How do you see Facebook's IPO faring off the day it goes public?

[jam]

Do you think it'll turn out to be a Google to be trading at $500+/share in 3 to 4 years or do you think it'll be more of a LinkedIn, Pandora case?

[Fearlessgrain664]

Comparing the share price of Google, Linkedin and Pandora is meaningless. Just because one company has a higher share price doesn't mean they are a bigger/better company. They might just have far fewer shares which means a higher price. For instance, Google has a higher share price then Apple but Apple is a far bigger/better company. Share price is meaningless.

The success of the Facebook IPO will be based on market conditions at the time. For instance, if they IPO in a raging bull market with a huge appetite for IPOs they will do very well. If they IPO in a bear market that is tanking with no appetite for IPOs they will do poorly. It will be interesting. But Groupon and Zynga will probably IPO before Facebook so watch those for clues first.

[SDeck]

Facebook has way more earning power then those others, I think its stock would go way high on ipo day.

[RichardG]

IPO's are used as good will to wealthy investors, in addition to the other obvious reasons, it's very hard to get the actually inital shares of an ipo because they price them so the people who get them can make a pile of money. It's highly unusual for an ipo the end the day below the offered price. Bankers do extensive research just to make sure that doesn't happen. Many of the owners of IPO's can not by law sell their shares for this exact reason for a period of time, after the time expires you normally see it go down a bit because the company owners and founders ect want to get paid and will sell some shares.

I suspect facebook will end up skyrocketing into some silly overpriced bubble and then finding a real price over some 12-18 month period.

[drmark27]

I think it will soar simply because of the tremendous visibility of the product.