Stock Market

Start-up companies generally get their money from two sources: professional venture investors and, a few years down the road, stock market investors. What's the difference? Here's how one of the smartest high-tech entrepreneurs I know puts it: "Venture money is expensive money, but it's smart money. Stock market money is cheap money, but it's dumb money. " Facebook is about to cannonball itself into a vast pool of dumb money. The big social media company is expected to announce its initial public offering as soon as Wednesday.

Facebook Inc.shares skidded on their second day of trading on Wall Street, falling below the initial public offering price of $38. The stock plunged more than 13% at several points during the day, and closed just above $34. A number of analysts on Wall Street have criticized the stock's performance, and blamed banks who advised Facebook for pricing the shares too high. There were also complaints that Facebook flooded the market by floating too many shares, and that insiders were cashing out.  However, the broader market moved higher after stocks were punished last week.

Maybe the dumb money wasn't so dumb this time. The stock market did turn out to be a voting machine on Facebook on Friday (to quote Warren Buffett and Benjamin Graham), and the vote was thumbs-down on flapdoodle. Market pros will be debating the lessons to be drawn from the disastrous first-day trading in Facebook's initial public offering. But one lesson is that when given enough information, investors can find their way through fogbanks of hype. When a stock offering is as closely followed as Facebook's, it's much more likely that the shares will be fully valued than that they'll harbor hidden treasure.

NEW YORK -- Facebook Inc. is just hours away from transforming itself into one of America’s largest public companies in a splashy stock market debut that has been the talk of Wall Street. The social network is set to begin trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market at 8 a.m. Pacific time under the ticker symbol FB. It is set to become the second-largest initial public offering in history.

Facebook Inc. is certain to make a dramatic entrance to the stock market Friday with its hotly awaited initial public offering. What's less certain is whether you should buy the stock. Enthusiasts have salivated for months over the prospect of buying into Facebook's surging growth rate and untapped advertising potential. They hope Facebook can mimic the stratospheric rise of Google Inc. in its early years, when its shares ballooned from $85 at its 2004 IPO to nearly $750 barely three years later.

There wasn't much to like about Facebook's first day as a public company. The social media giant's stock rose by mere pennies in its initial public offering. The shares closed at $38.23, barely above the $38 IPO price. The performance fell far short of the grandiose expectations of Wall Street and Silicon Valley, and raised questions about whether the company's stock will be the sure bet many had counted on. "There was all this pressure and hype and attention with all eyes on Facebook — and the starlet tripped on the red carpet," said Max Wolff, an analyst at GreenCrest Capital Management in New York.

The collector car market, which slumped with the economy, is coming back along with the rest of the auto industry. But don't expect to pick up a classic Tucker or Duesenberg without ponying up money like a Facebook executive. Many of these cars are selling for well over $1 million. By one measure, the value of collectible cars has surged 33% since the depth of the recession in 2009. The Hagerty collector car blue-chip index - a Dow-like gauge that averages the values of 25 of the most sought-after collectible automobiles of the postwar era - climbed to $1.25 million from $940,000 in September 2009.

Dear Liz: I graduated from college last summer and was lucky enough to get full-time employment. However, I have a great deal of college debt, including private and federal loans. Are there government programs that help pay back college loan debt? Do you have any suggestions? I cringe at the thought of paying double what I owe over the life of the loan because of interest and want to get this debt under control in the next few years instead of 15. Answer: Your eagerness to pay off your student loan debt is admirable and is particularly appropriate when it comes to your private student loans.

With financial markets around the globe facing one of their most tumultuous weeks in recent memory, investors can be forgiven if they're reaching for the rip cord right about now. The news over the weekend was truly trauma-inducing. Lehman Bros. Holdings Inc., one of Wall Street's best-known investment banks, was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Merrill Lynch & Co., another faltering blue-chip name, was seeking salvation through a shotgun marriage to Bank of America Corp. Insurer American International Group Inc. was looking to sell assets and borrow from the Federal Reserve to raise cash.

There's a tug of war in the financial markets between investors who believe the economy is on its way to a strong recovery and those who believe a rebound will be slow and bumpy. The result: a spate of volatility in stock trading that will probably continue this week. "That wide divergence in opinion can lead to wide swings in market prices," said Greg Walker, an investment strategist in JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s private banking division. For several weeks, upbeat investors have dominated the market, helping stocks move higher.

Shortly after being presented the traditional personalized Nasdaq opening bell crystal, Facebook Chief Executive, founder and recent billionaire Mark Zuckerberg talked to the people behind the brand before making the whole debut on the stock market official.  He said that while there was a whole lot of hoopla around the milestone of going public, "our mission isn't to be a public company. Our mission is to make the world more open and connected. " The moment was captured on video by Facebook, complete with inspirational soundtrack underneath.

Maybe the dumb money wasn't so dumb this time. The stock market did turn out to be a voting machine on Facebook on Friday (to quote Warren Buffett and Benjamin Graham), and the vote was thumbs-down on flapdoodle. Market pros will be debating the lessons to be drawn from the disastrous first-day trading in Facebook's initial public offering. But one lesson is that when given enough information, investors can find their way through fogbanks of hype. When a stock offering is as closely followed as Facebook's, it's much more likely that the shares will be fully valued than that they'll harbor hidden treasure.

Facebook Inc. is certain to make a dramatic entrance to the stock market Friday with its hotly awaited initial public offering. What's less certain is whether you should buy the stock. Enthusiasts have salivated for months over the prospect of buying into Facebook's surging growth rate and untapped advertising potential. They hope Facebook can mimic the stratospheric rise of Google Inc. in its early years, when its shares ballooned from $85 at its 2004 IPO to nearly $750 barely three years later.

The collector car market, which slumped with the economy, is coming back along with the rest of the auto industry. But don't expect to pick up a classic Tucker or Duesenberg without ponying up money like a Facebook executive. Many of these cars are selling for well over $1 million. By one measure, the value of collectible cars has surged 33% since the depth of the recession in 2009. The Hagerty collector car blue-chip index - a Dow-like gauge that averages the values of 25 of the most sought-after collectible automobiles of the postwar era - climbed to $1.25 million from $940,000 in September 2009.

With energy prices high, Big Oil rules atop the Fortune 500, helping to put Texas just a hair behind California as home to the highest-revenue corporations -- 52 firms, compared with the Golden State's 53. The magazine's latest list of mega-enterprises, released Monday, showed Exxon Mobil in the Dallas suburb of Irving edging out Wal-Mart Stores for the top spot, with 2011 revenue of $453 billion, compared with $447 billion at the Arkansas-based...

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. could end up paying hundreds of millions of dollars in legal expenses and penalties to resolve allegations of widespread bribery by officials with its Mexican subsidiary, experts in foreign corruption law said. The world's largest retailer said it was in the midst of a "worldwide review of our anti-corruption program" and had increased efforts to prevent corruption in Mexico. The Bentonville, Ark., company is looking into allegations that it engaged in a multiyear bribery campaign to build its business.

You don't necesarily have to be high tech to be a hot stock. The high flyers on Wall Street included a wide range of California companies, among them the state's largest bank, a maker of swimming pools and fishing tackle, and an exotic lingerie maker. To be sure, the shares of California high-technology firms were among the fastest rising. Cadence Design Systems, a computer software company, saw its stock soar 119% for the year ended April 3. But Cadence was the only high-tech firm among the top 10 stocks on the "Charging Ahead" list that posted the greatest increases in value.

Like many small investors, Rodney Punt was wary of the stock market for much of the last two years. But the 64-year-old Santa Monica resident recently decided to shift more of his nest egg into equities while reducing what he held in bonds. "The U.S. is coming out of panic mode," he said. "We have an economy that is beginning to pick up. " As 2011 begins, millions of individual investors may be facing the same basic question about their portfolios: Is it time to change the mix? The market crash of 2008 cast a long shadow, encouraging many Americans to play it very conservative with their money in 2009 and 2010.

A brutal sell-off overseas spilled into U.S. markets Monday morning, pushing the major averages down more than 1%. Growing political concerns in Europe and disappointing economic data across the continent fed worries that a cure for Europe's sovereign debt crisis, which seemed to be underway only weeks ago, could be in jeopardy amid weakening growth prospects and popular revolt among wide swaths of the European citizenry. Investors were rattled by data showing manufacturing contracting.

The stock market is fluctuating between positive and negative territory today in the face of mixed economic signals that raise the specter of ebbing U.S growth. The Dow Jones industrial average is keeping a fragile hold on 13,000, declining 27.48 points, or 0.2%, to 13,005.27. The Standard & Poor's 500 is down 0.2%, while the Nasdaq composite index is down fractionally. Stocks have been hurt by discouraging reports on the job and housing markets, and by more worrisome news on the European debt crisis.