Disappointing year for acclaimed Internet stocks
Such is a clear vote of no confidence: As the first reports surfaced about a possible replacement of the founder and head of the bargain portal Groupon, Andrew Mason, the stock went straight into the air. Hardly a day later, the company declared that Mason still remain at the top, of course put it back into reverse.
The nerves of investors are on edge. And that's understandable: The share of the coupon specialist Groupon lost since going public a year ago, more than 80 percent of their value. She has since upped the ante again though a few dollars on the recent low of $ 2.60 - but the initial rates of about $ 25 still seems at an unreachable distance. And the former Star Market potential and according to Forbes "fastest growing companies of all time."
Weak numbers doubt the business model and a crash course as a result, Groupon is by far not an isolated case. Many other at first highly acclaimed Internet stocks investors bestowed lousy business. In online game developer Zynga, the balance of the first year on the stock market falls with a drop of three-quarters of equally devastating. In this way down there were some price falls of 20 or even 40 percent on a day when, once again, a loss has been reported.
The most prominent flop of the year was the mega-IPO of Facebook, with revenues of approximately $ 16 billion for the company and early investors. The share of the world's largest online network could hold only a few days at an issue price of $ 38, but has now to get out of the cellar after the following course.
It is the mixture of gold rush and uncertainty that the rapid rates only in the air and then can sometimes brutal crash. The internet business still has many unexplored opportunities - who knows what all work and there may be the "next big thing". Just as quickly, however, investors get cold feet when they have the feeling that the first hope of a windfall may not meet.
Who in the game are almost always wins, but the risk investors who start very early in young companies at low prices. A native of Germany Internet investor Peter Thiel has led the way in the Facebook IPO, how.
Thiel had in 2004, when the network was still quite at the beginning, put $ 500 000 into Facebook and to get a share of about ten percent. Long before the IPO, he reduced his involvement, as more investors rushed into the fast growing company. The IPO itself, he had offered good 16,800,000 shares with a total value of $ 640 million. Even as Thiel got rid of the rest for only around $ 20 per share, he took around another $ 400 million still many times the initial investment.
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