[Premium] Daily commentary: On Facebook’s IPO, JPMorgan’s losses, Spain’s bank run and Greece’s exit

As always, I have a lot of links on Monday. Three or four stories have dominated the news in each market for the past week. In the US, it is about either JPMorgan Chase’s escalating losses, Facebook’s IPO or the general aimlessness of the market. In Europe, the dual stories are Greece and Spain. In Greece, the talk is of an imminent exit from the eurozone, while in Spain the question revolves around Spanish bank insolvency. Other news outside of the G8 has been pushed to the side

On JPM’s Dimon’s still unassailable position and Facebook as the new Yahoo

I spoke to Paul Waldie and Brian Milner of the Globe & Mail on BNN’s headline on Monday. The big story was JPMorgan Chase and the London Whale trades. JPMorgan Chase’s CEO Jamie Dimon, as the leading lobbyists for the hands-off regulatory approach for US banks, has become a lightning rod for criticism of too big to fail banks in the US. Even so, I think it’s unlikely that Dimon will be forced out of his position. We also talked about Yahoo and the oversubscribed Facebook IPO. They are going to have to execute really, really well to justify the IPO valuation

Facebook Snaps a $1-Billion Photo

“What made Instagram worth $1 billion to Facebook?”

When asked this question recently, I responded with an immediate, “Nothing.”

I’m not usually so terse or emphatic with my answers, as any longtime reader knows. But in this case, there really was nothing inherently valuable inside Instagram that made them worth the unbelievable sum Facebook agreed to pay. Yet they did it anyway. Clearly, there’s something missing from a traditional valuation analysis here

Leveraged Populists

The latest deals bring to mind the days of mega mergers and technology stocks of days gone by

News Links: Corzine Rebuffed Internal Warnings on Risks at MF Global

Financial news links for 6 December 2011 featuring stories on MF Global, Facebook, class divides and retail sales

Facebook Ads

Here’s a spoof video of how Facebook is monetising its site. Genius

Scoble: Problems at Twitter and Facebook give Google+ opening

Influential tech blogger Robert Scoble talked to Bloomberg earlier in the week about the social media scene. The main message I took away is that he believes Google+ is a successful product for Google which could spell trouble for Facebook and Twitter

The Internet’s Filter: Condemned to be Free?

Rick Bookstaber opines about a future world in which the flood of information being produced will be filtered by third parties like Facebook and Google with as yet unpredictable consequences for society. Perhaps these filters are just computationally more powerful versions of our own cognitive filters. But the filters are not under our control. We won’t understand how they are deciding what to allow through the filter for our consideration

Video: Larry Summers has the Winklevoss Twins’ number

I like how Summers’ prefaces it, noting his own notoriety for having a lot of swagger and then saying “Rarely, have I encountered such swagger, and I tried to respond in kind.”

Wadhwa, Kedrosky On Technology ‘Bubble’

Technology guru Vivek Wadhwa of Duke University and Paul Kedrosky, a noted investor and analyst in the tech and finance space debated whether there is a bubble in technology shares on Friday. The interview is very good, so I am posting it here

How to start an online social network from scratch

If you had to start an online social network from scratch, how would you do it

Andreessen: The market hates tech but is starved for growth

Marc Andreessen believes companies like Google and Apple are undervalued because “the market doesn’t like tech.” In his view, the recent popularity of tech companies does not constitute a bubble. Instead, he sees a market that is starved for growth