initial public offerings

A million dollars isn't cool. You know what's cool? Being as wealthy as a quarter of the households in the United States combined. That may soon be the state of the Facebook founder's finances; the company plans to go public at a valuation of $100 billion dollars.

Wall Street can be fickle, leaving investors scratching their heads in bewilderment. Some of last week's biggest surprises, blunders, and flat-out boneheaded moves included Netflix's misguided pricing hike, ill-timed IPO announcements by Norwegian Cruise Lines and Zillow, and Trex going the way of Lumber Liquidators.

Groupon is planning an initial public offering that would value the three-year-old online coupon distribution site at as much as $15 billion -- more than double what Google reportedly bid on the company last year -- The New York Times reported.

New reports say Groupon could go public by the end of 2011, around the same time a Facebook IPO is expected. But even if they both priced their IPOs on the same day, there would be no shortage of funding because IPO-starved investors are raring to go.

Three years after it went private in a management buyout, Texas-based Kinder Morgan, which provides transportation and storage for oil and natural gas, has filed for an initial public offering worth as much as $1.5 billion. Is stock-market appetite returning?

There are people around the world rubbing their hands with glee at America's supposed collapse, pundits who say this nation is so bankrupt that it has become irrelevant. But author, venture capitalist and DailyFinance columnist Peter Cohan says don't write America's obituary just yet.

Hulu is preparing to go public, according to a report in The New York Times. The offering could value the video content website at $2 billion.

A new report suggests that social-networking site Facebook will probably put off its IPO until 2012 to give founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg more time to gain users and boost sales without the public scrutiny that comes with a public listing.

It was a tough second quarter for investors, as the S&P 500 fell 12.5%. The driving factors include major debt problems in Europe and a fear of a double-dip recession in the U.S. Despite all this, the IPO market recorded decent performance.