You Can Buy Facebook Stock Right Now: Mutual Funds

The possibility that Facebook might register with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a public stock offering as early as Wednesday may make certain mutual funds seem palatable, although it’s overly idealistic to expect any upside this way.

The mutual funds that contain Facebook shares have small stakes in them that effectively get offset by the many other investments held in the same basket.

Buying a mutual fund based on a single stock doesn’t amount to buying shares of that particular company, especially when you’re talking about a holding that doesn’t factor into the top five positions, which is the case with all of the funds we’re about to mention here.

Additionally, public mutual funds disclose their holdings on a quarterly basis, meaning any activity since the end of 2011 and now remains unknown until the end of this quarter; it’s entirely possible that all holdings in Facebook could have been sold between the last disclosure and now.

The Fidelity Advisor New Insights fund contains private shares of Facebook as of the most recent disclosure of holdings.

Similarly, two funds at T. Rowe Price have Facebook shares:  New Horizons and Global Technology.
It’s been speculated that Facebook shares may lie in two funds at Morgan Stanley: Focus Growth and Capital Opportunities.

Again, because of disclosure timing, it’s entirely possible that all of the funds might have unloaded their Facebook holdings by now.