The bungled initial public offering (IPO) for Facebook (Nasdaq:FB) was a real eye-opener for any company looking to go public.
Facebook's shares famously plunged soon after they started trading, in large part because the $16 billion offering was so large that it created a great deal of investor confusion as share allocations were misdirected.
Lesson learned. Twitter's imminent IPO will be for just $1 billion, leaving most of the company still in private hands. Look for Twitter to slowly offer more shares in various secondary offerings, but the initial scarcity factor is going to make huge instant profits for some investors.
If you can get a piece of this deal, buy it. But if you plan on buying shares only after they have started trading, you'll be making a big mistake. The relatively few shares means that shares are likely to be wildly overvalued -- at least at the start.
By The Numbers Continue reading "Twitter vs. Facebook: By The Numbers"
