As I write this, the Dow has experienced its longest losing streak since 2011. Nearly 1/4th of the way into 2017, we are finally seeing some real volatility and more attractive investment opportunities are popping up each day.Read More

I don’t have a lot of compassion for people that gambled on the Facebook IPO on the belief that the stock just had to go up.  That is not a winning investment strategy or emblematic of an investment at all.  I will say though that I though Facebook’s management did everything they could to ensure...Read More

While 2012 has been quite a good year for investors long the market, it has really been the market climbing a “wall or worry,” as opposed to real enthusiasm of the economy or the business environment.  The worst thing one can do is now pile in because they feel they need to catch up, having...Read More

One of the reasons why I thought the Facebook IPO price was outrageous was due to the increasing competition that the company is facing, which I expect to only get worse moving forward.  Technology changes so frequently and what is cool now, can be old news in six months.  In a digital age it really...Read More

The sour grapes relating to the Facebook (FB) IPO continue in today’s WSJ as Morgan Stanley’s (MS) CEO James Gorman defends the firms handling of the process.  It is my opinion that the firm acted well within its duties and I would wager that if the stock had rallied rewarding speculators, the firm would be...Read More

In the story that never quits I found a very interesting quote in a Bloomberg article about Facebook (FB) CFO David Ebersman approach to pricing the IPO. “Ebersman’s aim was to maximize the company’s IPO proceeds and to cap the first-day increase at 10 percent, said the people, who asked not to be identified because...Read More

It is absurd to think that because Facebook’s IPO hasn’t resulted in instant gains for investors that bought at the IPO price, the banks that led the underwriting are at fault.  IPO’s have the odds stacked against them for retail investors as insiders are selling their stock to the public.  They aren’t selling their shares...Read More

Goldmans Sachs (GS) is staying aggressive by taking principal investments in the tech sector similar to a venture capital firm.  While the strategy has worked out quite nicely for Goldman lately I’m somewhat surprised to hear this due to the Basel III guidelines which reduce the attractiveness of principal investments for banks.  I would expect...Read More

In a sign that we are in a tech IPO bubble, Pinterest was able to raise $100 million at a valuation that implies the company is worth $1.5 billion.  While the company may go on to be extremely successful, the company currently has no real business model.  This access to capital that so many new...Read More

For those investors that are beating down the door to buy the Facebook IPO, it might be a good idea to think about why insiders are willing to sell their stock.  It doesn’t mean that the price won’t rise or that in 5 years the market cap won’t be double what it is currently, but...Read More