Jim Cramer on Facebook's Pricing
We also need to see earnings be smooth -- and the last major company that talked was Salesforce.com(CRM) with a 38% revenue growth rate, astounding for a multi-billion-dollar company. Plus, Salesforce CEO Mark Benioff confirmed to me that Europe was a major positive because of some huge contract wins, including with Vodafone(VOD) .
So we have a decent backdrop, for certain.
But we also need to see the frenzy die down -- and that, well, that's not going to happen.
So if we balance the über-exuberance of Facebook with the über-depression of an oversold stock market, maybe -- just maybe -- we'll get a decent day. Of course, that sure hasn't been the case on many Europe-dominated Fridays.
Now, as for the parameters on Facebook: Many institutions are trying to get full positions on the deal. My understanding is that a lot of the buy guys got one-third of a position. There are those who want to be weighted for a big $100 billion-plus company who believe in the $2 earnings-per-share number for 2015, and they would be more than thrilled to pay roughly a 25x multiple -- higher than Google(GOOG) , lower than Salesforce.com. So I wouldn't be surprised, despite all the flipping and all of the stock supply, if we saw institutions paying up to $50.
If the price goes north of $50, I think they'll back away and that retail investors will control the opening. South of $50 and I bet you'll see some buying for a decently blended average. It would mean they didn't ratchet things up in price at the last minute, and that would be good news. It would eliminate institutions from saying, "It was high at the road show -- now it is ridiculous."
A $38 pricing, plus a $50 close, would give you a nice blended average of what point to which institutions might have feared the actual IPO deal would come.
Less than $40 and you will have real buyers, but people will be scared that it will break the syndicate.