瑞银集团：Facebook上市发行的另一个输家

    上周，摩根士丹利（Morgan Stanley）首席执行官詹姆斯•戈尔曼称那些在Facebook公司IPO时购买股票，并期待股价一飞冲天的人“非常幼稚”。但现在看来，在这家社交网络公司的股票上下注并赌输了的人，不仅仅是个人投资者。华尔街也投下了重注。

    上周五，瑞银集团（UBS）证实，在Facebook公司IPO后数日内交易该公司股票的行为，让这家瑞士银行蒙受损失。瑞银并未透露具体的损失金额。但《华尔街日报》和美国全国广播公司财经频道（CNBC）估计瑞银的损失额为3.5亿美元，进而使其成为Facebook上市发行以来最大的输家。市场人士最初估计华尔街因交易Facebook股票大约亏损1亿美元左右，但在过去一周左右的时间里，一些分析人士把这一数据翻了一番。再加上瑞银集团此前未予披露的损失，华尔街因Facebook上市发行而蒙受的损失可能超过5亿美元。

    作为一家做市商，像其他中介商一样，瑞银集团一直在竭力帮助其客户获得Facebook股票。但很难想象，仅仅为其他人购买和出售这只股票会让瑞银损失如此巨额的资金。瑞银表示，该公司试图出售此前以35美元的价位购买的Facebook股票，但最终仅以低于30美元的价格售出了其持有的部分股票。

    Facebook股票的上市开盘价为42美元。因此，假设瑞银在开盘当日购买了这只股票（瑞银并非这笔交易的承销商，因此无法享受优惠价格），并以30美元的均价售出，这家银行将遭受每股12美元的损失。将这一数据与3.5亿美元的总损失额进行比较就可估算出，瑞银集团在Facebook上市当日购买了逾2,900万股股票。这意味着，瑞银集团下注12亿美元，赌Facebook的IPO大获成功。这一下注额是根据30美元的出售均价计算出的。如果瑞银出售Facebook股票的均价是35美元（这种可能性更大一些），该公司在这支股票上下的赌注就有可能高达21亿美元。

    瑞银购买的某些股票可能是为该公司认为有购买意向、但最终没有购买的客户准备的。但更大的可能是，很大一部分股票是由该公司某位或许多猜测Facebook股价将一飞冲天，试图粉饰其帐薄的交易员购买的。

    瑞银集团表示，它的损失是交易故障所致，该公司正在考虑起诉纳斯达克股票交易所（Nasdaq）。但纳斯达克方面声称，它已经仔细审查了每笔Facebook股票交易的细节，只发现了4千万损失可以归结为交易所的问题。当然，纳斯达克很可能低报了损失金额，但这一数字也不可能高出了10倍。即使假定可归结为纳斯达克问题的实际损失额在两个数据之间（比如，2亿美元），那依然意味着华尔街投下重注，赌Facebook股价飙升。

    Last week, Morgan Stanley's CEO James Gorman called those who had bought shares in Facebook's IPO expecting it to pop "naive." But it now appears it wasn't just individual investors who gambled on the social network's shares and lost. Wall Street was all-in as well.

    Late Friday, Swiss bank UBS confirmed that it, too, had lost money trading Facebook's shares in the days after the company's IPO. The bank wouldn't say how much. But theWall Street Journal and CNBC put the loss at $350 million, making it the largest Facebook loser so far by far. Originally, Wall Street's Facebook trading loss was estimated to be around $100 million. But in the past week or so, some were putting it at double that. Add in UBS's previous unknown losses and Wall Street's Facebook hit could be more than half a billion.

    UBS is a market maker, and like other brokers was trying to help its clients get Facebook's (FB) stock. But it's hard to believe that UBS (UBS) could lose this much money just buying and selling the stock for others. The company said it tried to sell the Facebook shares it had bought at $35, but ended up exiting some of its shares at below $30.

    Facebook's shares opened at $42. So if you assume that UBS bought at the open - it wasn't an underwriter on the deal so no preferred pricing - and sold at an average $30, that would give the bank a per share loss of $12. Compare that to a total loss of $350 million, and what you get is that UBS bought just over 29 million shares of Facebook on the day of its IPO. Meaning UBS bet $1.2 billion that Facebook's IPO would pop. And that's if it got out at an average $30. If UBS instead sold at an average of $35, more likely, then the firm's bet on the stock could have been as big as $2.1 billion.

    Some of that buying could have been for clients who the firm assumed would want to buy, but never materialized. But more likely a good chunk of it was by some trader at the firm, or many, who tried to goose their book on the assumption that Facebook's IPO would shoot up.

    UBS says that it suffered its losses because of glitches, and that it is considering suing the Nasdaq. But Nasdaq says it has gone over every Facebook trade in detail, and that it has only found $40 million in losses that can be attributed to problems at the exchange. Of course, it's likely that Nasdaq is low-balling. But it's unlikely that its figure is off by a factor of ten. And even if you assume the actual amount attributable to Nasdaq is some where in the middle, say $200 million, it still means that Wall Street firms placed huge bets that Facebook's IPO would soar.