As Facebook insiders get ready to flood the market with their
shares, Netflix (
NFLX
) CEO Hastings spent $1 million and bought 47,846 shares of
Facebook at $21.03 a share. Those are the only Facebook stock he
owns.
Reed Hastings
has served as a member of Facebook board of directors since June
2011. He is the CEO and Chairman of Netflix and also serves on
the board of Microsoft (
MSFT
).
Facebook shares has lost more than 40% since its IPO at $38. Many
investors who bought into the shares after the IPO are angry at
Facebook insiders and earlier investors. To be fair, no one
forced these investors to buy Facebook shares. Many of them fall
into love with Facebook and then bought the shares, although most
of them have probably never bought anything through the
advertisement on Facebook.
Facebook shares were priced at unsustainable levels at the IPO.
The company has yet to find a way to monetize from its user base
as the growth slows down. Two and half months after the IPO,
Facebook's lockup period will start to expire. On Aug. 15, 268
million shares will hit the market. On Nov. 14, another 1.3
billion shares will become available. With all these shares flood
to the market, it is interesting to see how Facebook shares will
fare.
Reed Hastings has been constantly selling Netflix shares over the
past few years when the stock was trading up all the way to
almost $300 a share. He stopped selling the shares when the stock
collapsed to $111 a share. Today Netflix is traded at around $57.
Does Reed Hastings' purchase indicate that he has confidence in
Facebook stock? Or at least he has more confidence in Facebook
stock than in Netflix? Above all, he never bought any Netflix
stock after the stock price collapsed.
These are the details of
Reed Hastings' trades with Facebook and
Netflix
.
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