Each day, Benzinga takes a look back at a notable market-related moment that occurred on this date.
What Happened?
On Feb. 4, 2004, Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook Inc.
Where Was the Market?
The S&P 500 was trading at 1,126.52 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was at 10,470.74.
What Else Was Going On in the World?
In 2004, CBS News uncovered torture of Iraq prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison.
The European Union underwent its largest expansion in history, adding Poland, Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Malta, and Cyprus to the Eurozone.
The average cost of a new house in the United States was $274,500.
Social Media Era Begins
Zuckerberg famously launched his website Thefacebook when he was a 19-year-old sophomore at Harvard, and the website was initially only available for Harvard students.
Zuckerberg soon expanded the site to other colleges in the Boston area and then to anyone with a college email address. Facebook expanded to allow all users over the age of 13 in 2006.
Within four years, Facebook had 100 million users. When the company went public in 2012, it was valued at $90 billion in the largest IPO in history at the time.
That same year, Facebook acquired Instagram for $1 billion.
Facebook Today
Today, Facebook has 2.9 billion monthly active users and is valued at $661 billion.
The company, which has rebranded to Meta Platforms with Facebook as its main subsidiary, has grown into one of the largest advertising businesses in the world and generated $39.3 billion in net income in 2021.
By Wayne Duggan
