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FaceBook: The Complete Forensic Post-Mortem
While much has already been written on the topic of peak valuation, social bubbles popping, and the ethical social utility of yesterday's historically overhyped IPO, nobody has done an analysis of the actual stock trading dynamics as in-depth as the following complete forensic post-mortem by Nanex. Because more than anything, those tense 30 minutes between the scheduled open and the actual one (which just happened to coincide with the European close), showed just how reliant any form of public capital raising is on technology and electronic trading. And to think there was a time when an IPO simply allowed a company to raise cash: sadly it has devolved to the point where a public offering is a policy statement in support of a broken capital market, which however is fully in the hands of SkyNet, as yesterday's chain of events, so very humiliating for the Nasdaq, showed. From a delayed opening, to 2 hour trade confirmation delays, virtually everyone was in the dark about what was really happening behind the scenes! As the analysis below shows, what happened was at times sheer chaos, where everything was hanging by a thread, because if FB had gotten the BATS treatment, it was lights out for the stock market. Well, the D-Day was avoided for now, but at what cost? And how much over the greenshoe FaceBook stock overallotment did MS have to buy to prevent it from tumbling below $30 because as Reuters reminds us, "had Morgan Stanley bought all of the shares traded around $38 in the final 20 minutes of the day, it would have spent nearly $2 billion." What about the first defense of $38? In other words: in order to make some $67 million for its Investment Banking unit, was MS forced to eat a several hundred million loss in its sales and trading division just to avoid looking like the world's worst underwriter ever? We won't know for a while, but in the meantime, here is a visual summary of the key events during yesterday's far less than historic IPO.
May 18 - The Facebook IPO
The first warning sign, was the delay in trading. Here's the status messages from Nasdaq for that day.
The first 4 charts are 5 second interval charts of Facebook showing the first hour and 15 minutes of quotes and trades.
Chart 1. NBBO (National Best Bid or Offer) Spread. Black: bid < ask (normal), Yellow: bid = ask (locked), Red: bid > ask (crossed)all bids and offers color coded by exchange.
Chart 2. Best bids and offers (NBBO) color coded by exchange.
Chart 3. All bids and offers color coded by exchange.
Chart 4. All trades color coded by exchange.
The next 4 images are tick charts showing quotes and trades. How to read these charts
Chart 5. The first seconds of trading.
Chart 6. The first seconds of trading, continued.
Chart 7. Suddenly, a vacuum appears and produces a record 12,285 trades in 1 second.
Chart 8. Same as above, showing just Nasdaq.
The next 2 charts (10 second interval) show how Nasdaq's quote stopped, but trades from Nasdaq did not (direct feeds must have been fine, but not the consolidated).
Chart 9. Nasdaq Bids and Offers along with NBBO.
Chart 10. Nasdaq Trades
The next 2 charts (20 millisecond interval) show the effect when Nasdaq's quote returned. There were two significant gaps in quotes (for all exchanges) and 1 significant gap in trades.
Note how the gap in trades is not at the same time as the gaps in quotes.
Chart 11. All bids and offers color coded by exchange.
Chart 12. All trades color coded by exchange.
The next chart (5 millisecond interval) shows the result of the blast in trades and quotes when Nasdaq's quote returned. Trades printed at least 900 milliseconds before quotes, an impossibility if orders are being routed according to regulations. We have jokingly referred to this anomaly as fantaseconds.
Chart 13. Nasdaq bids and offers (triangles), Nasdaq trades (circles) and NBBO (gray/yellow/red shading).
The next 2 charts (500 millisecond interval) detail the HFT Tractor Beam area where coincidentally or not, Nasdaq quotes began "sputtering" right before stopping for about 2 hours.
Chart 14. NBBO Spread and quote rate from all exchanges.
Note the flat lines at the bottom. Also note how the quote rate (lower panel) surges when prices rise above the flat line, which is what we would expect. However, on Nasdaq (next chart)..
Chart 15. NBBO Spread and quote rate from just Nasdaq.
When prices rise above the flat line, quotes from Nasdaq stop, exactly opposite of expected behavior and what we see from other exchanges at that time (see chart above).
And finally, Nanex on the fallout:
During the FaceBook's failed IPO opening period (11 - 11:30) and shortly after the trading began, bad prices (spikes) began appearing in other stocks, including symbols APPL, INTU, NFLX, PDCO, QCOM, QLD, UST and ZNGA. They also occurred in Facebook during the first 15 minutes of trading (see Chart 4 on this page). There are likely other stocks that were affected. In nearly all of these cases the price spikes were executing against quotes that were far outside the NBBO. Most of these executions occurred on the CBOE, and a few on Chicago and AMEX. Fortunately, by chance, the prices were not wide enough to trigger circuit breakers in these stocks.
We think these bad price executions are related to whatever issues Nasdaq was having in facebook and probably are from errors in routing software. A similar thing happened during BATS failed IPO in AAPL and other stocks.
Chart 1. AAPL

Chart 2. NFLX

Chart 3. QCOM

Chart 4. QLD

Chart 5. UST

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My favorite song of all time -- thanks!
Muppets:Come play with us.
Ultimately the US taxpayer will pay investment banks for the FB losses, which only makes sense as FB is a CIA operation.
You think the team assigned the job of sticksaving bought and held?
Balderdash!
So... do ya still think we'll look back on 2012 and think about the Facebook IPO?
Oh yeah...we'll be reminded of it every time it does a reverse split.
*Listening to The Doors "the end", hoping for the worst.*
P/E ratio about 208...no way FB is overpriced! :----------------)
Anyone who buys into the FB bullshit as a user or an owner is a fucking dumb ass that deserves what's coming. The fucking company isn't worth anything past the hardware and real estate they own. Everything else is based on the dumb asses who use it (unemployed and stupid).
The only usefulness I've had for it in the past was spying on my kid. The girl NEEDS a PR manager. Thankfully she's not using it as frequently as she used to. A trend?
unemployed, stupid.... and housewives. Enough with the baby pics already.
The REAL IPO of FB took place more than a year ago. Hundreds of insiders and thousands of "qualified investors" already got their shares. The public IPO was just so they could unload their shares onto the suckers. Anyone who was paying attention knew this would happen.
Who are the suckers?! People are not buying these stocks. Institutions are doing it with other people's money. It's all rigged.
The BANKSTERS are using almost FREE FED DISCOUNT MONEY to buy that $12Bil+ in $38.00 stock, stop these bastards from access to free gambling money! http://tinyurl.com/7nb95q5
Now, they will UPGRADE IT, to dump those shares.
Next phase is probably big banks and hedge funds start cannibalizing among themselves because there are few other players aka suckers left. Algo vs. Algo
As predicted. This is going to be great.
Algo Vs Algo, place your bets!
I think my Facebook account is still active,Soon Facebook will become a ghost town.
The NASDAQ100 is looking very bearish these days.
It's hard to believe that FB would be able to out perform its index.
http://bullandbearmash.com/index/nasdaq/daily/
Would not be surprised to see one of those miraculous gaps up's on Monday.
Facebook? Who has time for Facebook? I spend all of my time on Zerohedge.
At least ZH offers viewpoints and education
and avatars and drugs and international intrigue...
...and chart porn!
1 Word... SAD!
Trading Inside Days: http://capital3x.com/think-tank/weekend-lesson-in-trading-inside-days/
Monday will be interesting.
Can you imagine being one of the herd of FB eoployees that thinks they're a multi-millionaire on paper yet has to wait to sell any stock until the lock up period ends?
From Market Watch http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2012/05/17/facebook-shortens-lock-u...
“Facebook has an usually short lock-up period with the free float now expected to increase by 55% after just 91 days (equates to $10 bn worth of stock at high-end of current IPO range), with the free float more than doubling before the traditional 180 lock-up period expires,”
As a reminder...
Classic!!!
Don't know if you caught Henry Blodget's take on CNBC yesterday morning. I had this freaky sensation that I should be recording it for prosperity to show in the future when FB trades as a penny stock at some point. It really was amazing the hype being thrown at this thing. Truly a take on where were at in world history, in terms of wall-street and society in general. Zuck's going to learn quickly that wall-street has no patience or interest in his social world vision if he can't produce numbers. Of course, he can always take it private now that he has the money to buy it back .... Hmm ..... maybe he is a genius after all!
Failed Facebook IPO is soon to cause the US stock market to face-plant.
What does Facebook do again? Just askin
Monitor and spy on social movement. NSA
Facilitate mental masturbation while spying, kind of like KY-Jelly and a camera - but different.
Quoting Mark Zuckerberg after the close..."Who cares?"
I wonder how much of Zuckerman's new found wealth used to be student loan money.
Here's what I saw just before the close. This must have been MS saying "Come on, let's see what you got." It was as high as 29,000,000 shares at one point all of them at 38.00 exactly. This was just a few minutes before the close.
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B51-74tGswAXdGNUSWF5V3FuaEE
It's called hi tech money laundering done right in plain sight.
Pay close attention. I know everything I need to about facebooks future and I learned it from my 17 year old last night when I started to tell her that facebook was now on the stock market. She bluntly said "FACEBOOK IS DEAD, MOM". She says "there is way too much bullshit on there now and they keep changing it so it sucks".
LOL...glad to hear that sanity prevails over pop culture.
I have never FB'd and never intend to. My kids have both already killed their FB accounts as well because of the privacy issues...without me even telling them anything about it.
Hopefully FB will rise to 80 or 100 a share or more, so that we can all enjoy a good short opportunity.
You can comfort her on Monday night by telling her Faceplant is no longer on the stock market.
LOL she'll be fine either way!
lol
I'm actually a trader in a smaller firm and was practically laughing my ass off the desk all morning. We all knew this was going to be a clusterfuck. Our firms retail orders, if they were executing at all, were getting filled some 30-60 minutes after being entered. Our clients must have been thrilled with those $43 fills....initially. ARCA was the only routing that was functional on our end as our own MPID would never get near the inside owing to smaller size. EDGX & AUTO were both unable to fill (AUTO presumably because they themselves route to others).
INET, MAXM & UBSS were disasters. Their MPIDs spent much of the day at 4200 & 750 bid, or more closely later, at 42 bid, but all the same, their quotes were crossing or locking the market most of the day. Trading continued apace even with these huge discrepancies. Watching this on my U2 Terminal was a blast as sellers were chipping away at one sided stabilization bids (which, btw, will be ongoing for 30 days or until they shatter $38 decidedly and MS retreats) only to watch ECNs throw up increasingly bigger bids to support this turd. I watched selling outpace buying at one point where only a couple of 300K share bids separated them from a $37.99 tick.
Either way, I saw firsthand how close this turd was to getting flushed. Some of the more mindless traders on our desk had ample time to get filled at low $38s but neglected to take profit when it moved back up. They were crowing about their trading prowess and speculating on selling it at $300 months from now. I shit you not - I heard one trader (an otherwise amazing MM) declare that he would be laughing last as he bailed out north of $300. Needless to say, I was chuckling to myself as it struggled to hold $38 by EOD.
They were crowing about their trading prowess and speculating on selling it at $300 months from now.
Farcebook is a $3 stock at best. They produce nothing.
It's Wall Street cashing in on a fad. MS makes 67 million for underwriting a fad stock soon to be a penny stock?
Imagine how much money brokers made friday in all the frenzy.
Wall Street desparately needs trading revenue as most retail investors flee these manipulated markets.
I don't understand half your technical jargon, I'm not a stock trader, but I know large brokers have become predators ready to pounce on unsuspecting buyers, like pushing this FarceBook ponzi.
38 for a penny stock stock that shouldn't even be a stock, certainly not on any big exchange.
38 on nothing but hype.
Amazing.
that first defense of $38...watching time&sales info flying by on my screen with NO ALLOWED dip below IPO price...whatta moment to buy. I knew it was being defended and knew it would rally back to $40.
some folks musta made out like bandits. I mean, other than FBuckerberg©.
Yes, and with no risk, algos buying 24 million at 38.0 and selling at 38.07.
A cool million at least knowing you are the first in, first out, and doing it in a range the humans don't register.
My my my...how we all just want everyone to FAIL.
A bunch of unemployed or under-employed disgruntled ex-wall street guys who soooo badly want everyone else to suffer along with them. Tear down the whole system. Lynch the Bankers. Kill everyone. Nothing would please you more if Facebook sold off to $10 on Monday and if all the underwriters lost billions in the process. You guys really sound like you actually WANT the Dow or S&P to collapse by a good 30% or more, and that you actually WANT unemployment up at 25%, and the dollar to collapse, and for the US to be plunged into a 30 year Depression. Wouldn't it just be soooo great if all these evil corporations went bankrupt and the US went thru a Zimbabwe-style hyperinflation. And yet, when you want a loan then the goddamm bank better be there for you! You go out and buy your Nike sneakers and your iPods, and eat your McDonalds and drink your Starbucks, and yet still do nothing but whine & complain about the immoral money-grubbing corrupt capitalistic system we have. And then you go and vote into power the very same frikkin idiots that created this whole mess. And then you get onto blogs and vent your anger & frustration, and shout for Jamie Dimon's head on a spike.
careful what you wish for, my friends....
do you think that it is possible to want a rational and fair market and at the same time not want the existing market to fail? just wondering....
Toorichtoocare cares just enough to not want to see his Starbucks taken away.
If this thing collapses as it should mr toorichtoocare is going to have to care in order to survive.
Sounds Like a crybaby that doesn't mind corruption as long as he is toorichtocare.
Our society is fucking evil.
It rapes people's savings who spend their life working making real goods that people need and use.
It rewards those that provide nothing of value.
It enables leaches to suck off the system both by government force and through corrupt financial instruments.
It bombs countries and kills children in order to make it easie for corporations to take resources from other peoples lands.
We drape ourselves in shit, maggots and rotten flesh an say it's freedom, honor and integrity.
The whole system is evil and deserves to crash and be shattered into a billion pieces.
If you, do not speak truth to power you are culpable. To remotely support this system is to support evil.
Work is for suckers now. Back in the days you had to invest in real companies with real R&D to just get a modest return. Now everyone is chasing after outsized quarterly returns. Silicon Valley is a ghost town outside of social networking startups, which are just glorified Web 2.0 websites. Facebook is worth more than Boeing, which actually had changed the world (like lifting hundreds of people against gravity in a giant metal tube safely and cheaply) far more than Facefuck could ever do. The funding for ground breaking engineering and medical research are all drying up.
CEO of Aetna makes $22 million a year, which could employ 200 pediatricians or 100 surgeons. It's not like physicians are janitors or low skilled.
I like your anger, in spite of which, you make some very good points.
Loved your rant brother
"It's not like physicians are janitors or low skilled".
If I believe what I read about the difficulty of graduates getting jobs in the US, I even some janitors are highly educated.
DavidC
Edison said that the people that make the most money in business are not the creators of anything. It's the parasitic class that gets it all. Look at any industry. The Big Money always goes to token leaders and money changers.
Hey FUKWAD ...
The planet IS in a 30 year depression ...
The unemployment rate IS 25% ...
http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts
unless you live in Spain or Greece ...
Where it IS close to 50%.
Nike: i wear slippers
Ipod: Blackberry
McDonalds: i eat Beefjerky for breakfast, lunch and dinner
Starbucks: No zionist coffee, canuck tim FTW
And i vote for Ron Paul Mother Fucker.
When oil companies consider their retail outlets, that sell a real product to real consumers in the real market place, a loss leader that they tolerate so that they can flip their raw materials in the caputured government guaranteed safe commodities market you know the end is nigh. Kill the MRFs now so that the restart of the real markets can reignite now.
Titsuckers like you who don't declench their teeth even when the tit is attached to a dead cold corpse get what they deserve.
Golf clap...clap...clap...
No let's continue to support a society where merit/integrity/rationality have no bearing on outcomes. I like livingin in a country where the whim and caprice of the wealthy dictate all policy and allow the aforementioned strata to live under a different rule of law. Jaime Dimon getting flogged wouldn't be such a bad thing at all. By stealing from the public, you take away their liberty and time which has a very quantifiable price. Understand the following notion: stealing is tantamount to killing. Everything has a price, life, death, theft and all betwixt and between. Why would I want to the S&P to rise when all it does is perpetuate a system that tends toward genocide (look at the US). As an American, you might not be in a gulag but surely you are imprisoned by a system that is designed to rob you of your liberty.
No let's continue to support a society where merit/integrity/rationality have no bearing on outcomes. I like livingin in a country where the whim and caprice of the wealthy dictate all policy and allow the aforementioned strata to live under a different rule of law. Jaime Dimon getting flogged wouldn't be such a bad thing at all. By stealing from the public, you take away their liberty and time which has a very quantifiable price. Understand the following notion: stealing is tantamount to killing. Everything has a price, life, death, theft and all betwixt and between. Why would I want to the S&P to rise when all it does is perpetuate a system that tends toward genocide (look at the US). As an American, you might not be in a gulag but surely you are imprisoned by a system that is designed to rob you of your liberty.
Nice to have some muppet, tuned into "our WANTS"- Given your handle I feel better knowing that you care about what we WANT.
Respectfully,
TooPoortoGIVEAFUCKWHATMUPPET'STHINK.
real unemployment is 25% pal. and i think you came to the wrong blog - because the people here generally abhor mass stupidity and consumption - i.e. nikes and i-crap. see you equinox tomorrow having your nails done?
Your name is "TooRichtoCare" yet you come on here and post such a long, thoughtless response why?
I thought you were to rich to care?
I'd beat the shit out of you.
Sorry bitchez, I rehypothecated my post.
My my my...how we all just want everyone to FAIL.
No wanting needed, a ponzi scheme fails on its own eventually, and that's what Wall Street has become, just a bunch of ponzi schemes, artificial bubbles that burst eventually.
But suckers never learn.
Ditto for the government, ponzi scheme after ponzi scheme everywhere you look, everything artificial, everything manipulated to look good, no reality anywhere, everybody living in a fantasy.
Sorry MS. Better call your secretaries and cancel those weekend reservations in the Hamptons. You're not going to get any sleep this weekend anyway.
All the propping makes $38 look like $0.
Remember BAC going below $5?
Citi at $1?
Now there is some QE3 material.
after hours 38 to 41.5 spike was epic
must slam penis in window after this, BiCheZ!
tyler, you make this soo,000,OOO HOT!
keep drinking! L0L!!! and thxz!
Greedy bastards getting what they deserve for trying to value it to infinity on opening day. They could have valued it conservatively and still been rich beyond everyone's wildest dreams but they had to try to push it to a super bubble. Now we all get to see what the fair value of this company really is. My guess...Not very much. I still have never logged onto this stupid site and wouldn't want my info posted on it for these jackels to sell.
one would think that of 100 men and women who followed zH ideals and either sold, shot, or launced their TV from a high building, not more than 1 would ever have fuked with this bullshit in the first place
even paulKrassner bailed a year ago, didn't he? it got too weird for him b/c he was actually "hacked" there? Hahaha!
thus proving, even in the postmodern fascistHowdyDoodyShow, too much is still enough
seriously, just the name isn't positive or uplifting. facebook. like neckface. or fuckface. or fuckbook. somehow, it just has nothing elegant or pleasant about it. i had an account which i liked because i'm old and once a month or so, one of my friends would post something to all of us rather send an email. but the day six months ago i saw on the tv 'put your whole life on facebook' i shut it down.
and dear mr. gonzo - the greedy bastards won, even if the stock goes way down. ms and gs and jp and the others don't lose a penny even if it goes to zero. they aren't stoopid. we are. especially the ones that use it.
this is a post with a lot of yourself in it, so thxz
yes, many people wanted to "try" it
a friend i met online a few years ago had been widowed a few years before; and she was having a terribly rough time of it, grieving him after 35 pretty cool years kicking some serious ass together. i told her i thought she would need at least the "full five years". her 35 y.o. son "put mom on fB b/c he tought it would 'help' her move along". surprise!
everything about fB's business is so "innocent", it's enuf to send chills up a pirate's spine
tyler, at least, gets to the black helicopters as "suggested reading" before his victims sign up
Naw, better to simply abandon facebook altogether.
Faceplant!
It seems the HFT algo's are outstripping Nasdaq's ability to report real data. Welcome to the electron wars.
Is Morgan a cursed name? Maybe need to be called JP-S-Goldman.
M. Organ
CapitalAccount
http://www.youtube.com/capitalaccount
Chris Whalen Drops the F-Bomb on Wall Street while sounding the Bankruptcy Alarm!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z29rE2J01DI (28:07)
Facebook's IPO Bombs, while "Hot" Tech Company's Cook the Books!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1PWlUlAFAk (28:02)
i can imagine chart 3 tracing the path of a ball coming out of hand...falling to a table, rolling off the table...falling to the ground...then starting to levitate...
OMG FB ISO SOL LOL
Reaction - Cartman Laughing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3id-Fb8ooY (0:04)
As long as it's bankers harmed and not Main Street, no one on Main Street cares. The sun will rise in the morning for the rest of the year.
"Muppet Bait", a Greg Smith 'Classic' ___ GS sell 50% stake of FB holdings, et.el.! Why?
FB revenue from what? Advertising... undetermine opportunity - What? Ref: http://www.leadingtrader.com [5/18/12] __ Facebook IPO: The 5 Biggest Risks with Facebook Stock
thankyou tyler
bacon flavored
fiat paper
If it had bacon flavour, it would edible, and worth something....New Canadian polymer $100 smell like maple syrup, I kid you not. Smell like a stack of pancakes, however a little difficult chewing up the plastic, and the flavour sucks.
CC
I have to agree with the general consensus about what FB produces. Sorry, anything beyond ad-clicks (which evinced by GM is nearly non-existent) and selling their users data is a non-productive activity. It doesn't matter who can reach who, we already have email, pervasive cell networks, general internet connectivity -- what is so unique and interesting about Facebook that merits mega-valuations?
Its merely a marketing platform masquerading as a conduit for caring humans to exchange well-wishes and such. The kids know it, and have pulled out - when grandma is on Facebook, its time to bail after all. Add that in with whatever < insert fad > that comes next, the quarterly reports coming out of Facebook in the future will be decidedly grim.
As for Monday the 21st, I say we'll see a pop of last support/exhaustion before shattering the 38.00 once and for all. The faster the air is let out of this pig, the better off we'll all be as even the mainstream financial news won't be able to whitewash such obvious and abject failure.
Bring on the ticker, can't wait to see what it does. Thanks again ZH for being the best of the best.
williambanzai7 -
How'bout the scene from 'Platoon'...
"Squid-One to Fed...WE GOT SELLERS ALL ALONG THE WIRE!!! WHAT ARE YOUR INSTRUCTIONS, CAN WE FALL BACK!"
"NEGATIVE SQUID-ONE... YOU ARE TO HOLD 38 AT ALL COST! DO YOU COPY SOLDIER?!"
"Fed to Squid-One...?
Breaking News:
This afternoon, President Obama has addressed a small group of MSM muppets stating; by no uncertain circumstance will Facebook {FB} fail. Our administration is presenting an emergency plan to offer Facebook the necessary stimulus to build new jobs & growth in America. Let me be clear, all American’s should invest in progressive companies to pioneer collective growth in moving this country Forward.
bwahahahaha
President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho would be proud.
And now, on the violence channel, another episode of "Ow, my balls!".
Illegitimate is as illegitimate does.
I am not going to touch FB with a 10-feet pole until the dust settles.
Insiders still have a lot of time to dump. Look at Groupon, it has dropped 60% from its IPO and it is still valued at $7 billion.
If somebody didn't play you in the movie Social Network you probably wont make a whole lot of money on this stock
Zynga was halted..
Not only does failbook not produce anything productive but they are responsible for sapping real production out of the American and I'm sure, global worker production time. How many man and woman hours a week do you think are lost these days because people in their cubicles and offices and plants and ect ect ect are checking their status?? It is anti productive and should be charged as such for the real gdp they drain out of America each year.
This is exchange wars saying ipo with a specialist market structure!
Clear and simple
I suppose real life can be too heavy for the Facebook community. It is definitely too heavy for the management. Check out this article in the Daily Mail about deceased newborn Grayson James Walker. FB pulled the photos and disabled the poor mother's account.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2146588/Mothers-fury-Facebook-re...
This type of censorship reveals what FB really wants: a numb feel-good Disney environment in which to browse party pics. Don't get too heavy or your gone.
Ritholtz has a piece on the scramble for muppet paperwork. See, muppets usually don't get a piece of the IPO pie:
"Given all the regulatory changes of the past few years, clients now need to certify their eligibility to participate in the IPO market. Yes, really, they do. A copy of the form they need to sign and submit can be found here. Well, guess what? Since retail syndicate has more or less become a running joke, no one had these forms on file. Hilarity ensued, as brokers emailed these forms to clients, who signed them and got them back (via fax or scan/email). They then had to be signed off on at both a local level and in document control, which was quickly overwhelmed to the point of multi-hour delays in processing."
Invictus on Ritholtz:
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2012/05/syndicate-if-you-can-get-it-run-the-other-way/
FaceFucked....
Listening to Kaminsky crow about all the legacy Smith Barney brokers at Morgan Stanley who were able to get so much stock for their retail accounts was the first clue this was a POS from the first trade. These brokers who were paid to dump the shares into the clients accounts at the IPO apparently will NOT GET PAID on the commissions generated to sell these sharew within so many days even if the client wants out immediately.
What a mess. Google's dutch auction would have been great for the clients but IPO's aren't about shareholders, only insiders selling their shares to the sheep.