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03 Feb 2012 17:04

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Biz: Mark Zuckerberg won’t enjoy his tax bill after Facebook goes public

  • $1.5 billion in taxes for the Zuck after Facebook’s IPO source
  • » Why? Zuck plans to sell some of his shares: Back in 2005, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg received a set of new stock options for his company. With said company looking to  go public, Zuckerberg will exercise those shares before the IPO, effectively buying them at the price they were worth back then, and sell them after the IPO, effectively setting himself up for a windfall of nearly $5 billion … and one of the largest tax bills in history. It’s not like he’s gonna be broke, though — in fact, he’ll still be worth $24 billion by the end of it, much of that invested in his company. So hard for him, gotta tell you guys.

28 Jan 2012 20:53

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Biz: Greedy investment bankers won’t carve Facebook’s IPO too heavily

  • what Investment banks looking to get in on the upcoming Facebook IPO, expected to be filed for next week, may only take a 1 percent underwriting fee on the stock offering. How abnormal is that? Usually, the investment banking underwriters take 5 to 7 percent.
  • why Simply put, Facebook is such a big deal that the competition is extremely high for it; underwriting it is seen as a prestige move. “The Facebook IPO will be iconic,” notes one investment banker who says that Facebook gets to set the rules on this one. source

29 Nov 2011 00:37

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Tech: Aw, Zucks. We’re hoping this won’t “poke” our portfolios too badly.

  • Want to own a piece of Facebook? You might be able to in the spring of 2012. It looks like, despite founder Mark Zuckerberg’s well-known resistance to the idea over the years, the company is on its way to its “initial public offering” — the sale of stock that a private company makes available to the public. (Groupon just had an IPO, and it hasn’t been going quite so well for them.) The social media trailblazers could raise as much as $10 billion from first-day stock sales; that would put the company’s total value at $100 billion. Not bad for a guy who screwed over most of his friends from Harvard (and a couple of Winklevi) to get there. source

01 Nov 2011 10:25

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World: Stocks hate democracy: Greek PM puts aid package up for referendum

  • cause In a surprising move that threw off the entire world market, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou said that he would put the country’s aid package up to a public referendum.
  • reaction Stocks worldwide reacted to the news poorly, including the U.S., which fell by more than two percent. The markets were already volatile; the danger of Greek default made things even worse. source

30 Sep 2011 16:52

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Biz: Stock market suckage: A crappy quarter, put to bed by a crappy day

  • bad Today was not a good day for the stock market in general, with all three major indexes down more than two percent amid negative economic data from China, which raised fears that another economic slowdown was coming.
  • worse This is the final day of the quarter on Wall Street, and the results aren’t very good. The S&P, for example, lost more than 14 percent this quarter. Fears of an economic slowdown weighed on investors’ minds after the 2008 crisis. source

04 Aug 2011 14:20

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U.S.: Amid negative economic data, stock market having a really crappy day

  • 350+point dip in the Dow at one point today (ouch) source
  • » It’s becoming more and more apparent that we might be heading for a double-dip recession here. The Dow fell for eight days straight, only ending the losing streak yesterday — but it could fall steeply today. The new jobless numbers are mostly to blame for the weak market. There were 400,000 new unemployment claims in the week that ended July 30. That, in addition to a spreading debt crisis in Europe, has been enough to convince investors that the U.S. economy isn’t in a great spot right now, and it’s hurting our stock market bad.

16 Jun 2011 20:11

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Biz, Tech: Pandora’s crappy day: When day two of an IPO totally bombs

  • $16 the amount per share Pandora set its initial public offering for
  • $26 the price the internet radio company reached at its peak yesterday
  • $13 the price the stock closed at today; not looking so hot source
  • » This isn’t a good sign: Generally when a stock has a steep decline immediately after its IPO, it means that the pricing is totally off. In the case of Pandora, the company initially planned to enter the stock market at $7 to $9 per share, but with the current investor fervor over internet companies, the IPO price doubled. Meanwhile, other recently-added tech stocks — LinkedIn and Yandex — have fallen from their peaks, but remain above their IPO prices. In the case of LinkedIn, they’re a solid 52 percent above their IPO price.
 

16 Jun 2011 10:51

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Biz, Tech: One day after its IPO, Pandora’s stock falls below its IPO price

  • yesterday As the latest entrant in the “there’s a new tech bubble” contest, Pandora had an IPO that leaped fairly high above its $16 starting value. Not bad for a company that isn’t profitable, eh?
  • today It appears reality has caught up with Pandora at least a little, as the stock’s price fell below its IPO price in day two of trading, proving that the company is in fact susceptible to the effects of gravity. source

15 Jun 2011 11:03

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Biz, Tech: Tech bubble? Pandora’s IPO kicking butt on Wall Street today

  • $16 the initial public offering price for Pandora, the online radio station that predicts your tastes
  • $20+ its current price on the stock market; it’s a situation that mirrors LinkedIn’s recent IPO source
  • » Another sign of strong investor demand: Pandora’s IPO is more evidence of a growing tech bubble, though Pandora’s on a smaller scale than some of the other companies expected to do an IPO soon. Facebook and Twitter, once they do their IPOs, will likely make this look like a walk in the park. Which makes it understandable why some investors might think that Pandora — which hasn’t turned a profit — might get overshadowed a year or two from now. Pandora also faces some tough business challenges because of their reliance on expensive music licensing — ensuring that that their profit margins remain extremely tight.

19 Apr 2011 11:04

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Biz: That was a big loan: Goldman Sachs just paid back Warren Buffett

  • $5
    billion
    the amount Warren Buffett loaned to Goldman Sachs at the nadir of the financial crisis back in 2008; wish we could loan out that kind of cash
  • $5.64 billion the amount they paid Warren back last quarter, including interest earned — that’s on top of dividends they already paid out source
  • » A pretty hefty one-time charge: While Goldman Sachs’ profits for the current quarter, $2.74 billion, were down 21 percent from a year earlier because of the payday to their sugar daddy, if you don’t count the payment to Warren, their profits — $8.38 billion — would have been up by 49 percent from a year earlier. In other words, they’re richer than we are and Wall Street is celebrating.