Facebook shares 'reach' $38.23: All that fuss for a quarter-dollar more!
Facebook shares ended their first day on NASDAQ yesterday at $38.23… less than a quarter-dollar more more than their $38 starting point.
Zuckerberg: saying nothing!
"Bit of a dud," said one broker - although others said it showed the Facebook management team had got the price just right. Hmmm.
After the opening bell, the price hovered round $38 for a bit before a steady climb, up 18 per cent at one point at $44.27.
Then they began slipping back to the $38 spot they had come from. You can be sure there were some people in there making sure that didn't happen.
Mark Zuckerberg was in the NASDAQ crowd . . . smiling but not saying much.
The Wall Street Journal pointed out that other big IPOs had similarly shaky starts. Others thought that negative publicity about the effectiveness of Facebook advertising - particularly GM pulling its ads - might have had an effect . There are also doubts about the social network's slowing growth.
Despite all that , trading for the third-largest I.P.O. was very heavy. More than 566 million Facebook shares changed hands, easily topping the previous record for an I.P.O., the 2010 debut of General Motors.