Facebook – equities’ death knell
Posted by seumasach on June 4, 2012
In Britain, the lack of equity investment was caused by the mass of government bonds available for investment after the Napoleonic Wars. The merchant banking system did not get around to carrying out share issues until the Guinness share issue by Barings in 1886. Instead it made its money by issuing bonds, diversifying into foreign government bonds initially and then reluctantly into railroad bonds.
See also: It came in with the bond markets and it will go out with the bond market
Martin Hutchinson
31st May, 2012
The Facebook initial public offering, with its combination of management arrogance, private equity greed and Nasdaq ineptitude, has certainly changed the atmosphere in the United States and global stock markets. The question is whether, like the ill-fated AOL-Time Warner merger of 2000, it has merely marked the peak of a temporary bubble or the final end of the equity investing cult among the ordinary public.
