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Facebook Stock Suffers Largest One-Day Drop In History, Shedding $119 Billion

Posted by BeauHD on from the terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-day dept.

Facebook is experiencing one its worst days as a publicly traded company. According to CNBC, Facebook lost about $119 billion of its value on Thursday, marking the biggest one-day loss in U.S. market history. From the report: The company's shares plunged $41.24, or almost 19 percent, to $176.26 a day after the social media giant reported disappointing results. The slide is the largest decline in market capitalization in history, exceeding Intel's $91 billion single-day loss in September 2000, according to Bloomberg data. Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg saw his fortune drop by $15.9 billion to roughly $71 billion. His personal loss alone, if only on paper, exceeds the value of companies such as Molson Coors and Macy's, which have market values of $14 billion and $12 billion, respectively. Investors were spooked by Facebook's forecast showing that its number of active users is growing less quickly than expected, while the company also took a hit from Europe's new privacy laws.

130 comments

  1. Retirement by 110010001000 · · Score: 5, Funny

    This is a bummer. My entire portfolio is Facebook, Netflix and Tesla. Let me go check to see how they are doing...

    1. Re:Retirement by 110010001000 · · Score: 0

      No, he is enjoying all those sweet Tesla dividend payments.

    2. Re:Retirement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oooh, look a cavalcade of fiuckwads.

    3. Re:Retirement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      There is no such thing as a free lunch. Money for nothing is always evil at its core, that is just fact.

    4. Re:Retirement by Rei · · Score: 0

      Lol, I wouldn't touch Facebook stock. And certainly don't plan to now. Social media platforms don't last.

      Apart from retirement funds, whose stocks I don't pick directly, the only stock I own is TSLA. And it's served me quite nicely, thanks. :) But by all means, get your positions in - Q2 report coming out next week.

      --
      "Lock and load, Brides of Christ!"
    5. Re: Retirement by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      Is there any reason to believe the Q2 report will be good? Facebook's report wasn't bad, for example. There may be a strong headwind against Nasdaq right now.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    6. Re:Retirement by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

      If by "served nicely" you mean given you nothing in return (no cash) and a 20% on paper loss over the last 12 months then I have a bunch of stocks to "serve you quite nicely". :)

    7. Re: Retirement by 110010001000 · · Score: 3, Informative

      These tech stocks are priced with massive growth baked in. No one cares about profit or debt, just growth, in tech stocks. Eventually you run out of people that sign up your website, or are willing or able to buy a $50,000+ electric vehicle and your growth ends. By that time, the insiders have cashed out enough of their positions to get rich, but the individual suckers get screwed over. Tesla has a way to go, but likely 2019 will be the end of Tesla. The Q2 report will be "good", though.

    8. Re: Retirement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh look! A shill!

    9. Re: Retirement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Depends on how many suppliers refunded the last two years worth of parts delivered to Tesla. Tesla won't last the year now that they have scared the living crap out of suppliers.

    10. Re: Retirement by Rei · · Score: 1

      It's not about whether it's a good report or a bad report. It's about whether it's a better or worse report than people are expecting. And how well the spin of bulls and bears is taken, because trust me, both will have their own radically different interpretations of the same thing.

      I can however tell you that people are expecting a bad report. Particularly since they held back over 10k vehicles to avoid tolling the tax credit limit in Q2, so that's a lot of production that they hadn't gotten paid for yet in Q2. Also, the layoffs, which were basically an SG&A cut, will be a benefit in Q3, but they're a severance hit in Q2.

      Basically, if Q2 isn't terrible, it's great. And if Q3 isn't great, it's terrible. Tesla is targeting its first sustained profit in Q3. I think they'll need to show it for at least two quarters (Q3 and Q4) in order to get major sustained stock movement, however - because I know the bears are already writing their "It was a one-time thing!" articles for Q3. On the other hand, the Q2 report might be enough to finally stomp out the silly "bankwutpcy" meme.

      --
      "Lock and load, Brides of Christ!"
    11. Re:Retirement by Rei · · Score: 1

      I didn't buy 12 months ago. I bought mostly this spring, at $263. I've had a number of small purchases since then - most significantly positive, a few about the same, and only one meaningfully negative.

      I assume you've got your short positions in, in advance of the Q2 report?

      --
      "Lock and load, Brides of Christ!"
    12. Re: Retirement by Rei · · Score: 2

      Note that if you can't even follow news properly, you probably shouldn't be messing with investment. The "refund" discussion wasn't with parts suppliers, it was concerning ongoing unfinished capex projects. Capex != parts. And it went out to fewer than 10 companies.

      It appears that someone at one of the companies that got the letter thought that it was going out to all of Tesla's thousands of suppliers and thus wouldn't get in trouble for leaking it; the fact that this incorrect was already discovered in the first article on the topic of the letter, even before Tesla responded. It's a pretty safe bet that, given how few letters Tesla sent out, that they already know who leaked the letter, and I imagine that they won't be receiving any future contracts.

      --
      "Lock and load, Brides of Christ!"
    13. Re: Retirement by 110010001000 · · Score: 2

      Thats pretty amazing that Tesla has thousands of suppliers. But I am sure that being $10 billion in debt, firing 9% of your employees and asking for retroactive refunds is OK. Nothing to worry about. Because it is a growth stock and growth will continue forever!

    14. Re:Retirement by 110010001000 · · Score: 0

      I would never short Tesla, because people like you are irrational. Why would you (in individual) buy a stock at $263 that has a P/E multiple of NEGATIVE 90? It is nonsensical. You cannot possibly make enough profit to justify the risk, especially if you bought at $263! You have "made" 16% so far. But in reality you haven't made anything because there is no return. The stock could go up 200% and it still wouldn't be worth the risk.

    15. Re: Retirement by Rei · · Score: 3, Informative

      Total assets = $27.3B
      Total liabilities = $21,6B

      Secondly, get your story straight: is Tesla's SG&A too high and they should be cutting back on it, or is cutting back on SG&A spending a sign of doom? You need to pick one story and stick with it.

      Third, there is nothing unusual about automakers asking for refunds on ongoing contracts. Unfair? Sure, but welcome to the automotive industry. When you have the bully pulpit, you can get away with things like that.

      Lastly, nobody said "forever". But given that they're simultaneously attacking multiple markets each worth hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars, yes, they're only just getting started. Nobody is anywhere close to the rate of EV production scaleup they've achieved this year and are on track to continue in the next coming years. 2-3 years from now that situation may change, given what some established automakers are finally starting to invest in EVs. But until then, Tesla stands alone. It doesn't matter if you're GM, VW, or anyone else - you can't magick Gigafactories into existence overnight.

      --
      "Lock and load, Brides of Christ!"
    16. Re:Retirement by Rei · · Score: 1

      "Irrational" is looking at past sales rates on a company that's actively undergoing an exponential growth curve, and continues to invest in said curve, and has reservations to buy all of its products (not even just "all of its cars" - all of its products period) years in advance. And yes, that even still applies to the Model 3 - they're milking all of the LR RWD, AWD and P from the US and Canadian markets they can, but that's still just a quarter of their reservations. Eurospec doesn't even start sales until next year. BTW; in case you missed it: wait times went up on new Model 3s orders the other day.

      You would have also called Amazon investors "irrational" because they were doing the exact same thing.

      --
      "Lock and load, Brides of Christ!"
    17. Re: Retirement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Total assets = $27.3B
      Total liabilities = $21,6B

      In the quarter ended March 31, Tesla's net loss widened to a record $784.6 million, or $4.19 per share, from a loss of $397.2 million, or $2.04 per share, a year ago.

      Source

      Tesla is pretty volatile, so using an average, Tesla can stay in business for another 9 quarters. Yeah, I'd say that's trouble. After those nine quarters are up, time to buy a Volt. There aren't going to be any more OEM parts being produced from Tesla.

    18. Re: Retirement by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      I would have thought so too, but look how much apple stock has grown in market cap in the past five years. The kind of money that has to flow in for that to happen is ridiculous. So it seems there's no impractical top to what a stock can do.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    19. Re: Retirement by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      It's not about whether it's a good report or a bad report. It's about whether it's a better or worse report than people are expecting.

      That's a point worth repeating.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    20. Re:Retirement by vossman77 · · Score: 1

      While all three stocks are over valued. At least Netflix and Tesla make things, (tv content and cars), Facebook just makes money by selling its users data and maintaining its walled garden.

    21. Re:Retirement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you forgot do jump into twitter, dumbass

    22. Re: Retirement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I thought this thread is about Facebook. At least Tesla is trying to do something good and reduce carbon emissions. Whats Facebook doing that helps humanity? Social
      Media has no value and its stunting adolescent and teen mental development.

    23. Re: Retirement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Having long wait times is only positive if people are ultimately prepared to wait. If a competitor brings out a competing product that is as good, for a similar price, with a shorter wait time, the queue could evaporate. Premium brands such as BMW, Audi, etc., are moving into the area.

    24. Re: Retirement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      FYI electric cars only reduce carbon emissions if said electricity is low or no carbon, which is not the case in most of the USofA

    25. Re: Retirement by tehcyder · · Score: 2

      It's not about whether it's a good report or a bad report. It's about whether it's a better or worse report than people are expecting.

      That's a point worth repeating.

      As I understand, the problem was that the CFO used the term "decelerate" to refer to Facebook's slowing growth, and this rang alarm bells, presumably among people who think that a decrease in the rate of increase of subscribers is somehow the same thing as an actual decrease in the number of subscribers.

      Tech stocks seem generally to be based on the idea that you have to have a continuous upward curve on the rate of increase of sales/subscribers/profit/whatever. So if you double your income one year, then 'only' increase it by 60% the next year and 40% the year after, this is some sort of disaster.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    26. Re: Retirement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      FYI electric cars only reduce carbon emissions if said electricity is low or no carbon, which is not the case in most of the USofA

      Not true. The carbon footprint is higher for producing an EV, but over its lifetime it is much cleaner than a gas-powered car.

      Source:
      https://www.ucsusa.org/publications/ask/2014/lifecycle-emissions.html#.W1rpmNhKiu5

    27. Re: Retirement by Joce640k · · Score: 1

      Tump's Clean Coal produces CO2?

      That's news.

      --
      No sig today...
    28. Re: Retirement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are you implying that a coal plant produces more CO2 per unit of power than a car engine?

      Or that the overall energy production and distribution network of the US is more carbon negative per unit of energy than a car engine?

      Please, move on, the adults are talking.

    29. Re:Retirement by dcw3 · · Score: 1

      Consider that with all those billions lost, the stock fell only to where it was in May! BTW, were is everyone going to complain about it?...on FB, and other social media already owned by FB. FB is spending money on something they've taken a blackeye on...security, so as much as I dislike them, I see this as a positive move.

      --
      Just another day in Paradise
    30. Re: Retirement by dcw3 · · Score: 1

      With a declining PE, I'd disagree...
      https://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/...

      --
      Just another day in Paradise
    31. Re:Retirement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      cavalcade? what century are you from...

    32. Re: Retirement by pgmrdlm · · Score: 1

      Everyone who is into Electric cars never seems to address several issues. 1). They rely on the grid for their power, which is supplied by carbon producing minerals. Coal/Natural Gas. I know, except for Nuclear. But when was the last time a Nuke plant was built. 2). The raw materials for producing these batteries has to be mined. Raping of the earth. What is the percentage of recycling with these batteries. 3). You want to reduce a carbon footprint. Find something that the poor can afford. You know, the people that have to buy used cars that they can barely keep on the road. Or what, do you expect the rest of us to subsidize them. 4). Charging stations. Yea, there is one on every corner. And if you charge your car at home. So much for renters. Or what, are you going to force landlords to put in charging stations. I am all for reducing carbon foot print. Electrical vehicles are not the way. A much better way would be to reduce privately owned cars, and have better mass transportation.

      --
      Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the anonymous "sources" that contaminate gutless journalism from the New York Time
    33. Re:Retirement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      IT may be a positive for users but it is a huge negative for them. Facebooks hope of profitability comes from leveraging users personal information, the more that is locked down the less potential profits there are for them to exploit.

    34. Re:Retirement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      grow the fuck up and learn some basics about economics and how stocks are priced. Also for good measure take a look in the mirror at how sad your inbred hateful existence is and either educate yourself to improve it or do the world a fucking favour buy a razor and leave it or at least shut the fuck up with your racist tirades.

    35. Re: Retirement by Rei · · Score: 1

      And their magicked-into-existence gigafactories to make these things in volume are where, exactly?

      Production has significant time delays from when you start paying for it to when you start gaining benefits from it. Wanting to make a "competing product that is as good" doesn't make it just happen. Everyone has some sort of "EV" out there, but they're all in much smaller volumes, and generally loss leaders (aka "compliance cars"). As an example: you know the Jaguar I-Pace, getting all of that press as a "Tesla Killer" (what they call pretty much every Also-Ran)? Never mind that they just delayed it by 4 months and are doing the same thing Tesla did with the Model 3 (lead with the more expensive versions first). Jaguar total - all of its ICE models combined - amass to just 100k per year. And the I-Pace will just be a very small fraction of its total production. Meanwhile, the Bloomberg tracker for the Model 3 believes they'll be over 6k per week in a couple weeks (an annualized rate of over 313k per year). All EVs.

      Several years from now, Tesla might actually have serious competition, now that some major automakers are finally starting to pump meaningful amounts of money into EVs. Assuming that they're smart enough to target where Tesla will be at that time, rather than where Tesla is today. Because Tesla isn't standing still either.

      --
      "Lock and load, Brides of Christ!"
    36. Re: Retirement by lpp · · Score: 1

      1) It is far easier to reduce emissions at a single point source like a power plant than it is to maintain low emissions at multiple point sources, particularly since the air quality reviews done on-site for a power plant are far more rigorous than the testing your cousin's muscle car got at "that mechanic shop outside town you can go to for.. you know... muscle car inspections".

      1a) It becomes easier to make the case to switch that power plant to something cleaner when it's the last holdout in the pollution chain. But speaking of the pollution chain...

      2) The raw materials for petroleum products *also* has to be pulled out of the earth. And I would be willing to bet a *lot* of electric car batteries are recycled, because the places old cars go to die have a vested interest in recuperating as much value as they can which would include returning said batteries for a refund of some kind.

      3) The Motorola DynaTAC was the first commercially available mobile phone, sold in 1983 for an inflation adjusted $10,117 (1983 price, $3,995). You can get a cheap mobile today with no initial cost and $20/month. The Osborne 1 was the first commercially available laptop computer, sold in 1981 for an inflation adjusted $5,007 (1981 price, $1,800). You can get a Dell laptop starting at $799 (didn't even try to find a cheaper option, though I'm sure they exist). The point being that new tech is *always* expensive at first, is *always* sold to the more affluent first and only drops in price once the market gets bigger and production can be streamlined.

      4) Charging stations, and the problems with charging in general, are probably the biggest issue right now, particularly for renters. And that may be partly a question of scale (after all, charging stations continue to be put up, so at a certain point I would expect we would reach a tipping point where, yes, you *can* travel cross country with a reasonable expectation of recharge stations all along your trip) and it also may be partly a question of technology (how do you get sufficient electric potential transferred into the vehicle in a short amount of time?). But given how things are right now, market growth is the only way to continue to stoke interest in answering these questions.

    37. Re:Retirement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I am moving out of Facebook and going back to investing in MySpace and Friendster, whom I think are poised for a comeback.

    38. Re: Retirement by Dragonslicer · · Score: 2

      1). They rely on the grid for their power, which is supplied by carbon producing minerals. Coal/Natural Gas.

      That is not at all universally true. Many parts of the world get a significant amount of electricity from solar, wind, hydroelectric, or geothermal, and the general movement is in that direction. Also, large power plants are more efficient and better able to contain waste products than large numbers of small engines.

    39. Re: Retirement by Dragonslicer · · Score: 1

      The Osborne 1 was the first commercially available laptop computer, sold in 1981 for an inflation adjusted $5,007 (1981 price, $1,800). You can get a Dell laptop starting at $799 (didn't even try to find a cheaper option, though I'm sure they exist).

      Just as an FYI, I bought a cheap Dell laptop for $300 a couple months ago.

    40. Re:Retirement by datavirtue · · Score: 1

      Now investors are going to start scrutinizing the stock. I wonder if it will get worse from here?

      --
      I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
    41. Re: Retirement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Adolescents have switched to Instagram this week to avoid their parents on FB.

    42. Re: Retirement by Firetoad · · Score: 0

      1) and 2) can and have already been easily addressed even though they could be answered by a simple google search. 3) is a non-sequitur, but has been answered anyway. 4) I know several renters who own electric cars, they trickle-charge them from a standard outlet while they sleep, it makes very little impact on their monthly electric bill and their landlords don't even notice. Do you have any actual information or are you just making stuff up?

      5) Your sig. You are an electric car bigot. Please rm -rf yourself.

    43. Re: Retirement by datavirtue · · Score: 1

      Running umpteen data centers on 11 so people can post fake news that literally gets people killed. That is what they are doing for humanity. At least when it started out as a cat meme feed it was just innocent trite.

      --
      I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
    44. Re: Retirement by datavirtue · · Score: 1

      I love automobiles...especially gas powered ones. I own a 7000lb truck that is my daily driver. Autmobiles of any size are extremely inefficient. The bicycle is the most efficient transportation known to man. A pack of peanuts can fuel 10-20 miles of travel. Thankfully, there is a bicycle boom in America and other countries. Major cities are refactoring for pedestrian and bicycle traffic that promotes engaging, fun communities of people congregating in cities instead of a heaping pile of automobile traffic. The health benefits resemble a miracle.

      --
      I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
    45. Re: Retirement by datavirtue · · Score: 1

      There are safe nuclear and fission alternatives. We are not focused on them though...especially in today's political climate.

      --
      I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
    46. Re: Retirement by datavirtue · · Score: 1

      One could argue that moving to those power sources is hampered by bringing on the load required to power automobiles.

      --
      I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
    47. Re: Retirement by datavirtue · · Score: 1

      Corporations dump thousands of perfectly good laptops on the market every day. You can buy a refurbished laptop for $300 that is much higher quality and performance than a new one.

      --
      I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
    48. Re: Retirement by datavirtue · · Score: 1

      The company to watch is Ford. They supposedly have no EV market penetration, much less a viable product but they do have a steadily increasing portfolio of technology and a keen conservative eye for the market. They are concerned with charging convenience and are trying to come up with a solution before going full-hog.

      --
      I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
    49. Re: Retirement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      " 1). They rely on the grid for their power, which is supplied by carbon producing minerals. Coal/Natural Gas. I know, except for Nuclear. But when was the last time a Nuke plant was built."

      Hydro, wind, solar, tidal, geothermal... some of these are intermittent, but electric cars are big batteries and are therefore a great match for intermittent sources. Imagine every car in Vegas is quietly charging during the day off the massive solar power they could harness there.

      Of course, a massive fossil plant is also much more efficient and less polluting per watt than a thousand little gasoline engines...

      The perfect is the enemy of the good, fella. In a perfect world we'd have mass transportation to well-designed, livable and walkable city hubs, but that will take decades to even choose to do, and decades after that to execute.

      In the meantime, switching off internal combustion engines is clearly good.

    50. Re: Retirement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Looks like the margin calls are coming in on Tesla today.

      Monday is gonna be ugly.

    51. Re: Retirement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Osborne 1 was the first commercially available laptop computer

      Calling this a "laptop" is a bit of a stretch!

      IIRC it was described as a "portable," but the industry press wags dubbed it a "luggable."

    52. Re: Retirement by mlyle · · Score: 1

      > and generally loss leaders (aka "compliance cars").

      Don't you find that scary for TSLA? Tesla has great product, but a bunch of competitors willing to sell product below cost generally isn't good for your ability to sustain margins, especially if the gaps between products are going to narrow. (And gaps between innovative products and everything else *always* narrow).

  2. Shity Company by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Couldn't happen to a nicer company.

    Companies that start out with questionable ethics never seem to change. Shit start, shit end. I don't usually buy individual stocks (only own Alphabet*), but I would never own this company. I think the ending isn't going to be fun for shareholders.

    * Alphabet, while it has its ethical challenges, at least actually tries to protect all the data they have on you. I invest in them solely because I believe true AI is going to emerge there.

    1. Re:Shity Company by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Read Fuckerburg and a few insiders cashed out a few billon before the stock tumbled.
      Maybe FB will go the route of pets.com, a few drops, a few bounces then worthless,
      FB doen't actually appear to have real value, only what people think it's worth, they make nothing, not even a dog puppet to auction..

    2. Re:Shity Company by vipw · · Score: 1

      Investments in positive cash flow will always make sense. Facebook has a P/E of 24, which can be thought of as a 5% yield were it to be returned to shareholders. And that's the yield with their current level of profit, but their profit has actually been growing for a long time, and it is forecast to continue growing. So why do you think FB doesn't have real value?

    3. Re:Shity Company by datavirtue · · Score: 1

      It is speculative unless they are turning 15% profit.

      --
      I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
    4. Re:Shity Company by vipw · · Score: 1

      That comment doesn't make any sense.

      Why 15%? 15% of what? Revenue? Market capitalization? Book value?
      And how can there possibly be a threshold that makes investment not be speculative?

  3. THE END IS NIGH, Zuckerbook! by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 3, Informative

    Better put your affairs in order, Zuckerbook, the TechReaper is coming for you. All the signs and portents are present!

    Time to bail out of Zuckerbook, folks. Zuckerbook is Old and Busted, time to scamper off to the New Hotness, whatever that is.
    Really, leaving now will do Zuckerbook a favor by making it's death swifter.

    1. Re:THE END IS NIGH, Zuckerbook! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Tom is still is hanging in there at Myspace... I miss Tom.

    2. Re:THE END IS NIGH, Zuckerbook! by datavirtue · · Score: 1

      Mellenials rolls their eyes at facebook and old people love it. Totally dead.

      --
      I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
    3. Re:THE END IS NIGH, Zuckerbook! by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

      Talks about 'old people'
      MFW what he means is 'anyone over 25'

      Oh noes, you might have to (shocking!!1!) have face-to-face conversations with people! How will you EVER recover?

  4. 119 billion, 16 billion by Sooner+Boomer · · Score: 1, Troll

    Those numbers are greater than the GDP of nations. In 2017 the GDP of the U.S. was only about 20 billion.

    https://www.statista.com/graph...

    --
    Chaos maximizes locally around me.
    1. Re:119 billion, 16 billion by 110010001000 · · Score: 2

      That would be trillion. If the GDP of the US was only 20 billion we would be in big trouble. As it is, we are in big trouble, but not THAT bad.

    2. Re:119 billion, 16 billion by Fly+Swatter · · Score: 2

      Anyone that went to a competent school in modern times should know that number is way off. Read the chart's fine print. It's also a sign of how ridiculously mind numbing economics numbers have become. How do you mentally imagine 20 trillion of anything?

    3. Re:119 billion, 16 billion by duke_cheetah2003 · · Score: 1

      How do you mentally imagine 20 trillion of anything?

      I just imagine 20 followed by an absurd number of zeros. Works for me.

    4. Re:119 billion, 16 billion by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Funny

      The market cap of Facebook fell from the GDP of Argentina to the GDP of Belgium, a difference of the GDP of Kuwait.

      List of countries by GDP

      This is actually an apples-to-oranges comparison, since market cap is a measure of assets while GDP is a measure of income.

    5. Re:119 billion, 16 billion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Market cap = stock price x no of shares

    6. Re:119 billion, 16 billion by rastos1 · · Score: 1

      How do you mentally imagine 20 trillion of anything?

      I imagine sand grains in Sahara.

    7. Re: 119 billion, 16 billion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Did you even watch what you linked to?

    8. Re:119 billion, 16 billion by Daetrin · · Score: 1

      Why is there no "-1 Wrong" moderation, especially when the citation provided explicitly disagrees with the statement in the post?

      --
      This Space Intentionally Left Blank
  5. Donâ(TM)t feel for the communist by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Perhaps itâ(TM)s because conservatives and Libertarians are tired of being censored.

    1. Re:Donâ(TM)t feel for the communist by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

      ITT: Libertardians don't understand capitalism

    2. Re:Donâ(TM)t feel for the communist by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ... or you could just say things that are not dangerously insane.

    3. Re:Donâ(TM)t feel for the communist by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      Some libertarians don't really want capitalism in the sense of competition. If the big companies merged into one giant monopoly, they don't care, often believing other forces will eventually compensate or end the monopoly without gov't intervention. Lack of gov't meddling may be more important to them than sufficient competition because they believe the problems caused by gov't outweigh the value of their their fixes.

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
    4. Re:Donâ(TM)t feel for the communist by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Perhaps itâ(TM)s because conservatives and Libertarians are tired of being censored.

      Facebook is a private company. They can allow or disallow any activity on their platform. And that's how it should be.

      Vote with your wallet (or in the case of Facebook, your eyeballs). If you don't like what Facebook is doing, then stay away. If enough people do that then Facebook will get what they deserve. If most people don't give a shit what Facebook does, then that's really none of your (or my) business. It's not up to you (or me) to dictate what a private business does.

    5. Re: Donâ(TM)t feel for the communist by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Eh? FB is a public company. This whole hullabaloo is about their public traded stock price. Nothing private about it.

    6. Re:Donâ(TM)t feel for the communist by Feyshtey · · Score: 1

      Some libertarians don't really want capitalism in the sense of competition. If the big companies merged into one giant monopoly, they don't care, often believing other forces will eventually compensate or end the monopoly without gov't intervention.

      Regarding the bolded portion : Like competition enabled through true free markets? I'm not saying we have a truly free market. But that would be the ideal for real libertarians. But hell, we don't really have real libertarians anymore either so....

      --
      "But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
    7. Re: Donâ(TM)t feel for the communist by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This exactly. The same way that the ISPs and cell companies are private companies and can allow or disallow any speech that they want.

  6. Sucks for investors.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    but has facebook made our lives better? If it vanished tomorrow would it matter? Like tobacco companies?

    1. Re: Sucks for investors.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I gave up FB a year and a half ago. It sucked for a week. After that I didnâ(TM)t even think about it. All social media is a huge time suck.

    2. Re: Sucks for investors.. by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 0

      And yet here you are on /. whining about it. :-)

      *zing*

  7. Simpson: Nelson: Ha-Ha! by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Oh look, imaginary value dropped. Sucks to be you.

    When is the /. article for when Fuckerberg takes a shit?

    --
    Insecure children censor.
    Adults communicate about taboo subjects, and laugh.

  8. yay by phantomfive · · Score: 1

    Keep it up!

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  9. ...normally this would be a buy opportunity... by ole_timer · · Score: 2

    but not now

    --
    nothing to see here - move along
    1. Re: ...normally this would be a buy opportunity... by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      Why not? Do you hope Facebook will continue to shrink, as I do?

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    2. Re: ...normally this would be a buy opportunity... by ole_timer · · Score: 3, Informative

      know not hope...advertisers - the source of revenue for them - are running for the exits

      --
      nothing to see here - move along
  10. What a shame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But a good lesson in why you should not buy the stock of companies that violate your privacy and are run by Harvard jackasses.

  11. I hope they lose the rest too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    I hope they lose the rest too. Fuckerberg and all his cohorts filmed jumping out of high-rise windows to their death would be the best viral video in a decade.

  12. Political bias? by Tablizer · · Score: 0

    Perhaps it's because conservatives and Libertarians are tired of being censored.

    I've seen no clear evidence of systematic political censorship from "big social media" (BSM). Early on they didn't monitor internal "bouncers" very well which may have led to some direct political censorship, but after such slip-ups became public they cracked down on policy enforcement, and monitor the bouncers better.

    But there could be be indirect bias. Conservatives and libertarians tend to favor what I'll call "political incorrect" speech, while the owners of BSM tend to support a degree of PC such that speech that can be interpreted as borderline racist, excessively misogynist, or rude to LGBTQ's could trigger censorship.

    This is not direct political censorship such that just being right-leaning alone won't get you banned or down-voted. However, non-PC could, and non-PC is found more often in conservatives/libertarians.

    This PC-leaning view tends to reflect the owners. They are running private organizations, who technically can engage in censorship similar to how the owners of Fox News affect how and what their channel reports. They are free to form "Foxbook" and allow all the non-PC speech they want. (Mr. R. Murdoch tried the social media biz without success.)

       

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
    1. Re:Political bias? by Feyshtey · · Score: 1

      So if you don't conform to the appropriate language use as deemed required by left-leaning to very left political activists then censorship is justifiable but not political.
      Got it.

      --
      "But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
    2. Re:Political bias? by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure what you mean. How about an example.

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
  13. The Stock Market is Fucking Stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In other news, investors see a company continuing to grow in size, and concluded that it is actually failing.

    So fucking stupid...

    1. Re:The Stock Market is Fucking Stupid by Narcocide · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Oh, you think they're stupid? If you haven't figured out by now that stock prices are entirely based on wishful thinking then I've got some bad news for you...

  14. This has been another episode of... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Go Woke! Go Broke!

  15. Inverted by The+Evil+Atheist · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Headline should be: "Facebook suffers over-inflated stock prices for X years."

    --
    Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
    1. Re:Inverted by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Hey Schmuckerberg, I'll take the whole shithouse off your hands for ONE PENNY. US currency, CASH. Final offer.

    2. Re:Inverted by Dragonslicer · · Score: 1

      Headline should be: "Facebook suffers over-inflated stock prices for X years."

      Where X = 1? Even after this 20% drop, the stock price is still higher than it was a year ago.

  16. Facebook stocking stuffers? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Did anyone else mis-read the headline or is it just me?

  17. Tale that, Capitalism! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Someone had to say it.

    1. Re: Tale that, Capitalism! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      fuckin emarrassing dude

  18. No such thing as a market cap by goombah99 · · Score: 1, Insightful

    For large companies the notion of a market cap is fiction. If one defines market cap as shares outstanding times market price this number has no bearing on the sale value of the shares. Any attempt to sell a trillion dollars of stock at once would force the price to fall in the process of selling it. At that level the last shares might not even find a buyer at any positive price. Thus the market cap would be massively greater than the realizable market trade.

    Saying the market cap dropped by 119 billion is equally gibberish.

    If you disagree then you need to also realize that no one ever paid the market cap for all the outstanding stock. Most of it was bought at Lower prices. The integrated area of price by share histogram is far less than the market cap.

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
    1. Re:No such thing as a market cap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      For large companies the notion of a market cap is fiction. If one defines market cap as shares outstanding times market price this number has no bearing on the sale value of the shares. Any attempt to sell a trillion dollars of stock at once would force the price to fall in the process of selling it. At that level the last shares might not even find a buyer at any positive price. Thus the market cap would be massively greater than the realizable market trade.

      Saying the market cap dropped by 119 billion is equally gibberish.

      If you disagree then you need to also realize that no one ever paid the market cap for all the outstanding stock. Most of it was bought at Lower prices. The integrated area of price by share histogram is far less than the market cap.

      This comment is so stupid; it is not even wrong.

    2. Re: No such thing as a market cap by phantomfive · · Score: 2

      Well you are definitely wrong with your last point: when public companies get bought, the buyer usually pays MORE than the market cap. It is true that the stock wasn't all bought at the current price, but with a stock that is high volume like Apple, it still takes a huge infusion of cash to move the stock that much.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    3. Re: No such thing as a market cap by goombah99 · · Score: 1

      Right answer but wrong rationale for getting to the answer. Companies are never purchased for their stock market market cap. They are purchased because they company has some value, usually earnings capacity. A good rule of thumb is that the selling price of a value-oriented company (as opposed to a growth stock) is that about 10x it's earnings. that is the payback period (ignoring net present value) is about ten years. If the company has growth potential then the price should be higher. Thus to take an example, if the price to earnings ratio of a growing company is 16 then, it's also reasonable to pay at least 16 fold it's earnings.

      As it turns out that means it's value to you happens to be roughly the market cap plus a premium because the company probably has synergy for you making it worth more to you than to anyone else.

      And conveniently, paying more than the stock price is what is required to induce at least half the people to sell you their shares.

      You might wonder why it turns out to be so convenient that the market cap happens to be the purchase value of the company. And the answer is, to people who invest based on fundamentals that is how they decide to invest. And consequently the price to earnings ratio of a company tends to track the market cap in just that way. 10 fold P/E for an established profitable company and higher multiples for companies with either higher profits or higher expected growth is pretty normal (well not lately, but over time).

      So yes you got to the right answer. But the reason for it is not that stock value-- what people paid for that stokc initially-- is the market cap. When the price declines 119B did not get lost because it was never paid in the first place. And after the sale of a company, the value of that company should rise if it was a good investment so the new owners will also have paid less than the future market cap would be.

      point is no one paid the market cap on a growing stock it's a fiction. (now on a failing company that's different).

      --
      Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
    4. Re: No such thing as a market cap by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      Next time just say, "Oh, I was wrong, market cap is not entirely fiction."

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    5. Re:No such thing as a market cap by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      It's not as stupid as your punctuation.

      Semicolon - the new comma!

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  19. It's not a big deal by mysidia · · Score: 2

    They've lost a little less than one year of stock price increases --- which also happened before last year. If you were in on Jun 1, 2017 then you still have a slight gain, and if you were in before that date you still have a huge gain.

    This is just a 18% bump down, and chances are it will recover back up from bad news ---- such minor retracements happen all the time, and it's not too significant, as long as it doesn't continue dropping... time will tell.

    1. Re:It's not a big deal by CaffeinatedBacon · · Score: 1

      18% is a minor retracement? 1 years increase dropped in one day is 'not too significant'?
      I've got this bridge I'd be will to let you take off my hands for the right price.

    2. Re:It's not a big deal by CaffeinatedBacon · · Score: 1

      willing

    3. Re:It's not a big deal by mysidia · · Score: 2

      On on 10/2/2017, Facebook was at $172/Share, On 3/26/2018, Facebook was at $157.20/Sh, Today they're at $173/Share.

      Yes.... so far this looks like a minor retracement; we'll see in a few weeks if they recover or if this may be the start of a new trend,
      but we don't see that there's some super major event.

    4. Re:It's not a big deal by CaffeinatedBacon · · Score: 1

      It's not like it was the biggest loss in stock market history or anything...except it was.

    5. Re:It's not a big deal by mysidia · · Score: 1

      It was not the biggest loss in stock market history; that's just flagrantly incorrect. I would suggest you go do more research.

    6. Re:It's not a big deal by CaffeinatedBacon · · Score: 1

      It was the biggest daily loss in stock market history
      You could maybe argue it's only due to inflation. Intel's daily loss of $90 Billion in 2000 would be bigger in inflation adjusted terms for example.
      But to argue it's only a "minor retracement" is just pants on head retarded.

  20. GA.A by AncalagonTotof · · Score: 1

    One down. Next ?

    --
    Totof
  21. Re: Assange belongs in the gutter by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm pretty sure your type would call that "collateral damage".

  22. Still overvalued by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It still has a long way to go before the price is real.

  23. Question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What's 'Facebook'?

    1. Re:Question by MerlTurkin · · Score: 1

      A site for attention whores and drama queens. You're welcome. P.S., I'm not on facebook. Fuck facebook.

  24. Bitcoin by geekymachoman · · Score: 1

    For a second there .. .I thought it's Bitcoin news !

    But then I checked the comments... and not one bitter genius said "but it's fake value - SO IT'S SHIT YOU STUPID PUTTING YOUR MONEY IN BTC HAHAHA IT'S NOT REAL!1".

    Good. Thank you for letting me know this is real.

  25. FB will continue its slide by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Zuckerberg has been selling off his FB stock quite a bit these last months, and it makes me wonder if he knew something would happen.
    https://www.zerohedge.com/news...

    Whaddaya know, FB, Google and Twitter were in a congressional hearing on censorship and has been caught "shadow banning" pretty much every conservative voice (supposedly by preventing 95% of the users that would normally see their posts from appearing on their wall/feed/recommendations), including Donald Trump, almost every republican politician (but not John McCain), Fox News, the NRA and especially Alex Jones. Apparently conservative and libertarian opinions are far more mainstream than they would have you believe.

    Remember in October 2016 when r/The_Donald hit the front page of Reddit and it turned out to be a "bug"?

    Reddit admin /u/redtaboo said, âoeMy understanding is a database update caused the process that updates /r/all to stop working properly, the long and short of it is that /r/the_donald is incredibly active voting wise, so when the algorithm [that] sorts /r/all brokeâ¦that subreddit was the one to be pulled into the vortex.â

    âoeThe /r/all algorithm doesnâ(TM)t single out any specific subreddits, but it does make it so no single subreddit can take over completely,â they explained. âoeThe_Donald happens to be incredibly active voting wise (more so than larger subreddits) so when things broke the posts in that subreddit were the ones most actively being voted on and got picked up.

    Of course it was a bug, a bug in the software that was preventing the regular Reddit users from realizing how popular Trump is. Before a major election.

    Twitter engineers have also been caught on camera saying that they prevent posts involving the second amendment, the flag, and a few other terms, from being seen by others.
    https://www.projectveritas.com...

    Time to abandon ship and replace all social media with an open source alternative.

  26. Potential Users by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Investors were spooked by Facebook's forecast showing that its number of active users is growing less quickly than expected,

    How many potential users are out there at this point? The IT Nerds such as myself tend to shun Facebook, but most people in the general population have an account on Facebook. There isn't much growth possible at this point. Everyone who wants an account already has one..

    1. Re:Potential Users by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Growth in third-world users.
      Growth in data mining? More spying means more accurate targeting means more money. I expect that soon they'll use dedicated hardware to crawl graphs, find correlations etc.
      Growth in, let's get more and more plumbers etc. shackled to their platform to do any work, and more and more clients having to use it to find a plumber, in more and more countries... Imagine they parasiting African countries like this. There'll be hundred millions of people coming to working age, and trillions dollars of economic growth in these countries.

  27. It's just PAPER by p51d007 · · Score: 1

    Unless you cash it in, you haven't "lost" anything. If you are a day trader or speculator, that's one thing, but Zuck hasn't "lost" anything unless he sells his shares.

  28. Not surprised by iampiti · · Score: 1

    I feel like an old fart regarding the social networks (37, heh) but it seems kids don't really use Facebook these days. If a social network loses its luster with the young people they're in deep trouble. Anyway, it may be just my perception but it seems most of my friends (25-45 age range) are losing it less than before.