High-res reuters: Facebook Inc shares fizzled on their first day of trade on the Nasdaq, erasing early gains of as much as 18 percent to trade close to their initial public offering price. The stock opened 11 percent higher and rose to $45 before rapidly heading south in frenzied trade, touching its initial public offering price of $38. The No. 1 online social network raised as much as $18.4 billion in one of the biggest initial public offerings in U.S. history. After a delay in the opening print that drove up anxiety levels among traders and onlookers outside the Nasdaq, the company’s closely watched stock began trading at $42.05, compared with an IPO price of $38. To rapturous applause from employees, Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg — flanked by Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg and Nasdaq Chief Executive Robert Greifeld — rang the bell to kick off trading at the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters at 6:30 a.m. Pacific time. The 28-year-old billionaire founder hugged and high-fived Sandberg and other employees in celebration after he pressed the remote button. READ MORE: Facebook fizzles in debut, shares skirt IPO price

reuters:

Facebook Inc shares fizzled on their first day of trade on the Nasdaq, erasing early gains of as much as 18 percent to trade close to their initial public offering price.

The stock opened 11 percent higher and rose to $45 before rapidly heading south in frenzied trade, touching its initial public offering price of $38. The No. 1 online social network raised as much as $18.4 billion in one of the biggest initial public offerings in U.S. history.

After a delay in the opening print that drove up anxiety levels among traders and onlookers outside the Nasdaq, the company’s closely watched stock began trading at $42.05, compared with an IPO price of $38.

To rapturous applause from employees, Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg — flanked by Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg and Nasdaq Chief Executive Robert Greifeld — rang the bell to kick off trading at the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters at 6:30 a.m. Pacific time.

The 28-year-old billionaire founder hugged and high-fived Sandberg and other employees in celebration after he pressed the remote button.

READ MORE: Facebook fizzles in debut, shares skirt IPO price

good: Visit the website for TED, the conference for creative techies and do-gooding hipsters that vaulted the 18-minute lecture into an art form, and you’ll find speakers discussing everything from “Sculpting Waves in Wood and Time” to “Building U.S.-China relations … by Banjo.” What you won’t find is a recent TED talk by Michael Hanauer, a wealthy venture capitalist, that argues income inequality is a problem that threatens the economy, and that higher taxes on the wealthy are part of the solution.  Read more on GOOD.is →

good:

Visit the website for TED, the conference for creative techies and do-gooding hipsters that vaulted the 18-minute lecture into an art form, and you’ll find speakers discussing everything from “Sculpting Waves in Wood and Time” to “Building U.S.-China relations … by Banjo.”

What you won’t find is a recent TED talk by Michael Hanauer, a wealthy venture capitalist, that argues income inequality is a problem that threatens the economy, and that higher taxes on the wealthy are part of the solution. 

Read more on GOOD.is →

“

Over the past few years, Tumblr, a microblogging service, has steadily built a community of fans and users who like the site’s combination of social networking features and simple blogging tools that lets them quickly post photographs, videos, songs, links and bits of text.

Now, the company has attracted a slew of venture capitalists who are hoping to capitalize on that popularity.

On Monday, the company will announce it raised $85 million in fresh financing. The round was led by Greylock Partners and Insight Venture Partners, and the Chernin Group, Richard Branson, Spark Capital, Union Square Ventures and Sequoia Capital also contributed. To date, the company has raised roughly $40 million in funding.

David Karp, who founded the company in 2007, said in a news release that the extra money “allows us to continue to scale our business and give real focus to the further development of Tumblr.”

Mr. Karp said that Tumblr’s growth has exploded in the past year. It’s attracted popular musicians such as Lady Gaga and traffic leapt to 13 billion page views per month from 2 billion page views per month. Since the site was first introduced, 30 million blogs have been created using the tool. Those 30 million blogs now generate more than 40 million posts each day.

A recent report from Nielsen said that the audience for the site tripled in the past year and has drawn more female teens to the site than any other social network. Although Facebook still dominates the majority of the time Americans spend on the Web, occupying more than 53 billion minutes each month, Tumblr manages to capture a reasonable share of screen time as well, with more than 623 million minutes per month.

”

The New York Times, “Tumblr Lands $85 Million In Funding.”

For the record, I am not a female teen.  But I do spend 623 million minutes per month on Tumblr.

(via inothernews)

High-res latimes: Cantor Fitzgerald rises from the ashes: A decade later, the Wall Street firm that was nearly wiped out in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has come back stronger than ever. Its early survival is due in no small part to the kindness of strangers. Technology firm Cisco Systems Inc. sent a dozen 18-wheelers full of routers, cables and other hardware to Cantor’s office in New Jersey. Microsoft Corp. flew out some 50 employees to help Cantor break into the password-protected computer accounts of all the workers who were gone. Photo: Cantor Fitzgerald, which lost 658 employees in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, has recovered strongly and is busier than ever. Its New York employees include, from right, George Smith, Aaron Read, Kiran Manda and Craig Bishko. Credit: Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times

latimes:

Cantor Fitzgerald rises from the ashes: A decade later, the Wall Street firm that was nearly wiped out in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has come back stronger than ever.

Its early survival is due in no small part to the kindness of strangers. Technology firm Cisco Systems Inc. sent a dozen 18-wheelers full of routers, cables and other hardware to Cantor’s office in New Jersey.

Microsoft Corp. flew out some 50 employees to help Cantor break into the password-protected computer accounts of all the workers who were gone.

Photo: Cantor Fitzgerald, which lost 658 employees in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, has recovered strongly and is busier than ever. Its New York employees include, from right, George Smith, Aaron Read, Kiran Manda and Craig Bishko. Credit: Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON POST: "Of last year’s 100 highest-paid corporate executives in the United States, 25 earned more in pay than their company recorded as a tax expense in 2010. Those 25 firms reported average global profits of $1.9 billion. Among the 25 were Verizon, Bank of New York Mellon, General Electric, Boeing and eBay."

inothernews:

Yes, by all means, let’s continue to give corporations and the wealthiest tax breaks.  Because they’re creating jobs with all that cheddar.