financials

Facebook is in some legal hot water.

Facebook and its underwriters have been hit with approximately 50 lawsuits over its troubled initial public offering, the Wall Street journal is reporting, citing lawyers working on the cases. To make matters worse, the Journal's sources say that the brokers and financial firms that pushed investors to buy Facebook shares could face arbitration claims from those same buyers.

According to the Journal, it had a chance to look through some of the lawsuits, and many of them take aim at Facebook and its chief underwriter, Morgan Stanley, for failing to adequately warn … Read more

Facebook shareholders are back at it.

The company's stock is down again this morning, dropping to a new low of $17.58. The shares have since climbed a bit to $17.70, which is still down 2 percent compared to their opening price of $18.06.

After going public in May for $38 a share, Facebook shares have plummeted. On Friday, Facebook was down 5.3 percent after BMO Capital Markets reduced its 12-month price target from $25 to $15.

"We expected investor attention to return to fundamentals after the technical challenges presented by lockup expirations over the … Read more

AOL shareholders are well on their way to collecting that $1.1 billion the company promised them.

AOL announced today that it has entered into a Stock Repurchase Agreement with Barclays Bank that will see the company buy back $600 million worth of shares. According to AOL, it will receive shares through the rest of the year, including 4 million that it'll get from Barclays by the end of the month.

According to AOL, Barclays will buy up its shares on the open market with the proceeds provided in the agreement.

The share repurchase agreement is part of a plan AOL announced back in June … Read more

Move over, Microsoft. Your record as the most valuable public company ever has been topped.

Apple today set a new mark as the most valuable publicly traded company of all time, reaching more than $622 billion in market capitalization, a measure of a company's stock price times the number of shares it has outstanding.

Microsoft had long held the record for the most valuable public company, having hit $618.9 billion at the end of 1999. Since then, the software giant has watched its market cap fall to its current $258.2 billion.

Apple reached the $600 billion market … Read more

The stock market is getting another home listing Web site.

Trulia today filed an S-1 Registration Statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, kicking off the process of holding an IPO and offering its shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "TRLA."

According to the documents filed with the SEC, Trulia generated $38.5 million in revenue last year, but lost $6.2 million. During the first six months of 2012, its revenue is way up, jumping to $29 million from $16.2 million during the same period last year. That said, the company … Read more

The first of Facebook's "lockups" has expired, meaning that insiders can start selling their stock. But so far, it appears that a flood of shares and a plummeting share price aren't in the offing for the social network.

In early-morning trading today, Facebook shares started out down about 5 percent to $20.15. It's by no means a reassuring performance, but things could have been much worse.

Today, 271 million shares were freed from their lockup, allowing insiders included in that grouping to sell as many of those pre-IPO shares as they'd like. However, … Read more

After examining Groupon's second-quarter financial report yesterday, showing increased revenue and a profit, some might think that the company is on the right track. Judging by investor reaction, however, that doesn't appear to be the case.

In early morning trading, Groupon shares are down a whopping 22.4 percent to $5.86. At its worst point so far this morning, Groupon's stock hit an all-time low of $5.80. At its current level, Groupon shares are down 71 percent since the beginning of the year.

Groupon yesterday announced that sales in the second quarter were up 45 percent year-over-year to land at $568.3 million. … Read more

Zynga is using stock options -- a retention tactic commonly used in startups before they go public -- to keep employees at the company, according to a new report.

Zynga CEO Mark Pincus has decided to issue stock options to all of the company's employees, The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday, citing sources. The move is a not-so-subtle attempt on Pincus' part to boost morale and keep employees, many of whom already hold stock in the game maker, from leaving and selling off their shares when able.

Since Zynga went public at $10 per share, the company's shares … Read more

Professional network LinkedIn is making some investors on Wall Street awfully happy.

In premarket trading this morning, LinkedIn shares were up over 10 percent to $102.90. In early morning trading, the company's stock has risen to $106.83, helping it to boost its market capitalization to over $11 billion. Since the beginning of the year, LinkedIn's shares are up 70 percent.

LinkedIn's strong showing today has resulted from its impressive performance during the second quarter. The professioinal network yesterday reported that it earned a $2.8 million profit during the second quarter on $228.2 million … Read more