You have to wonder, if today’s news on WSJ re: MSFT investing $300-500M for a 5% stake in Facebook, valuing the company at $10-15B is a legitimate new rumor, or just an offshoot of AllThingsD.com’s post by Kara Swisher?
This is awfully akin to when a new story on MSFT/YHOO merger shot YHOO’s stock up 18% in one day, even though the story was simply a rehash of an old story… we saw the same thing last year when an AOL/MSFT rumor was rehashed by Marketwatch based on old news.
I don’t know, but this could be Google vs. MSFT fighting over Facebook and shooting up its paper value, a la DCLK. You have to wonder, will these movies really help or hurt Facebook shareholders long term.
Ask yourself: did Google’s $1B investment for 5% of AOL really help or hurt AOL? Today, I’d say AOL is caught between a rock and a hard place because of that deal. But, who listens to me?