http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/05/062905.asp#axzz28...
It is also not possible to buy put options prior to the IPO as there are some guidelines that must be met prior to being able to buy puts. On Facebook specifically, they were not offered for almost 10 days after the IPO:
http://www.ise.com/assets/documents/AboutISE/PressRelease/Co...
You could have shorted the stock or traded options.
Before you short any stock, it is wise to keep in mind the maxim "Markets can remain irrational a lot longer than you and I can remain solvent". This isn't really a problem on the long side (sans margin), but is a real problem on the short side.
If you were to actually discount the company's future potential, then an industry-standard P/E ratio would put it at $3-$4.
[Edit: I'm not a trader, but if I were, I'd be shorting down to about $18, and buying at $9.]
I think you're making the mistake of backing into the valuation based on an arbitrary statistic they tell you is important. Who cares how many monthly active users they have if they can't make any money off of them. They could have six billion people using their service, but if they can't generate revenue from them I wouldn't pay $5 for the stock, regardless of how much potential they claim they have.
If all those users have the potential to generate massive revenue, fine... then prove it. Then maybe I'll buy the stock, but in the meantime here's no reason to rush in based on promises and "potential".
You could have shorted the stock or traded options.
There was a fair bit of uncertainty because the average Joe, his family and friends all used FB. Many investors feared that the stock would be driven by sentiment rather than rationality. If the stock went to 50, it would not have surprised me.
Like you I didn't support the high IPO valuations either but I still would love to own the stock with minimal downside risk. As would a lot of other people out there. FB has a lot of appeal.
At $10 the company will have a market cap of about $20 billion, which is pretty low for a company with a billion monthly active users. If you discount that, you are probably discounting the bigger picture.
At some point Apple had tremendous unrealized potential. The idea that it could get into phones and do really well wasn't hard to digest. On the contrary, it seemed like an obvious move.
FB has similar unrealized revenue potential. It could start charging $X per month to businesses with > Y fans. It could offer premium dashboards + analytics or similar features. There is no shame in premium, I am not sure why they only do advertising and commissions but my sense is that currently they are focused on growth and building a moat around their business.
I don't own the stock and I don't care if it goes up or down but your post seems be discounting the company's potential.