Facebook's horrendous debut

This deal ultimately will go down as one of the worst-executed IPOs ever. Given all its problems, this stock is a sell, sell, sell.

By Jim Cramer May 21, 2012 8:34AM

What the heck happened with the Facebook (FB) deal? In the old days, you would have had to canvas the customers one by one in order to find out, and you wouldn't be able to reach enough people to really know.

 

These days, it's very different. I have more than 500,000 followers on Twitter, and I'm being deluged with people who didn't get their orders filled, still don't know what they have and aren't sure if they are long or short.


This deal, when the smoke clears, will go down as one of the worst-executed initial public offerings we have ever seen.

 

Now, I am sure that all of the companies involved will (1) disclaim any problems (2) find a way to say it was the best offering ever and (3) say that, given the demand and the volume, it was handled extremely well.

 

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Here's the issue, though: All of these people who are complaining can't be wrong. They didn't all make it up, and they aren't all griping jerks. Should we just ignore them?

 

Look, someone blew the opening. Someone didn't have control over the deal. Someone was negligent. We just need to know what happened here.

 

You see, with these Twitter comments, I am not pointing fingers. The people are. The people can no longer be ignored just because they are little, or not JPMorgan Chase (JPM), or because they are rich private clients of Goldman Sachs (GS). Someone must answer to these people.

 

But you know what? I am so jaded and cynical these days that I figure no one will. The process is hard enough, and the regulators are not sophisticated enough to do anything other than say, "Hey, it went pretty smoothly."

 

They will get away with that, because the press doesn't have subpoena power.

 

Now, on the deal itself, and why it was so sloppy, here's what I am hearing. Regardless of what the brokers were saying about demand, it was not tight at all. Regardless of what Facebook told Morgan Stanley (MS), which amounted to something like "Let the real people have it," the real people didn't expect it -- that, or they didn't want it nearly as much as the Facebook gazillionaires thought they did.

 

There were plenty of brokers who couldn't fill the supply, not the demand. That's why I was so adamant on "Meet the Press" (video) that you need to be a seller. It was that, as well as the fact that all of these social media deals are busts, and the ones that don't stay at a premium to the deal are real busts.

 

In other words, given the lack of demand on the opening day, given the lack of faith and the anger that the IPO process engendered, and given the fact that Facebook is now just one more stock caught up in the fiasco that is Greece and the coming tragedy that is Spain, the stock is a sell, sell, sell.

 

Do you think any one of these underwriters can recommend it up here, given the metrics and the worries -- yes worries -- about the next quarter?

 

I don't think so.

 

 

Jim Cramer is a co-founder of TheStreet and contributes daily

market commentary to the financial news network's sites. Follow

his trades for Action Alerts PLUS, which Cramer co-manages as a charitable trust, and is long JPM.

83Comments
May 23, 2012 11:33AM
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Heres how I knew the stock was going to tank. Have you ever bought anything from a company that advertised on facebook ? I havent, because I resent that they use my personal info to "target" the ads to my page. So, with all that lack of revenue coming in, how can FB actually make money for its shareholders ?
May 23, 2012 10:53AM
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There are just too many unknown risks with FB to justify its IPO valuation. The foremost being hoardes of privacy suits that could be waiting in the wings.

It should have started off as a penny stock and worked its way up.

May 23, 2012 10:30AM
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Social Media is a self indulgent ego-stroke joke. Those who have fragile egos and nothing material to contribute can suddenly feel important and feel that they belong - after all, look at how many friends they have, so they must be important!

 

May 23, 2012 10:10AM
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Companies will drop the "social media aspect" of their business, hiring requirements, etc as soon as social media is discovered for what it is - theft of personal information that is then used to "shill" some product or service. Theft of personal information so an "employer" can see if you are going to be a problem, a boat-rocker, or someone completely at odds with how they "think" the world and a good employee should be. Theft of personal information to generate money from the least important aspects of humanity - mundane, personal uniqueness and opinions.

 

Social media is the bane (Bain?) of a happy existence.

May 22, 2012 5:23PM
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I love all of the dramatic anecdotes on how people saw this coming and the extinction of FB is near. You couldn't be farther from the truth and I question how much of this animosity is generated by poor economic conditions and bitterness. Every conference or seminar I've attended in the last year has echoed the importance of social media. Job interviewers now want to know how many followers you have for some jobs and do background checks based upon FB profiles for others. I challenge anyone on this site to leave their home or office if you are in a moderately sized metropolitan area. Walk in any direction for 30 miles and find a business that does not have a symbol saying like us on FB. Sadly those who don't understand this or see the signs of a changing economy and time will be the same people saying Facebook is overvalued and new money doesn't understand the American way when FB trades exponentially higher than where it is today.
May 21, 2012 7:42PM
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cramer blows with the wind.  one day for facebook the next against.  What is it with this guy?  And he has the nerve to question Warren Buffet?  He is nothing but a daytrader, an unsuccessful one at that.  Real easy to call it a flop Cramer the day after. 

 

It wasn't a huge disaster and its not a huge buying opportunity.  somewhere in the middle is more accurate and daytrader Cramer has to sensationalize to get more clicks.

May 21, 2012 2:16PM
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The purpose of an IPO is to MAXIMIZE the INITIAL proceeds FOR the pre-public "owners" AND the company itself. That means, what the company is capitalized with as a result of the INITIALLY sold shares must be MAXIMIZED. That means, the IPO share price "should" trade neutrally when public trading begins. After all, if the shares were immediately bid up, that would mean that the IPO price was under-valued per the REAL marketplace and was, therefore, less than what it should have been and DID NOT maximize the intial proceeds for the company. Cramer apparently believe that leeches who had nothing to do with the creation of the company or its management going foward were somehow pathetically "entitled" to profit from a run-up based on an under-valued inital price. Once shares are in the open marketplace, they are obviously no longer owned by the company and the company receives no more money for those publicly-owned shares than was made when they were initially sold (one time). Moron!   
May 21, 2012 1:29PM
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Too Much! Too Late!   Facebook is on it's way down and everyone knows it, Why buy into it?

 

FB has hit its peak and is spiraling down. There's a reason why it went public.

 

May 21, 2012 1:12PM
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This all happened for one reason.  Facebook is for all intensive purposes at it's peak.  They knew it it was overhyped, overpriced, and too many shares were available for profitable trading.  Inside traders knew it and the general public obviously knows it.  Facebook have already maximized thier potential for exploiting personal information for profit, and pop culture is well into it's beginning to despise them for it.  The only way I would buy into FB is if the Chinese Communist regime (who have outlawed Facebook, Twitter, and many others) is on the brink of being overthrown.  In that case, I would invest every dollar into every major social networking and information site available.  Otherwise, I'm looking for the next big thing.

 

May 21, 2012 1:02PM
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A Flag goings where the air blows


May 21, 2012 12:55PM
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The big boys had their hand in the cookie jam and couldn't get it out.

They can lose their money just like everyone else. 

The big boys will get their money back by taking their bonuses for their bad management.

May 21, 2012 12:54PM
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FB is just another MySpace BS that is totally useless and bares no value at all. It will go away once nobody is giving FB any ad money (who looks at these ads anyway? They are just a nuisance!) and people using FB need to pay to be a member.

 

Who ever bought FB stock is holding the short stick. Greed is going to get you, especially the little 'investors'!  JPM will lose their a$$ here, go for them. But if they fail the taxpayer will be forced to rescue them...

May 21, 2012 12:54PM
May 21, 2012 12:53PM
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All I can say is :   LOL!!!   Suckers!
May 21, 2012 12:52PM
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Wow, the investing public is smarter than I thought.  It saw through the smokescreen of the movie set facade hype (incl MSN and other media outlets) and figured out there is not a real, tangible product behind FB.  Its value is only the short shelf life of the data it collects for marketers under  the guise of providing a service.  It needs a constant stream of new users to feed the model.  And as GM proved, the revenue return from FB advertising ain't happening---at least for them.

The way FB has treated its subscribers---

- with evermore invasive and creepy Orwellian privacy policy changes
- the I-don't-give-a-crap attitude of its CEO toward the IPO
- the renouncement of citizenship by a co-founder ungrateful to what the U.S. free market allowed him to do (and could have lived a thousand lifetimes of opulence even with the U.S. tax burden)

etc

All should be red flags to anyone who has a nickel to invest.

May 21, 2012 12:52PM
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Oh, do not worry you idiots, obama will bail you guys out.  You will get all your money back because you made a mistake and invested in FB..fools
May 21, 2012 12:51PM
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Cramer's an idiot. He is the same jack#$% that 5 days ago said on Mad Money if you could get it anywhere near the $38 opening price to buy it because Facebook isn't like all the other social media IPO's. Now he mentions all these reasons to sell it as if they didn't exist 5 days ago.......Greece, Spain, worries about the next quarter. Those things were all out there 5 days ago when this dumb#$% said buy it. The only thing that has changed is a sloppy IPO. If you want good financial advice I would recommend the guys on Fast Money instead of listening to this idiot who does nothing more than flip flop back and forth based on what has already happened and then claim he was right all along.
May 21, 2012 12:51PM
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I don't have a Facebook account not because I am anti-Facebook or anti-social networking.  I am just old school, don't have the time, or the desire to have a zillion "friends".  However, what I find to be interesting is that I am in the minority and folks from in the womb to 99 years old have an account.  Considering this, I would think that Facebook provided something to people regardless of age, sex or race.  Now everybody is slaming the founder of Facebook and wishing him ill will, failure, indeed ruin.  Why?  If you don't want the stock, don't buy it, but to slam something that is obviously very popular and something someone has taken hold of like a crack head to a crack pipe I find to be comical and rather disingenous, not to mentioned colored with a tad bit of green (e.g. envy). 
May 21, 2012 12:51PM
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HAVING BEEN GIFTED BY THE VIRTUAL THEFT OF AROUND $600,000.00 IN LOSSES BY THE CROOKS ON WALL STREET I NO LONGER OWN ANY STOCKS AND CANNOT UNDERSTAND WHY ANYONE WOULD...THE LACK OF TRANSPARENCY, THE GREED AND AVARICE OF THE WALL STREET CROWD NEEDS TO BE BOYCOTTED BY EVERYONE. STOCKS ARE NO LONGER AN INVESTMENT VEHICLE, JUST ANOTHER LOTTO SCAM THAT IS FIXED FROM THE TOP DOWN
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