Big and Bigger: JPMorgan’s Loss and Facebook’s IPO

Laura Shin

Posted on May 18, 2012

Last week, JPMorgan Chase revealed it had lost $2 billion in a bad trade. That was awful enough … until the estimate of that loss was revised Thursday to $3 billion.

While those numbers seem huge, they will be dwarfed today by Facebook’s initial public offering, which could value the company at more than $100 billion.

This week, shock and fury over JPMorgan Chase’s mistake and the frenzy around Facebook’s IPO–and whether or not you should buy--dominated the business headlines. But other social media newcomers were making waves as well:

• Photo-sharing site Pinterest announced it raised $100 million in a round of financing that now values the company at $1.5 billion.
• Spotify, a music service that allows for easy sharing with friends, has is set to raise $100 million so far and may raise $220 million total over the next few weeks. Its potential value? $4 billion.

Meanwhile, some older companies were still dealing with the fallout of previous scandals. Wal-Mart announced that it was widening an internal investigation into its Mexican bribery scandal. And Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson’s fudged resume forced him to step down four months into his new gig. (He also revealed that he has thyroid cancer.)

Speaking of exits … Economists, pundits, Greeks, Europeans and, well, anyone who trades with euro zone countries, fretted about Greece. Will the deeply indebted country ditch the euro for its national currency, the drachma? If it does, can it do so without roiling financial markets? Will it default on its debts? Greeks are already withdrawing their money from banks in fear. The June 17 election is seen as a way for Greek voters to express whether they’d like to stick with the euro.

Why JPMorgan’s $3 Billion Loss Is Sparking Fears of Another Crisis

JPMorgan’s massively bad trade might seem removed from your life, but if you’ve been affected by the recession, it’s not. Find out what you need to know and why.

Facebook’s IPO: See How the Company Is About to Change

Facebook, which, just a few years ago, was a startup launched in a college dorm room, is now a publicly traded company, which won’t mean business as usual. Here’s how the site is likely to change.