Did Facebook’s debut ruin the market for tech companies?

Of course not.

Though perhaps it means future IPOs will be priced based on business factors.

USA TODAY has an interesting article on the marketplace one month after Facebook’s initial public offering. Buried deep down, far below the headlines about a chilled market for tech company IPOs, is this nugget:

Future IPO investors could actually benefit from the damage Facebook’s deal inflicted on confidence. With fewer investors clamoring for shares, the investors willing to buy can demand better prices.

 

“If the (stock market) indexes are stable, we should have quite a few more IPOs when bankers realize they can’t overprice them,” says [Francis Gaskins of IPOdesktop.com].

In other words, decisions based on earnings projections and not pie-in-the-sky expectations.

I was channel-surfing the other night and came across a show called Pawn Stars. The owner of a Las Vegas pawn shop was walking away from a limousine that was once owned by Jackie Gleason. He loved the car, but he wasn’t going to make money on it–and he’s in the business of running a profitable business.

Sound familiar? Of course, I’m also the woman who isn’t an NFL owner for the same reason.

Photo by beau-foto.