Whoever told you that FB would be cheap was either stupid or lying. The IPO price is likely to be 100 times earnings and the first day price will probably be double that. There are so many completely inexperienced and clueless novices out there that they could value FB at $500B and people would still want to buy this stock.

Think you are going to buy FB and live life lavish? Very doubtful. Ultimately the value of a stock is not about the hype but about the earnings and FB has no particular plans for big earnings. Read the S-1 - "What are you going to do with the money you raise form the IPO?" "No particular plans because well, we don't have any particular plans"

Anyway, AFAIK the date for the IPO is still not set but I thought it was likely to be in May. That seems unlikely to me now.

[jamie]

It will not go public until their registration statement has become effective with the SEC. They are currently about two months in that process - which typically takes six to twelve months.

I would not consider investing in a super-hyped company, especially one that does not have even a plan as to how to turn a profit. For an example of this type of company - look at Tesla Motors. It took them five months after IPO just to get back up to the closing price of their opening day - and that took a great big huge announcement which actually showed a chance of future profits. Then, even with that, the price only has increased 40% in two years - which is about equatable with overall market increase (basically you could have invested in anything at on the same day and received about the same return).

I get it, you like your Facebook, but remember - people loved their MySpace and Friendster just as much before Facebook came about - and look at what has happened to them. The Facebook IPO is not "reasonable risk" but a very high risk proposition. Unless you are willing to out right loose every penny that you invest in this stock (just as if you went out and bought a whole bunch of lottery tickets), then this is not an investment for you.

Yes, some IPOs you can get low priced shares in some companies - but not the ones that are "highly anticipated" and have heavy media focus- this drives the price way up (again see Tesla Motors). Those tend to be very well priced with little short-term upside to the stock. Truthfully, with the rate of technology and the heavy competition that Facebook is coming up against (think Google+), I doubt that they have a very viable business model for long term returns either. By the way, you don't get the money when a stock price goes up until you sell them - so unless you sell the stock, you are going to still be living the same lifestyle as you are now.

The only people that are going to get wealthy off of the Facebook IPO are the people selling their privately held shares in the IPO, the underwriters, the brokers making commissions on the sale and the ones that short the stock in the short-term.

[john]

It is coming in May but DON'T BUY IT because it is very very expensive.