As someone that lives in EU (as in, not in USA) and has no clue about stock market: what would be the easiest way for me to get a couple of hundred € worth of stocks in FB? Is that even possible?
You need to buy them on the day they IPO. You will not be able to buy it at the IPO price but at the price of the first minute of trading.
On top of that, "a couple of hundred €" is probably not enough money. The fees to buy stocks on the Nasdaq is usually in the tens of euro. You'll probably have between 10 and 50 euros of fees at the cheaper online trading platforms.
You can also call your traditional bank to buy the stocks but the fees would probably be higher.
You're not going to get in on the IPO price. That's for the banks who are selling to their very top-tier clients before it even starts trading on the exchange, basically.
Look into what is involved in buying stock in any American company from the EU. If you're still interested, you can pick up a few shares after it's trading on the exchanges.
Probably not, no. Most IPO shares are sold to large clients of brokerages. One of the inducements that large investment banks offer independent brokerages who use their services is letting them offer hot IPO stocks to some of their major customers.
Probably best to find a local broker that is on nasdaq. In the Netherlands, I would advise Binck or something similar. I personally have my companies stock in eTrade, but that is because that is how I received it :)
It can be tricky to get into the IPO though. Don't know the details on those rules.
I also don't really have a clue, but I think if you have a "trading depot" with some bank, they will offer you several stock exchanges to trade on. So you could pick some US stock exchange and buy the shares there.
