Facebook Flop Cast a Pall Over IPO Markets

CHUY data by YCharts

Not surprisingly, Facebook sits at top of the worst performers list for the past six months. Excluding companies with market capitalizations below $100 million, the next worst performer is Dubai based specialty rice company Amira Natural Foods (ANFI), which was founded in 1915, and later became India's largest privately held rice company. Amira shares are down 23.5% since debuting last month at $10. This one is interesting on the surface, but I need to do some more digging.

Shares of packaging name Berry Plastics Group (BERY), which also went public last month, are down 13% since their debut. Berry is a $1.5 billion market cap company, with a considerable amount of debt; more than $4 billion. A laundry list of firms, including BofA/Merrill, Goldman, Citigroup, and Deutsche Bank initiated coverage of Berry this morning with buy ratings; but that debt load is a bit too hefty for me.

Stay tuned.

At the time of publication the author held no positions in any of the stocks mentioned.

Follow @JonMHellerCFA

This article is commentary by an independent contributor, separate from TheStreet's regular news coverage.

Jonathan Heller, CFA, is president of KEJ Financial Advisors, his fee-only financial planning company. Jon spent 17 years at Bloomberg Financial Markets in various roles, from 1989 until 2005. He ran Bloomberg's Equity Fundamental Research Department from 1994 until 1998, when he assumed responsibility for Bloomberg's Equity Data Research Department. In 2001, he joined Bloomberg's Publishing group as senior markets editor and writer for Bloomberg Personal Finance Magazine, and an associate editor and contributor for Bloomberg Markets Magazine. In 2005, he joined SEI Investments as director of investment communications within SEI's Investment Management Unit.

Jon is also the founder of the Cheap Stocks Web site, a site dedicated to deep-value investing. He has an undergraduate degree from Grove City College and an MBA from Rider University, where he has also served on the adjunct faculty; he is also a CFA charter holder.

« First ‹ Previous 1 2