The Nasdaq is down 43 points this morning, with Google (down $12) and RIMM (down $3) leading the charge down the hill, so to speak.
I think we’re seeing the first symptoms of anther false bottom, which sounds incredible after hearing from so many experts on Wall Street that the end of the recession/depression is near.
Not so, I’m afraid. George Soros, who smugly announced recently that he was “having a pretty good financial crisis”, threw more water on Wall Street’s little bonfire of late, saying that the U.S. dollar is nearing its final death throes and any recovery we might have will be thin and weak, and will stay that way for years.
Not exactly inspiring stuff, but it leans closer to the truth than the rose-colored glasses scenario that’s been painted by the bulls this month and last.
One tech sector that is looking decent today is online travel reservation companies.
Orbitz is up slightly (at $1.35 per share) after announcing that it will drop airline booking fees through May 31. That move followed on the heels of a similar gambit in March by rival Expedia. But any move to cut fees doesn’t really help shareholders, although it’s certainly good news for airline travelers. But anything to keep the reservations rolling in and all.
Elsewhere there are rumors out in California that Facebook is finally, seriously planning an initial public offering (IPO). CNN.com says that “the chatter around Silicon Valley (is on an IPO) after the social networking darling booted its chief financial officer. But an IPO would be risky given Facebook's business model is still unproven - unless it has a gun to its head.”
CNN says that the rumor is that the $240 million capital Facebook raised from Microsoft two years ago may have had strings attached that could force it to launch an IPO sometime soon. “That would explain why Microsoft's $240 million investment seemed to give the group such a massive valuation, at $15 billion,” CNN says.
Facebook may have given its hand away when it sent former CFO Gideon Yu packing this week, saying it wanted a new CFO with experience running a public company. Call me crazy, but that sounds like a company that’s ready to go public.
With an army of employees and private investors thirty for liquidity, it's only a matter of time.