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 because they believe they are drastically undervalued but instead to raise capital or offload personal risk. Morgan Stanley and the other banks did their job in unloading as many insider shares at a huge valuation as possible. It’s likely that the stock would have rallied if the share count was much smaller as it was for some of the other big tech IPO’s, but that short term burst generally buries the retail investor that buys in at silly prices, thinking that they are buying the next Google. If you are investing at Facebook you are betting that over the long term the companies revenues and profits will grow drastically over a long period of time. If you are in for any other reason than you are just gambling and I don’t see why anybody has an obligation to create a short term jump in price just to facilitate some day trading mentality.
INVESTING IN THE FINANCIAL MARKETS INVOLVES RISKS. OPTIONS ARE NOT SUITABLE FOR ALL INVESTORS.