Finance & Business World

Even the hottest initial public stock offerings can lose steam after their first day of trading.

Sure, company insiders will make money selling at the opening price. And investors who used connections or big bucks to score shares at the IPO price will profit if they sell after a first-day “pop.”

For everyone else, the wildly mixed record of other ballyhooed IPOs beyond their first trading session offers a lesson. It’s one that should remind us that buying Facebook stock Friday provides a chance to lose money.

It’s understandable that everyone wants to get in early on what could be the next Google. Shares of the Internet search leader had an initial offering price of $85 in 2004, started on the stock market at $100 and climbed above $700 by 2007. Even after moving sideways for more than four years, they’re still above $600.

But odds are against hitting a grand slam like that in the current market.

Cautionary points to weigh if the Facebook frenzy is tempting you to buy stock on Day 1:

YOU’LL PAY MORE FOR YOUR STOCK THAN THE SMART MONEY DID.

The vast majority of average investors couldn’t get in at the $38-per-share offer price. Those shares went largely to company insiders, the deal’s underwriters or their fat-walleted clients. The price almost always shoots quickly higher by the time orders to buy at the market price kick in no fax cash loans.

SEVERAL OF LAST YEAR’S “MUST-HAVE” IPOS AREN’T ANY MORE.

— Pandora, an Internet radio company, went public June 15 at $20 a share. You could have bought the stock during the day for $26. It’s now trading under $11.

— Groupon, the online daily deal company, priced its stock at $20 a share in its Nov. 4 IPO. The stock traded above $31 the first day. Now it’s under $13.

— Zynga, the developer of “FarmVille” and other Facebook games, went public at $10 a share on Dec.16. The stock traded as high as $11.50 on its opening day. Lately it’s around $8.

— Even one of last year’s IPO stars isn’t a huge winner when you factor in the risk. LinkedIn more than doubled from its $45 offer price within minutes of hitting the market last May 19 and reached $122.70 before closing the first day at $94.25. It’s back to around $105 after a turbulent year, with a modest overall gain of 11 percent since the first day.

Buy-and-hold investors who want to make money off Facebook should hold off on the first day of trading. Maybe later they can think about buying.

Dave Carpenter is a AP’s personal finance writer

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South Korea added workers last month and the unemployment rate held at two-month low as demand increased for jobs in health, social welfare and education.

The rate was 3.4 percent in April, Statistics Korea said today in Gwacheon, south of Seoul, matching the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of 12 economists. The number of employed people increased 1.9 percent to 24.76 million last month from a year earlier.

South Korea

The former head of Britain’s civil service says Prime Minister David Cameron’s links with the media were too cozy.

Gus O’Donnell retired in December after serving for six years as Britain’s top civil servant and chief adviser to Prime Minister David Cameron.

In evidence Monday to the country’s media ethics inquiry, he acknowledged Cameron had become too close to sections of the press.

O’Donnell told the hearing that Cameron had “felt his relationships had got too close, and I agree with that.”

The inquiry is investigating the work of Britain’s press in the wake of the tabloid phone hacking scandal.

Cameron set up the ethics inquiry amid public revulsion over the revelations that the News of the World had hacked murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler’s phone when she disappeared in 2002.

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European officials praised Spain

Central bankers at a Federal Reserve conference in Washington rekindled a debate over the best criteria for altering interest rates, pitting simple rules against complex models that estimate growth and inflation.

Lars Svensson, a deputy governor for Sweden

Futures traders are pricing in the biggest increase in U.S. equity hedging costs since 2010 after the Standard & Poor

Gasoline prices jumped in January, leading overall consumer prices higher and offering a reminder of the risks energy costs pose to the economic recovery.

Despite the warning signal, overall consumer prices rose just 0.2 percent, the Labor Department said on Friday, which is unlikely to ring alarm bells at the Federal Reserve.

Strong jobs and factory data have eased worries U.S. economic growth could slow sharply, but tensions between Western nations and Iran still threaten to hand the economy a repeat of 2011 when a spike in energy prices hit the recovery hard.

“The greatest concern is that geopolitical strains in the Middle East will spill over into the oil market, pushing prices higher in a replay of last year’s oil price spike,” economists at Bank of America said in a note to clients.

For the Fed, an energy prices spike would represent a quandary: it could hurt the economy even as it boosts inflation. Gasoline prices increased 0.9 percent in January and they have continued to move higher this month.

“Consumers are going to feel a gasoline pinch in the first half of this year,” said Chris Christopher, an economist at IHS Global Insight.

The report also showed so-called core prices, which strip out food and energy costs, rose 0.2 percent, pushing the increase over the last 12 months up to 2.3 percent.

While the year-on-year reading on overall prices has been easing, the steady pick-up in core suggests inflation pressures are not subsiding as quickly as expected, and it could lead to some wariness at the Fed about launching another round of bond purchases to drive borrowing costs lower.

“At the margin it does lean against the case for more (bond purchases),” said JPMorgan economist Michael Feroli.

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Graphic on January U.S. CPI: link.reuters.com/xyr66s

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CAUTION REIGNS

U.S. stocks were little changed following the data, with investors reluctant to continue buying a day after the S&P posted its best daily gain in two weeks. Treasury debt prices edged down and the dollar was flat against a basket of currencies.

A separate report by the private Conference Board showed a gauge of future U.S. economic activity rose to a 3-1/2 year high in January on solid gains in manufacturing.

Last month, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke left the door open to further Fed bond buying to boost growth, but a steady stream of upbeat data in recent weeks has led analysts to dial down their expectations for a further easing of monetary policy.

In January, used car and truck prices fell 1.0 percent and new vehicle prices were flat, moderating the overall gain in core prices. Policymakers watch core prices closely because they see them as a better guide to inflation trends.

Despite the spike in gasoline prices, overall energy prices rose just 0.2 percent because electricity prices were flat and costs to consumers for piped natural gas services fell 2.9 percent.

Even so, gasoline prices remain a threat to the economy, with oil hovering near $120 a barrel on Friday. Iran, which Western nations accuse of seeking to develop nuclear weapons, is facing sanctions that could cripple its oil exports.

After rising throughout January, the national price for regular unleaded gasoline in the United States rose to $3.58 a gallon in the week through Monday, according to the Energy Information Administration. It had started the year around $3.32 a gallon.

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China is expecting foreign trade growth to slow this year to around 10 percent amid a grim outlook for exports, a state news agency reported Saturday.

The world’s second-largest economy’s foreign trade will be hurt by weak external demand, increasing trade competition, a stronger Chinese currency and other factors, the official Xinhua News Agency cited an official from the country’s top economic planning agency as saying.

“We expect more difficulties in foreign trade and the export situation will be grim in 2012, especially in the first half of the year,” said Zhang Xiaoqiang, deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission, according to Xinhua.

Last year, China’s foreign trade grew 22.5 percent to $3.6 trillion, according to data from the official General Administration of Customs released earlier in the week.

The data also showed that exports in December rose 13.4 percent, down slightly from November’s growth rate. In a new that sign the economy is slowing, import growth showed an unexpectedly sharp drop, falling to 11.8 percent, barely above half the previous month’s gain payday loans.

On Saturday, Zhang told a forum in Beijing that improving tax and insurance policies and providing financial support for small trading companies could help stabilize export growth, Xinhua said.

China’s relatively robust growth has been a rare bright spot for a struggling global economy. But growth has slowed in recent months after Beijing tightened lending and investment curbs to prevent overheating.

A slump in demand for Chinese goods abroad has prompted the government to reverse course and promise to help struggling exporters and shore up growth with more bank lending and other measures. It is unclear what impact the measures will have.

Chinese export growth has fallen steadily since August as Europe’s debt crisis and high U.S. unemployment hurt demand. But it has stayed in double digits, showing the competitive strength of Chinese exporters in global markets.

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The Obama administration will ask Congress to increase federal borrowing authority by $1.2 trillion as the nation approaches the debt limit set by law, according to a Treasury Department official.

The White House will send the request to Congress on Dec. 30, the day the debt is projected to rise to within $100 billion of the $15.194 trillion limit, the Treasury official told reporters today on condition of anonymity.

Congress will be notified under the terms of a deal to raise the limit worked out on Aug. 2 after months of wrangling between the administration and Republican lawmakers. Three days later, Standard & Poor

Bangkok authorities are telling more residents to leave as floodwaters threaten southwestern neighborhoods in the Thai capital.

Governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra said people should evacuate three neighborhoods due to surging water levels. He said Sunday pumps were operating around the clock and more pumps were being added to help drain the water.

Still, floodwaters are receding elsewhere. Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra said previously the city center would have light flooding if the water penetrated that far but western areas of Bangkok were threatened with inundation savings account payday advance.

The national death toll from floods since late July has reached 536. More than 13.1 million people _ one in five Thais _ are affected.

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