Facebook Goes Public

If there has ever been a sure thing in the world of investing it is that Facebook, the social media king of planet Earth, at least in the short term, is going to make investors tons of money with its stock offering today. The company is going to become a publicly traded corporation today with its IPO (initial public offering). Look for the stock to soar straight up on its opening day and to be worth ten times its offer price in the near future.

Look at Amazon, Google, and Apple. Facebook is at least as hot as these companies and they are valued in the hundreds of dollars per share of stock. Sure these companies sell actual product, but Facebook has found a working business model and it is a product that consumers love to use, despite its ill-conceived (and I say doomed) Timeline redesign.

Facebook is slated to offer shares of its stock in the $35 to $38 dollar range, but the price won't be there for long. Buy this stock early.

Moving Money Around

I'm not a money expert, but if you've moved money out of the stock market because of large short term losses and you have placed it into CDs or savings accounts to prevent it from further hemorrhaging, you may not be doing yourself any favors. Why? Because inflation and low interest rates will steal its value.

At this time (Spring 2009), the annual inflation rate is pretty close to zero, (as are bank interest rates) but the inflation rate won't be naught for long. As the economy warms back up, inflation numbers will start to rise again and it's a good bet that the way the Federal Reserve is printing money (diluting the dollar's value) that inflation will shoot up into the double digits as it did during Jimmy Carter's tenure as president. Rising oil prices alone, because of oil's thorough union with all aspects of the economy, could cause inflation to rear its ugly head sooner rather than later. And just about anything these days could cause oil prices to rise, as it seems there is a potential trigger a day lately.

Convert the investment dollars into gold or other tangible goods, or buy back into the stock market while it is on the way back up. Stay away from Chrysler and GM stocks though. Yikes. Talk to an investment advisor before taking any action with a significant amount of money.