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Facebook Stocks Fall Below Offering Price
May 21 in the first minutes of Nasdaq session Facebook Stocks lost more than 8% and are estimated at 35 dollars by investors. For comparison during the first share placing held on May 18 the papers were put for sale at 38 dollars.
On the first trading day they had gained only 23 cents, i.e. less than a percent. During May 18 session the price for a Facebook stock was elevating to 43 dollars and did not fall below 38 dollars even once.
Facebook IPO has become the major one in the Internet companies history: the biggest social net in the world managed to raise about 16 billion dollars of investors funds. What is more, the whole company’s price was evaluated above 100 billion dollars, which is to say it is more expensive than McDonald's or Citigroup.
It is noteworthy that papers of other Internet companies coming to the stock exchange arena before Facebook were rising in the first trading period, but a few weeks later they were scaling down below offering price. In particular, such case was observed in 2011 with Groupon discount service and Yandex search engine.
Usually, at the beginning of trades amid an unfavorable climate the banks-underwriters IPO keep the share price above the set level. That means that a price drop of Facebook shares could be much more substantial.

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One of the World’s Biggest Brokers Leaves the Greek Market
One of the biggest brokerage companies in the world Newedge leaves the Greek stock market, The Financial Times says citing on the broker’s letter. Newedge informed the clients that it accepts sales orders only. The broker decided to come out of the Greek market amid the rising fears over possible country’s exit from the Eurozone.
Rumors that Greece is to return to drachma accelerated at the beginning of May after the parliament elections, when none of parties managed to outpoint, that allows to form the government independently. As a result, the policymakers had to negotiate on coalition, however, they could not reach a compromise. New elections were scheduled for June 17.
Meanwhile, the left parties became more popular among the citizens, as they are intended to deny the retrenchment measures required by creditors as a financial aid condition. On May 26 fears relatively Greece secession from the euro area eased slightly after the New Democracy party supporting the austerity program had taken the top place at six pre-election surveys.

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One of US Biggest Law Firms Gets Bankrupt
One of the American biggest law firms Dewey & LeBoeuf declared itself bankrupt in compliance with the Clause 11 of US Bankruptcy Code, AFP informs citing on the company’s press service. Among the Dewey & LeBoeuf clients there were such huge corporations as Sberbank, Dell, Oracle and Panasonic.
As Reuters says, Dewey & LeBoeuf bankruptcy can become the most crucial one in the legal history of the USA. About 1.1 thousand of lawyers were working In 26 company offices all over the world.
Dewey & LeBoeuf business suffered much during the global financial crisis. The company did not handle a deep downturn finally. In Q1 2012 more than 160 of 300 partners broke with the firm. In May the Dewey & LeBoeuf Executive Board cancelled employment contracts with 433 out of 533 employees of the main office in New York. All the rest staff will be probably involved in closing down of business. At the time of submitting bankruptcy petition the indebtedness of Dewey & LeBoeuf was estimated approximately at 100-500 million dollars, monetary assets - at 13 million, and clients’ outstanding accounts amounted to about 255 million dollars. Dewey & LeBoeuf was established in 2007 after merging of Dewey Ballantine (found in 1909) and LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae (found in 1929).

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Gold price reached its record low since 1999
The fall in gold prices that took place in recent months was the most prolonged in the XXI century, Bloomberg reports. The prices for gold declined for the fourth consecutive month reaching its lowest level since 1999 though in early 2012 the troy ounce of gold edged 0.7 pct.
During the Asian trades of May 29 gold fell 0.6 pct to $1573 per ounce. In general, during the whole month of May the price was down 5.5 pct.
This fall in prices on gold results mainly from the strengthening of the dollar, while the fundamental factors point at the growth of prices. In April the most of world’s central banks including those of Turkey, Ukraine, Mexico and Kazakhstan expanded their gold reserves. Moreover, the consumption of gold in China increases. According to various estimates, in 2011 the total volume of gold consumption varied from 761 to 769 tons. This year this figure will increase making China the leader among world’s biggest gold consumer and leaving behind the former leader – India that has been occupying this position in recent years. Gold is used by investors on world markets as the safe place for investing money in case of emergency. At the same time the growth of dollar prevents the growth of prices for gold. For the last 10 years the price on this precious metal increased more than 5 times reaching its record in 2011 when the price for gold was $1889 per ounce.

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EU accused China of underpricing network equipment
The EU authorities are to begin the anti-dumping investigation of two large Chinese producers of telecommunication facilities - Huawei and ZTE, Reuters reports with reference to The Financial Times. The companies are accused of underpricing the equipment on European markets. According to the EU officials, Huawei and ZTE lowered prices by using illegal state subsidies. Presently the EU representatives are collecting the evidence of law violations. If the charges are proved, Huawei ZTE companies will pay higher custom duties on equipment import on the territory of the European Union.
The Chinese companies on the EU telecommunications market compete with European producers including Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent and Siemens-Nokia. In May 2012 the European Commissioner for Trade Karel De Gucht stated that it is necessary to fight against the illegally subsidized production.
Phone Arena reports that USA and Australia have already implemented some restrictions for Huawei, in particular in the USA the company is not allowed to take part in tenders on delivery of equipment for defense industry. The main difficulty is that China is the second biggest trade partner of the EU after the USA. Huawei and ZTE occupy the second and the fifth place respectively in rating of the biggest companies that produce of telecommunication equipment.

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Zuckerberg drops off Bloomberg rating of billionaires
The founder of the world biggest social media Facebook Mark Zuckerberg is no longer on Bloomberg daily ranking list of 40 wealthiest people. His fortune fell by $1.5 billion to $14.7 billion for the last 5 days as Facebook shares continued to fall after the most unsuccessful IPO for the last 10 years. For 5 days the securities dropped 9.6 pct decreasing by one fourth since the very beginning of the placement.
Such strong fall of Facebook stocks was caused by their overpriced value. The starting price of shares exceeded 83 times the annual profit of the company which had one of the highest figures among all S&P 500 securities.
In the day of IPO the fortune of Zuckerberg was $19.4 billion, decreasing along with the downfall of the stocks. Zuckerberg is now $ 800 million behind Luis Carlos Sarmiento from Columbia, who ranks 40th place in the list. Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim with $67.9 billion fortune remains the leader of the rating.
The 28-year-old Zuckerberg is the main shareholder of Facebook having over 24% of shares of the whole company along with venture fund Accel Partners, the former partner of Dustin Moscowitz, and the Russian-British group DST.

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Lawyer was Sentenced to Record Term for Insider Trading
In the USA a former lawyer Matthew Kluger was sentenced to 12 year prison for insider trading. Reuters reports that it is the longest term ever imposed for insider trading in the USA.
According to the prosecution case, Kluger was working for one of the most prestigious firms and was delivering confidential information from his clients to the broker Garrett Bauer from 1994 to 2011. It enabled them to earn more than US $37 million in total. In particular the lawbreakers netted US $11 million using the data about the Sun Microsystems purchase by Oracle.
In his turn, Garrett Bauer was sentenced to 9 years on the 4th of June. The sentence on another conspirator, Kenneth Robinson, who functioned as a middleman between Kluger and Bauer, will be passed on the 5th of June.
Throughout the trial process all three conspirators pleaded guilty. In terms of the deal with the financial regulator they also agreed to pay back illegally earned money. As it was stated, Bauer returned 31.6 mln dollars while Kluger and Robinson 516 and 845 thousand dollars respectively.
Before Kluger's adjudgment the maximum sentence for insider trading was 11 years of imprisonment, to which an American multi-millionaire with Sri Lankian background, Raj Rajaratnam, was sentenced in October 2011. According to investigators, he enriched himself for 72 mln dollars by the insider trading.

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Japanese Share Index Reached its Low for the Last 28 Years
One of the main Japanese stock indices, Topix dropped 2.8% to 692.18 during June 4 trading session. According to Reuters, it has been the lowest rate since the end of 1983. Following the results of Monday session, Topix decreased 1.89% to 695.51.
Nikkei index dipped 1.71% to 8295.63 points. Herewith Sony's stocks, one of the biggest country's companies, fell below 1000 yen level, closed at 996 yen, for the first time since August 1980.
Other Asian indices also closed in red. So South Korean Kospi declined 2.8% to 1783.13 points, Chinese Shanghai Coposite fell 2.7% to 2308.55 and Hongkongese Hang Seng dropped 2.01% to 18185.59 points.
Downward dynamics on the exchange is explained by investors' concerns regarding probable eurozone break-up. In particular, they began to work out a plan in China on maintaining country's economy in case Greece leaves eurozone, Reuters said citing an unidentified source.

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Facebook IPO Raises House Prices Around Its Headquarter
The initial public offering held in the middle of May by Facebook Company has become one of reasons for the housing shortage and its cost rising near the social net headquarter in Menlo Park, California, Bloomberg agency reports basing on realtors survey.
As the agency informs, a supply shortfall in the market is observed quite long. Thus, for the period from April 2011 to April 2012 the number of units for sale had contracted by 9%. An average price of houses in Menlo Park for the first quarter of current year had gained 8.5% to 1.19 million dollars.
Such market situation established mostly because that many house owners discontinued the units put up for sale prior to Facebook IPO, expecting a rapid demand for real estate from the rich social net shareholders. Finally, the rate of housing supply in Menlo Park is the lowest one since 2005. The experts say that taking into account a high demand, the prices are to keep gathering pace in the near term.
In May during the IPO Facebook shareholders managed to attract over 16 billion dollars, and the whole company value was assessed for 104 billion dollars. However, after the offering the biggest social net stocks have been declining steadily and lost 20% already. The company’s IPO has become one of the most failing in history.

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Probability of Greece to Leave Euro Area Reaches 33%
Standard & Poor's rating agency estimated the chances for Greece to leave Eurozone in the coming months. As the analysts say, such outcome would take place with 33.3% probability.
In the eye of S&P, Greece refusal from the single currency would happen only in case the country’s government cancels an unpopular retrenchment course of cutting budget expenditures required by the international creditors. That will lead to an end of financial tranches from abroad. In such case the Greek economy may face a huge wane, which is most likely to result in a default in medium term.
At the same time, S&P denotes that Greece secession from the Eurozone can hardly provoke a domino effect and refusal of other countries from euro which a lot of investors beware of. S&P supposes that Europe is to support the states mostly affected by the debt crisis, advancing the financial aid in case of necessity not to let the single currency disappear.
Worth mentioning that Parliament elections are scheduled for June 17, by their results a new government of Greece will be formed. As expected, if the Left forces win Greece may reject the international creditors requirements of retrenchment policy, if we see their rivals winning the country is to run tough spending cut measures.
Agence France-Presse informs that the recent public surveys show a relative equality of chances of austerity course adherents and opponents.