You can just hear the phone conversations and texts going on today with worried investors in Facebook calling their brokers. “Hey, how are we doing?” Which is the exact moment the caller realizes the “we” doesn’t include his broker because he’s off on a long weekend in Florida. Don’t ever mix up “we” with “me” when it comes to your money because you learn the truth—after the losses. Your Survival Guy does not stay awake at night worrying about what the market’s going to do for me. I do not worry about “annual” returns or “comparisons” to benchmarks. These are metrics for those worried about … [Read more...]
Facebook: Ethics for Sale?
Like many tech companies claiming to be ethical, or not evil, Facebook seems to condition that morality on whether or not it is getting paid enough to change course. During internal discussions reported on by The Wall Street Journal, Facebook executives and employees appear to have considered ways in which to generate greater profits that would have gone against the stated ethical philosophies of the social network company. It should be noted that Facebook didn't ultimately follow through on those unethical practices, but its seems that the line holding Facebook back from such betrayals of … [Read more...]
Your Retirement Life: A Dire Warning Part IV
Last week Facebook revealed a data breach affecting 30 million accounts and shares are down about 27% since July. These and other longer-term problems at Facebook have led several public pension funds to back a shareholder proposal to separate Mark Zuckerberg from at least one of his dual roles as CEO and Chairman of the board. The Wall Street Journal explains though that the problem for the petitioners is Mr. Zuckerberg's “lock on the bulk of Facebook’s supervoting shares, each of which gives him 10 times the votes of average shareholders. According to Facebook’s latest proxy, his share of … [Read more...]
Facebook: “A Giant Blood-Engorged Tick Hanging off Your Frontal Lobe”
“Designed to be addictive, Facebook feels like a giant blood-engorged tick hanging off your frontal lobe,” writes Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone. You may recall, Taibbi coined Goldman Sachs as a “[G]reat vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity.” In his piece on Facebook, where the median salary is $240,430, Taibbi makes a case for breaking-up the band which is more like a cult. What is it like to be on the inside of Facebook’s corporate walls? Former senior Facebook worker Antonio Garcia Martinez wrote the book, Chaos Monkeys, in a way that Michael Lewis did about his time … [Read more...]
The Biggest Stock Market Wipe-out in History
Facebook's shares cratered yesterday, racking up the biggest single-day wipe-out in stock market history. The company lost $119 billion dollars of market capitalization in a single day. There are fewer than fifty stocks in the U.S. that have a total market value of $119 billion. Zuckerberg's fortune fell by almost $16 billion yesterday. Sophie Caronello reports at Bloomberg: It’s official. Facebook Inc. just had the biggest stock-market wipeout in American history. Shares tumbled 19 percent on Thursday to close at $176.26 after sales and user growth disappointed investors. The drop … [Read more...]
There’s a Better Way than Facebook
Yesterday, investors in Facebook stock had the entirety of this year's gains wiped out in a flash. The quarterly earnings crowd on Wall Street pulled the chair out from under Facebook after receiving bad news on the company's growth. It's that sort of volatility that conservative, retired or soon to be retired investors should attempt to avoid. Getting hit with a 19% loss in one day is hard to stomach when you have no new income coming in, and don't have time to recoup those losses. There's a Better Way to Invest than in Volatile Tech Stocks A better way to build a portfolio you can … [Read more...]
How Facebook’s Disaster Quarter Can Make You A Better Investor
Facebook reported second quarter earnings last night that beat analyst estimates, but the shares tumbled as much as 24% on the news in after-hours trading. Why the sell-off? Doesn’t the quarterly earnings crowd reward companies that beat expectations? Not always. Investing is a counterintuitive art. So what went wrong for Facebook? The CNBC video below offers a clue. This was taped before the company reported. Anything stand out? Note the almost universal agreement from the panel that Facebook is an outstanding stock. The confidence is off the charts. Lopsided bullish … [Read more...]
Is Regulation Facebook’s Biggest Risk?
Scrutiny over Facebook continues to gain steam. The EU is implementing a new data protection regulation in May that may become a global standard, but the bigger risk to Facebook and other members of the FAANGs are of the antitrust variety. As the Roger McNamee writes in the FT today, Facebook, Google, and Amazon have built near monopolies by limiting choice. Facebook, Google and Amazon have built monopolies that are limiting consumer choice, while also creating a chilling effect on innovation and entrepreneurship. They have snapped up potential competitors, including YouTube, Instagram … [Read more...]
Should Mark Zuckerberg Lead One of America’s Largest Companies?
In the spirit of kicking somebody while he is down, check out the Facebook chart below. Facebook has been on the hot seat for a number of reasons, as you are likely aware. Chief among those reasons, but unsaid explicitly by the media, is that Facebook is responsible for the Donald Trump presidency. Take away the emotion of the issue and it is obviously far-fetched. But the recent Cambridge Analytica issue has provided more oxygen for the fire. Facebook’s response to the scrutiny has been embarrassing. Watch some of Zuckerberg’s CNN interview and ask yourself if this is a guy who should be … [Read more...]
Facebook Feeding Frenzy
Traders are swarming Facebook shares, buying options to take advantage of the tech company's volatile stock prices. Gunjan Banerji reports in The Wall Street Journal: The tumble in Facebook Inc.’s FB -1.45% shares has triggered frenzied trading of the company’s options, including contracts that pay out if the stock falls more than 30% or regains most of its losses. The social-media company’s shares rose 0.7%, to $169.39, Wednesday but have slumped 8.5% this week after reports that the data of up to 50 million users was transferred to an analytics firm tied to President Donald Trump’s … [Read more...]
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