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Financial News
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One of 2011's most anticipated new issues, online gaming firm Zynga (NASDAQ:ZNGA - -), priced well Dec. 15 but quickly headed south. A passel of energy IPOs were received tepidly despite the sector's strength."What happened doesn't necessarily give confidence in companies that are wanting to go public," said Manoj George, CEO of outsourcing firm Nair & Co. and CFO of Red Hat (NYSE:RHT - -) during its IPO. "I've talked to a couple of companies who have the fundamentals to go public, (but) they are looking at 2013 as opposed to 2012.The news wasn't all bad. Demand for Michael Kors (NYSE:KORS - -) was so strong that the fashion house jacked up its IPO size by more than 25% and still rose Dec. 14 in its first day of trading. And while Zynga's debut was underwhelming, tiny Jive Software (NASDAQ:JIVE - -) also upped its IPO size. That suggested cloud computing is still hot, even where it's unprofitable. [Read the full article]
To paraphrase Yogi Berra, it's tough for investors to make predictions, especially about the future. That was certainly the case in 2011 for investors whose portfolios were hurt by unforeseen developments " from Libya to Japan to Europe to Washington. Here are some investing lessons from this year: " DON'T COUNT OUT TREASURYS Did you follow the lead of star bond investor Bill Gross of PIMCO and dump Treasurys because the outlook was bad good for U.S. debt? Oops. You lost out on good returns. Treasury prices rose sharply starting in February as the weaker U.S. economy and Europe's debt crisis sent investors looking for safe investments. Yields on bonds move in the opposite direction from their price. The strong demand for U.S. debt sent the yield on the 10-year Treasury to a record low of 1.71 percent in September. [Read the full article]
In the middle of 2011, the chatter surrounding the upcoming crop of tech IPOs was hitting a frenzied pace. New IPOs from LinkedIn(LNKD) and Pandora (P) were exciting investors, and eyes were turning to the expected debuts of Groupon (GRPN )and Zynga (ZNGA) at the end of the year.Since then, that excitement has abated somewhat and a wave of skepticism has crept in. There were concerns over Groupon's accounting standards and more broadly of the sustainability of social-networking business models. The worries have kept most of these IPOs underwater from their debuts. So does the slight decline in hype mean that it is a good time to jump into the social-networking IPO game? Absolutely not. The market remains too optimistic about all of these firms' prospects, and investors would be much better-served looking elsewhere in the tech sector for value. [Read the full article]
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