Posted: May 21, 2012 8:39 AM by KPAX News Staff
Updated: May 21, 2012 1:01 PM
Facebook will almost exactly where it started. The company went public on Friday with an offering price of $38 a share. It jumped at the open but then sank back to end the day just 23-cents higher than it opened. That surprised some investors who were expecting a big jump on the first day. That's been the pattern with previous Internet stocks.
The frenzy over Facebook didn't do much for the rest of the stock market which has been in a long slump. The Dow Jones Industrials has dropped for 11 of the past 12 trading days and is down about 6% so far this month. On Friday, the Dow lost 73 points while the NASDAQ lost about 35 points.
One of Wall Street's biggest concerns is unemployment, but the labor market is showing some improvement. Unemployment fell in two-thirds of U.S. states last month and in many states, the jobless rate is now well below the national average. Nevada continues to report the highest unemployment rate in the nation at 11.7%.
Just a few days ago General Motors said it was pulling its ads from Facebook. Now it's leaving the Superbowl with the automaker saying it will not run ads during next year's game because it cannot justify the cost. This year, companies spent over $3 million for a 30 second commercial and the price is going up for next year's game.
One thing seems clear about JPMorgan Chase's $2 billion loss. It's no longer $2 billion. It's likely much higher. The number being bandied about now is closer to a range of $6 billion to $7 billion, according to several people working on trading desks that specialize in the derivatives JPMorgan Chase used to make its trades and from two sources with knowledge of the bank's positions.
- information from CNN included in this report.
Comments