the value of stock is the worth of the company plus what its expected to do. There are people whose job it is to just find cheap stocks and buy them so I feel like the market value for stocks are pretty representative; exceptions are 1. luck, and 2. you somehow have access to information faster than anyone else. I'll be whatever the IPO for facebook is will either be overblown or just right; I'd wait a bit and then buy it. Although Google's IPO was a fucking amazement. Opened at $85 and its worth almost $600 in under 8 years! Nevermind I have no idea wtf I'm talking about. I just bought more shares of Goldman Sachs, buy low and maybe sell high .