3 ms·

That's not correct. There is a secondary market for Facebook stock which is plenty liquid (see Sharespost, et. al).

• jacquesm 16y ago
  Ok, point taken, but compared to the total number of facebook shares I would imagine that is a relatively small amount traded? (the site requires registration for any data to be even visible)
• photon_off 16y ago
  "In business, economics or investment, market liquidity is an asset's ability to be sold without causing a significant movement in the price and with minimum loss of value. ... Another elegant definition of liquidity is the probability that the next trade is executed at a price equal to the last one. A market may be considered deeply liquid if there are ready and willing buyers and sellers in large quantities. ... The liquidity of a product can be measured as how often it is bought and sold; this is known as volume." I don't think any sane investor would consider private shares of Facebook "plenty" liquid. The volume of Facebook trading is so low that when a large trade of it does occur, as in this additional investment that valued it at $33b, the price jumps wildly and it makes news. As per the secondary market, Sharespost shows the last contract traded on their system being over 3 weeks ago, and that there are only 3 people willing to sell and 5 people willing to buy right now. Those are pathetic numbers. Granted, shares are not entirely illiquid either. You could sell your shares... but it's a necessity that the more you want to sell, the lower your price is going to have to be to attract enough buyers.