Stock tip of the day: Eschew Facebook

Nobody should ever take my investment advice. I am the guy who, in 1993, bought 50 shares of Apple Computer. My broker at the time mistakenly added a zero and prepared an order for 500 shares. The stock was going at around $24 and change.

He called to confirm. I could have covered 500, just barely, and I did have a brief premonition that it might result in great riches. But cooler heads prevailed. I told him to stick with the 50 shares. When it soared to about $29 a few months later, I saw my chance and pounced: Net profit: A cool $250.

Actually, this is the first time I have done the math on this: If I had gone ahead with the order for 500 shares, and held onto them until, say, right now, I would have about a quarter of a million dollars. Minus a few grand for whiskey and whores.

So it’s like I said. Do not heed my investment advice. And my counsel on Facebook is this: If you are lining up for a few of the 421 million shares available on Friday, you are a dumb-ass. I base this on pretty much the only thing I know about investing: If everybody else is buying a stock, that’s the time to be selling it. And I have a feeling that certain insiders are already doing that.

From what I can see, everybody wants to buy Facebook. The same way everybody used to want to buy houses for nothing down and flip them two months later. It’s a can’t-lose proposition. Like Elvis in the early ’70s, Facebook is everywhere. Facebook is everything. Which is why it’s going to break so many hearts in the fullness of time. The fact that a big player like GM took a hard look at Facebook and then took a pass doesn’t seem to register with anybody.

Then again, as I’m fond of saying, I’ve been wrong before. Boy, have I been wrong. But I’m still not touching Facebook. It’s stolen enough of my time; it doesn’t need to steal my money too.