It is a bit of a historic moment of our times as Facebook goes public! The Wall Street Journal reports, Facebook priced its shares at apiece, for an IPO, that would make it the most valuable US company, at the time of its stock market debut. Facebook is valued at 4 billion, the biggest-ever valuation by an American company, at the time of its offering. Facebook’s IPO is set to raise .4 billion, becoming the second-largest US IPO of all time behind Visa Inc.’s 2008 offering, that brought in .65 billion. The company’s shares will begin trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market around 11 am Eastern Time, today with the symbol FB. Reuters reports, Leaders of major industrial economies meet this weekend to try to tackle a full-blown crisis in Europe where fears are growing that Greece could leave the euro zone bloc, threatening the future of the common currency. President Barack Obama, the G8 host, has urged European leaders repeatedly to do more to stimulate growth, fearing contagion from the euro crisis that could hurt the US economy and his chances of re-election in November. Bloomberg reports, Osiris Therapeutics, surged 15 percent in early trading, after the company said it won the world’s first approval, for a stem-cell drug, gaining clearance in Canada, to sell Prochymal, for a disease that can attack patients, who received bone-marrow transplants. Prochymal was approved for the treatment of acute graft versus host disease in children for whom steroids haven’t …
May 17 (Bloomberg Law) — Last week JP Morgan Chase acknowledged a trading loss of at least billion, fueling calls by some observers for more regulation of financial institutions. Chris Whalen, a Senior Managing Director at Tangent Capital Partner, tells Bloomberg Law’s Lee Pacchia that it was actually too much regulation that led to the loss. Jeff Madrick, a Senior Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, maintains instead that regulators need to clamp down on financial institutions if the dangers of such losses are to be minimized.
This morning, all of the major stock indexes around the world are trading lower. The catalyst for the decline comes as JP Morgan Chase & Co (NYSE:JPM) reports a $ 2 billion trading loss caused by the a trader known as the “London Whale.” Traders are now wondering if other firms have similar trading losses out there. Just last week, Prudential Financial Inc (NYSE:PRU) plummeted after reporting earnings. The company sited a large derivative trading loss as the reason for the poor earnings results. This news from JPM is now the second report by a major firm that has admittedly taken a large loss from derivative trading. JPM has been one of the most outspoken firms against the controversial Volker Rule which would eliminate banks from proprietary trading. Other leading financial equities such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE:GS), Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS), ProShares UltraShort Financials (ETF) (NYSEARCA:SKF) and BlackRock, Inc (NYSE:BLK) are all likely to be very volatile today.
