As Facebook shares opened for trading for the first time on Friday in Nasdaq, the stock soared 13 percent from $38 to $43, before immediately dropping back to just above its initial offering price. Yet as the afternoon hit, the stock had been climbing back up again, although not quite to the initial peak.
Even though the trading was initially set for 11 a.m. EDT, a throng of last-minute orders clogged the Nasdaq exchange and delayed trading to nearly 30 minutes later. The shares were sold to select investors at the IPO price of $38 each share. As of 12:30 p.m., more than 230 million shares were traded, 100 million of which were traded in the first three minutes of the stock’s trading.
Problems persisted into the trading, with Nasdaq’s exchange systems failing to send electronic reports back to traders and firms to confirm that stock had been bought or sold, people familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal.
Facebook has raised $16 billion for itself and stakeholders after selling 421.2 million shares of its common stock for $38 each, making it the third-largest offering ever in the United States after credit card company Visa, which raised $17.86 billion in 2008 and Italian utility company Enel, which raised $16.45 billion in 1999.
The widely successful social media company was started in a Harvard University dorm room by then-sophomore Mark Zuckerberg.
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