[jackgavigan]

> ..retail investors know that the institutions buying into the IPO are reputable, long-haul investors like Fidelity, who will not be dumping the stock immediately.

From the article: "The first trade was 15% of all of the shares offered during the pricing."

Institutional investors "consistently flip a much larger percentage of the shares allocated to them than do retail customers."[1]

1: http://faculty.msb.edu/aggarwal/jfeflipping.pdf

[joezydeco]

Facebook didn't leave money on the table, and there were cries that the IPO was a disaster. Wonder why that was.

[serve_yay]

Yeah, there were people screaming bloody murder in the news at the time, but to me it seemed like they were the rare ones who did it correctly. Unless your idea of "doing it correctly" is a wealth transfer to institutional investors.

[mikeyouse]

In addition to the NASDAQ breaking the morning of the IPO, I think most of the disappointment lies with the stock falling by ~20% within a week of the IPO. Facebook both dramatically increased the number of shares available and the price at which their IPO shares were offered, and then fell completely flat out of the gate.

I definitely side with the companies more than investment banks in this scenario, and if you assume it was priced $5 too high, FB saw an extra $2.1B from setting the price 'too high'. Given that their price has doubled since then, I think most investors have forgiven them for their sins.