Internet, Ipo | featured news

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.

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.

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.

Trulia, the operator of the Trulia.com real estate website, filed for a public stock offering Friday that could bring the company up to $75 million.

Facebook’s stock price reached a new low Thursday as shares of the world's largest social network fell below $20 for the first time, down by nearly half from its $38 initial public offering price.

Facebook is set to file a motion to consolidate all the shareholder lawsuits against the social network site, and is expected to place some blame on the Nasdaq for its botched IPO when it files the motion, the New York Times reported Thursday.