Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Going Public, Facebook Will Make Mark Zuckerberg at Least $21 Billion
At the very least, Zuckerberg will instantly become one of the 10 wealthiest Americans, and if the first day of trading goes his way, he could become the fourth-richest man in the country.
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Now you can monetizr your facebook, it's Pre-launching now...
Monetizr allows you to monetize your Facebook account
without doing anything more than you do normally on Facebook.
How to make Money?
#1. Monetizr will display ads on your wall and you get paid
#2. Earn 15% from your facebook friends earnings.
Make money - it's fast and easy with Monetizr!
Go Register HERE, it's FREE
http://tinyurl.com/72flqba
Or visit my facebook page: www.facebook.com/ASMGlobalVentures
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Investing in Secondary Markets
As Facebook (FB) joins the roughly 5,100 public companies trading on major exchanges in the United States, only a week ago shares were swapping hands on a completely different market… the secondary market.
And, for a growing number of investors and institutions, this alternative marketplace is quickly becoming a hot spot to potentially cash in on a number of firms before they go public.
In fact, you might even be eligible to participate… and not even know it.
The Truth About Secondary Markets
According to aonetwork.com, secondary market exchanges serve to facilitate the purchase and sale of illiquid, restricted and alternative assets, such as private company stock and restricted public equity.
Facebook, Zynga (Nasdaq: ZNGA) and LinkedIn (NYSE: LNKD) all sold on secondary market exchanges before they filed to go public.
Today, well-known firms such as Twitter, Bloom Energy, e-Harmony and Foursquare can all be found on these exchanges, as well.
And many other companies, tech start-ups especially, are finding secondary markets as nice alternatives to IPOs.
LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner explains, “Historically when companies had established a certain level of performance and maturity, the IPO was a natural next step. The reason for that was to generate liquidity… to get access to currency… capital… and [for] credibility. The secondary market can help check the box for a few of those objectives.”
So, could secondary markets ever replace the IPO?
Not a chance. Private companies aren’t required to disclose their financial information to investors like publicly traded firms. That’s one of the major risks in this market.
But as Reuters points out, “While the amount of information that would-be investors have is surely lower than if there were a formal SEC-registered prospectus, the rise of the internet has made it much easier to do reasonably good due diligence on how much a company might be worth.”
That’s a big reason the amount of capital flowing in the private-share trading business has more than doubled in value, to $7 billion, in just the past two years.
Even more, Congress is looking to pass laws that could push even more liquidity to this market by doubling the amount of shareholders, to 1,000, that private companies are allowed before needing to publicly disclose their finances.
This is very promising news for companies, like SecondMarket and SharesPost, involved in the secondary market.
Introducing SecondMarket and SharesPost
Founded in 2004, SecondMarket offers a number of asset-backed investments – including auction-rate securities, bankruptcy claims, private company stocks and fixed income products. Meanwhile, SharesPost specializes only in the selling of private company stock.
All of the companies mentioned above (Twitter, Bloom Energy, etc.) either trade on SharesPost, SecondMarket, or both. These two companies currently dominate the secondary market space.
The main purpose of these firms is to connect buyers and sellers to trade the various assets they offer. In a way, they are sort of like e-Harmony or LinkedIn, but for investors and institutions.
For example, SecondMarket uses a proprietary matching algorithm to search through its 75,000-customer base and find good matches between buyers with sellers. After a trade is complete, the companies then take a cut of the total transaction, roughly 3%. This business model has made SecondMarket worth about $200 million, according to The Wall Street Journal.
And now a slew of new competitors are catching on…
For example, Crain’s New York Business reports financial services firm Knight Capital Group (NYSE: KCG) just established its own private-share trading business in December. And LiquidNet, an institutional brokerage firm, also entered this space last year.
As I eluded earlier, not all investors are eligible to enter this market. It’s only open to financial institutions and accredited investors. In other words, you need to be a hedge fund, investment bank, or have a net worth of $1 million and an annual income of $200,000, or a joint income of $300,000 with your spouse, to start investing.
Plus, it’s worth mentioning many of these firms have minimum transaction requirements. For instance, SecondMarket has a minimum transaction amount of $100,000. So you need to have a good amount of cash to get involved.
The Bottom Line
Of course, before entering any investment, it’s important to do your homework first and know what you’re getting into. The secondary markets are certainly not for everyone, but it is a very interesting development and is helping reshape the way companies prepare for their IPO.
Disclosure: Investment U expressly forbids its writers from having a financial interest in any security they recommend to our subscribers. All employees and agents of Investment U (and affiliated companies) must wait 24 hours after an initial trade recommendation is published on online - or 72 hours after a direct mail publication is sent - before acting on that recommendation.
And, for a growing number of investors and institutions, this alternative marketplace is quickly becoming a hot spot to potentially cash in on a number of firms before they go public.
In fact, you might even be eligible to participate… and not even know it.
The Truth About Secondary Markets
According to aonetwork.com, secondary market exchanges serve to facilitate the purchase and sale of illiquid, restricted and alternative assets, such as private company stock and restricted public equity.
Facebook, Zynga (Nasdaq: ZNGA) and LinkedIn (NYSE: LNKD) all sold on secondary market exchanges before they filed to go public.
Today, well-known firms such as Twitter, Bloom Energy, e-Harmony and Foursquare can all be found on these exchanges, as well.
And many other companies, tech start-ups especially, are finding secondary markets as nice alternatives to IPOs.
LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner explains, “Historically when companies had established a certain level of performance and maturity, the IPO was a natural next step. The reason for that was to generate liquidity… to get access to currency… capital… and [for] credibility. The secondary market can help check the box for a few of those objectives.”
So, could secondary markets ever replace the IPO?
Not a chance. Private companies aren’t required to disclose their financial information to investors like publicly traded firms. That’s one of the major risks in this market.
But as Reuters points out, “While the amount of information that would-be investors have is surely lower than if there were a formal SEC-registered prospectus, the rise of the internet has made it much easier to do reasonably good due diligence on how much a company might be worth.”
That’s a big reason the amount of capital flowing in the private-share trading business has more than doubled in value, to $7 billion, in just the past two years.
Even more, Congress is looking to pass laws that could push even more liquidity to this market by doubling the amount of shareholders, to 1,000, that private companies are allowed before needing to publicly disclose their finances.
This is very promising news for companies, like SecondMarket and SharesPost, involved in the secondary market.
Introducing SecondMarket and SharesPost
Founded in 2004, SecondMarket offers a number of asset-backed investments – including auction-rate securities, bankruptcy claims, private company stocks and fixed income products. Meanwhile, SharesPost specializes only in the selling of private company stock.
All of the companies mentioned above (Twitter, Bloom Energy, etc.) either trade on SharesPost, SecondMarket, or both. These two companies currently dominate the secondary market space.
The main purpose of these firms is to connect buyers and sellers to trade the various assets they offer. In a way, they are sort of like e-Harmony or LinkedIn, but for investors and institutions.
For example, SecondMarket uses a proprietary matching algorithm to search through its 75,000-customer base and find good matches between buyers with sellers. After a trade is complete, the companies then take a cut of the total transaction, roughly 3%. This business model has made SecondMarket worth about $200 million, according to The Wall Street Journal.
And now a slew of new competitors are catching on…
For example, Crain’s New York Business reports financial services firm Knight Capital Group (NYSE: KCG) just established its own private-share trading business in December. And LiquidNet, an institutional brokerage firm, also entered this space last year.
As I eluded earlier, not all investors are eligible to enter this market. It’s only open to financial institutions and accredited investors. In other words, you need to be a hedge fund, investment bank, or have a net worth of $1 million and an annual income of $200,000, or a joint income of $300,000 with your spouse, to start investing.
Plus, it’s worth mentioning many of these firms have minimum transaction requirements. For instance, SecondMarket has a minimum transaction amount of $100,000. So you need to have a good amount of cash to get involved.
The Bottom Line
Of course, before entering any investment, it’s important to do your homework first and know what you’re getting into. The secondary markets are certainly not for everyone, but it is a very interesting development and is helping reshape the way companies prepare for their IPO.
Disclosure: Investment U expressly forbids its writers from having a financial interest in any security they recommend to our subscribers. All employees and agents of Investment U (and affiliated companies) must wait 24 hours after an initial trade recommendation is published on online - or 72 hours after a direct mail publication is sent - before acting on that recommendation.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Buy Facebook with both hands
The long awaited Facebook IPO is near. Morgan Stanley (MS) will lead the syndicate. Goldman Sachs (GS) did not get the lead role even though it has an investment in Facebook, but it is anticipated to have a major role.
It's a no brainer to buy with both hands as many shares of Facebook as you can get in the IPO. The probability is very high that in the days and months following the IPO investors will have opportunities to sell their shares at a nice profit. For the long-term, price earnings ratios, growth rates, etc. matter, but, it is all about supply and demand in the short-term. Investors inclined to hold for the longer-term will have plenty of opportunity to see how the stock is trading and how the fundamentals are shaping up to make a reasonable decision, to hold the stock or take profits.
In the coming days, there will be much analysis of revenues, profits, gross margins, cash flow, growth rates, etc. Certainly, such analysis will be of interest to talking heads, journalist, and academicians. Media will love the story as it will generate more viewers or readers.
The reality is that underwriters will price the IPO based on demand under the ruse of comparisons with recent internet IPOs such as Zynga (ZNGA), LinkedIn (LNKD), Pandora (P), Renren (RENN), Sina (SINA), and Groupon (GRPN).
Underwriters will justify the extremely high price of the stock based on potential growth.
Facebook is the new standard platform of communications for 800 million members. Exact numbers will not be known until the IPO is filed. Several informed sources have reported that between 2009 and 2011, Facebook's revenues grew at about 125% annual rate to $3.8 billion in 2011 with operating profit of $1.5 billion.
comScore reports that Facebook served 28% of all display ads. Brand advertisers like the narrow targeting they can achieve on Facebook.
For an investor who wants to generate profits, from a practical point of view, doing the foregoing analysis is an unnecessary torture of brain cells. None of the traditional fundamental analysis is going to make a difference.
Our qualitative estimate of the demand is around one billion shares compared to the supply of about 250 million shares. The point is that the demand is likely to be 400% of the supply.
An astute investor will buy with both hands all of the shares he or she can get in the IPO.
It's a no brainer to buy with both hands as many shares of Facebook as you can get in the IPO. The probability is very high that in the days and months following the IPO investors will have opportunities to sell their shares at a nice profit. For the long-term, price earnings ratios, growth rates, etc. matter, but, it is all about supply and demand in the short-term. Investors inclined to hold for the longer-term will have plenty of opportunity to see how the stock is trading and how the fundamentals are shaping up to make a reasonable decision, to hold the stock or take profits.
In the coming days, there will be much analysis of revenues, profits, gross margins, cash flow, growth rates, etc. Certainly, such analysis will be of interest to talking heads, journalist, and academicians. Media will love the story as it will generate more viewers or readers.
The reality is that underwriters will price the IPO based on demand under the ruse of comparisons with recent internet IPOs such as Zynga (ZNGA), LinkedIn (LNKD), Pandora (P), Renren (RENN), Sina (SINA), and Groupon (GRPN).
Underwriters will justify the extremely high price of the stock based on potential growth.
Facebook is the new standard platform of communications for 800 million members. Exact numbers will not be known until the IPO is filed. Several informed sources have reported that between 2009 and 2011, Facebook's revenues grew at about 125% annual rate to $3.8 billion in 2011 with operating profit of $1.5 billion.
comScore reports that Facebook served 28% of all display ads. Brand advertisers like the narrow targeting they can achieve on Facebook.
For an investor who wants to generate profits, from a practical point of view, doing the foregoing analysis is an unnecessary torture of brain cells. None of the traditional fundamental analysis is going to make a difference.
Our qualitative estimate of the demand is around one billion shares compared to the supply of about 250 million shares. The point is that the demand is likely to be 400% of the supply.
An astute investor will buy with both hands all of the shares he or she can get in the IPO.
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