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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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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The free credit score industry has been booming since the recession as a lot of people hit hard times and want to keep an eye on how the recession has affected their credit standing.

China’s inflation rate slowed slightly to 3.4 percent in April, down from 3.6 percent a month earlier, giving the government greater leeway to ease policy to boost the economy.

The National Bureau of Statistics announced the figure Friday, which comes after China’s economy grew in the first quarter by its slowest pace since 2009.

The figure also comes a day after China announced that its trade surplus widened in April as imports barely budged, sharpening fears that the world’s second-biggest economy is not doing enough to stimulate domestic demand and counter a slowdown.

China grew by a still-robust 8.1 percent in the three months ending in March, down from the previous quarter’s 8.9 percent, but above the government’s 7.5 percent target for the year.

Growth has fallen steadily since 2010 as a slump in global demand battered its exporters and Beijing tightened lending and investment curbs to cool an overheated economy and surging inflation.

Already, there are signs that the slowdown is hurting demand for oil, industrial components and consumer goods at a time when U.S. and European growth are weak.

Last year’s unexpectedly steep plunge in demand for China’s exports due to U.S. and European economic woes prompted communist leaders to reverse course and ease controls on bank lending to help struggling manufacturers.

Further easing measures are expected, especially now that inflation appears to be under control, economists say.

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U.K. house prices dropped the most in 1 1/2 years in April as a stamp-duty exemption for first-time buyers ended and the economy fell into its first double-dip recession since the 1970s, Halifax said.

Prices dropped 2.4 percent from March, the largest monthly decline since September 2010, to an average 159,883 pounds ($258,700), the mortgage unit of Lloyds Banking Group Plc (LLOY) said in a statement in London today. Prices had risen 2.2 percent in March. From a year earlier, values were down 0.6 percent.

The Canadian company trying to build the disputed Keystone XL pipeline in the U.S. submitted a new application for the project Friday after changing the route to avoid environmentally sensitive land in Nebraska.

TransCanada said it applied again to the State Department for permission to build the pipeline to carry oil from so-called tar sands in western Canada to a company hub in Steele City, Neb. From there, the project would link up with other pipelines operated by the company to carry oil to refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast.

President Barack Obama blocked the pipeline earlier this year, citing uncertainty over the Nebraska route - a decision that drew fire from Republicans and industry groups.

TransCanada had proposed a new route last month that would veer east around the groundwater-rich Sandhills region before looping back to the original route.

State Department approval is needed because the $7 billion pipeline would cross a U.S. border. The department confirmed Friday the application for the new route had been received.

The pipeline filing came on the same day as a disappointing report on U.S. job growth. The Labor Department said employers pulled back on hiring in April for the second straight month, evidence of an economy still growing only sluggishly, though the overall jobless rate slipped to 8.1 percent as more people gave up looking for work.

Obama is under pressure to support the pipeline from Republicans and business and labor leaders who argue it would create jobs; the State Department estimates it could result in up to 6,000 new jobs.

“The multi-billion dollar Keystone XL pipeline project will reduce the United States’ dependence on foreign oil and support job growth by putting thousands of Americans to work,” said Russ Girling, TransCanada’s president and chief executive officer. “Keystone XL will transport U.S. crude oil from the very large Bakken supply basin in Montana and North Dakota, along with Canadian oil, to U.S. refineries.”

The pipeline’s opponents, including Democrats and environmental groups, say it would transport “dirty oil” from tar sands in Alberta, Canada, that would require huge amounts of energy to extract. They also worry about a possible spill. The pipeline would travel through Montana, South Dakota, Kansas and Oklahoma, in addition to Nebraska.

In blocking the pipeline in January, Obama said there was not enough time for a fair review before a looming deadline forced on him by congressional Republicans. The action did not kill the project but put off a tough choice on the once-obscure pipeline, which has become a flashpoint in the bitter partisan political fight over jobs and the environment and a focus of the presidential campaign between Obama his likely Republican opponent, Mitt Romney. Romney has called on Obama to approve the pipeline.

Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman signed a bill last month that allows the state to proceed with its review of the proposed pipeline through his state, regardless of what happens at the federal level.

A senior State Department official said U.S. officials would conduct a thorough review of the new application, with a final decision not expected until early next year _ well after the presidential election.

Officials will use previous studies to the extent possible, the official said, but will need to complete a new environmental assessment, especially since the route has changed since TransCanada first applied for the pipeline in 2008.

The State Department review is likely to include hiring an outside consultant, a point of contention in the original review conducted by the agency. Democratic lawmakers complained that the firm that conducted the review, Cardno Entrix, had a conflict of interest because of previous work with TransCanada.

The department’s acting inspector general found no conflict of interest or improper political influence but said the State Department could have done a better job of evaluating some concerns about the project and should improve its oversight of contractors.

Jane Kleeb, executive director of Bold Nebraska, a group that opposes the pipeline, said the new route still goes through an aquifer that serves eight states and should not be approved.

“The fundamental facts remain: Americans are being asked to put clean water at risk for an extreme form of energy that will add nothing to our energy security,” Kleeb said.

But Girling, the TransCanada CEO, said the company’s proposal builds on more than three years of environmental review already conducted for Keystone XL, “the most comprehensive process ever for a cross-border pipeline.”

The earlier work should allow the new proposal to be processed “expeditiously,” Girling said, with a federal decision made after a final route through Nebraska is approved by state officials.

TransCanada expects to begin construction of the pipeline next year.

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Fast-growing Etihad Airways has taken a nearly 3 percent stake of Aer Lingus as part of a strategy to build closer bonds with the Irish carrier, the Abu Dhabi-based airline said Tuesday.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. But it appears part of a wider Etihad effort to seek shares in smaller carriers to gain a possible edge in its rivalries with Gulf carriers Emirates and Qatar Airways.

Etihad said Tuesday the 2.987 percent stake in Aer Lingus reflects a “desire to forge a commercial partnership with the Irish national carrier.”

Etihad in recent months has bought large stakes in Air Berlin and Air Seychelles in a bid to challenge Emirates and Qatar Airways. Etihad operates 10 flights a week from its Abu Dhabi hub to Dublin.

The head of Qatar Airways, however, said the carrier is not currently looking to acquire another airline.

Qatar Airways Chief Executive Officer Akbar al-Baker said the airline is focused on building its own business, and doesn’t want to take on the financial problems of restructuring a weaker carrier. Al-Baker was in Dubai for a travel expo.

State-owned Qatar Airways competes for long-haul international passengers with Dubai-based Emirates airline and Etihad Airways.

Last month, Etihad said its sales jumped 28 percent to $989 million in the first quarter of the year as it pushed ahead with its rapid expansion.

In February, Aer Lingus reported a strong growth in profits for 2011 despite the country’s economic downturn. The Dublin-based carrier says in a statement Tuesday its full-year net profit rose 66 percent to euro71.2 million ($95.6 million). Sales rose 6 percent to euro1.29 billion ($1.73 billion).

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Filtration equipment manufacturer Pall Corp. says it has agreed to sell certain operations and equipment used in blood transfusions to health care company Haemonetics Corp. for $550 million.

The deal announced Sunday calls for Haemonetics to receive blood collection, filtration and processing systems and equipment, along with manufacturing facilities in California, Mexico and Italy from Pall.

Some of Pall’s assets in Puerto Rico are also included.

About 1,300 Pall employees will be transferred to Haemonetics as part of the deal payday loans guaranteed no fax.

Pall expects to record an after-tax gain of $230 million to $240 million, or $1.95 a share to $2.04 a share on the sale.

The deal is expected to close at the start of Pall’s 2013 fiscal year. The current fiscal year ends July 30.

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Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said the U.S. faces risks from the crisis in Europe while the confrontation with Iran has helped drive up oil prices.

A spokesman for special envoy Kofi Annan says satellite imagery and other credible reports show that despite its claims, Syria has failed to withdraw all of its heavy weapons from populated areas as required by a cease-fire deal.

Ahmad Fawzi also said Tuesday that Annan is aware that when the U.N. monitors enter conflict areas in Syria that “the guns are silent” and then “when they leave, the exchanges start again.”

He further noted there appear to be cases of Syrians being targeted by authorities after approaching U totally free credit score.N. observers monitoring the truce. Fawzi called the situation “totally unacceptable.”

The cease-fire is part of Annan’s peace plan, which aims to stop the violence in Syria, where more than 9,000 people are believed to have died during a government crackdown on a popular uprising.

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