John Paczkowski

Recent Posts by John Paczkowski

The Price Is Right: Facebook Closes Near Opening Price

After the weeks of private equity dealmaker palm rubbing and investor anticipation that preceded it, Facebook’s IPO on Friday was something of an anticlimax. Shares in the newly public company rose to $45 before closing at $38.23. Moments before first-day trading ended, shares were changing hands at $38.00 — their opening price.

Not nearly the blowout that some had been predicting. More of a slowpoke than a superpoke.

“Clearly some of the more ahead-of-themselves valuations didn’t stand up all that well to the IPO stress test,” Max Wolff, an analyst at Greencrest Capital Management, told AllThingsD.

That said, quite a few millionaires were minted today. Some obvious billionaires as well. That very slight uptick gives Facebook a market value of about $104 billion.

“The company was clearly underwhelming in its debut, but nonetheless claimed a rich valuation,” Wolff said. “That’s a testament to the Facebook story, and the number of people who want to own its shares.”

Stern Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia said he was surprised that Facebook didn’t get quite the pop investors seemed to be expecting.

“It was certainly a surprise,” Bhatia told AllThingsD. “At the same time, I’m a bit relieved that investors didn’t get carried away and are behaving rationally. The underwriters priced the stock well.”

So what can we expect on Monday for the stock’s second day on the market?

Said Bhatia, “I expect to be flattish in the near term.”

RELATED POSTS

Twitter’s Tanking

December 30, 2013 at 6:49 am PT

2013 Was a Good Year for Chromebooks

December 29, 2013 at 2:12 pm PT

BlackBerry Pulls Latest Twitter for BB10 Update

December 29, 2013 at 5:58 am PT

Apple CEO Tim Cook Made $4.25 Million This Year

December 28, 2013 at 12:05 pm PT

Latest Video

View all videos »

Search »

I think the NSA has a job to do and we need the NSA. But as (physicist) Robert Oppenheimer said, “When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and argue about what to do about it only after you’ve had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb.”

— Phil Zimmerman, PGP inventor and Silent Circle co-founder, in an interview with Om Malik