Steer clear of Facebook

Article Excerpt

Facebook is selling shares to the public. Starting May 18, the stock will trade on Nasdaq under the symbol FB. Due to strong investor demand, the issue price will likely be between $34 and $38 a share, up from an earlier range of $28 to $35. It’s entirely possible that this new issue will shoot up on the first day it trades, but as a company to invest in, at the price they’re selling it for, we don’t recommend the shares. Here’s a link to a video with my thoughts on Facebook’s share issue on our tsinetwork.ca website: http://tsinet.ca/Lb1m6s At the $36 midpoint of the proposed issue price, Facebook trades at roughly 99 times earnings. Meanwhile, revenue growth is slowing at its online advertising business, which supplies most of the company’s revenue. For example, General Motors has just announced that it will stop buying ads on Facebook, because it believes the ads have little effect on car purchases. We’ve long said that new issues generally…