Technology, Ipo | featured news

Nasdaq OMX and SharesPost will join to create a new exchange that will allow accredited investors to buy private-company shares. The move reflects the competition and new landscape these market-makers face--particularly whether interest in pre-IPO stocks will fade now that Facebook shares trade publicly.

Massachusetts' securities regulator fined Morgan Stanley $5 million over its handling of Facebook's IPO, saying investment bankers had "improper influence" over the research analysts covering Facebook.

Bharti Airtel's mobile-tower unit plans to raise around $800 million by selling a 10% stake via an initial public offering next month... Bharti Airtel, India's largest mobile-phone-services company by revenue and users, and other investors in the mobile-tower unit are looking to capitalize on improving foreign sentiment toward India. This follows steps announced by the federal government in September, aimed at encouraging foreign investment in sectors like retail and insurance.

Foursquare is having troubles convincing investors that its valuation shouldn't shrink, a sign of a cooling toward social media startups in the wake of Facebook's messy initial public offering.

San Francisco-based online real-estate listing firm, Trulia, is expected to begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange this coming Thursday, Sept. 20, under the ticker, TRLA, according to a report. The company plans to sell 6 million shares with a price range of between $14 and $16 a share.

China's Alibaba Group said it bought back half the stake Yahoo Inc owned in the company for about $7.6 billion, moving closer to an initial public offering.

Tech investors are sidling up to the bar again after the "Facebook hangover," only this time they are minding their P's and Q's. "In a sense, the tech IPOs are back," said Francis Gaskins, president of IPODesktop.com. Only seven tech or Internet companies have gone public since Facebook's IPO; by comparison, Gaskins said now there are 20 technology companies in the IPO pipeline. The difference is that the offerings are smaller and priced to lure institutional investors rather than emotion-driven retail investors.

The stock market operates in mysterious ways. Yelp shares are actually trading sharply higher this morning, despite the expiration of the company's post-IPO lock-up period. As I noted earlier, the stock had lost about a third of its value in anticipation of today's event; for reasons that are not entirely clear, the stock has responded to the news with a major rally.

UBS decried a proposal from Nasdaq to make up losses for firms damaged in the Facebook stock-market debut, joining a growing chorus of Wall Street players that are calling on regulators to reject the exchange operator's plan.

Facebook's beleaguered stock has lost more than half of its value since its initial public offering three months ago. Facebook Inc. hit a new low of $18.75 before bouncing back to $19.01 - down 4 cents - in morning trading Monday. The social networking icon's much-anticipated IPO turned sour amid technical problems on the NASDAQ stock market and high expectations. The stock has not surpassed its $38 IPO price since its first trading day.