Facebook Stock Ends Trading Day Slightly Above $38 Opening Price
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- Facebook made its debut on Wall Street Friday, closing 23 cents above its initial offering price of $38.
The stock ended the day trading at $38.23.
The initial price didn't hold, gaining 11 percent as investors scrambled to get a piece of the company that started in a Harvard dorm room and became, with Friday's trading, a more than a $100 billion giant.
After a tense half-hour delay, Facebook finally started trading after 11:30 a.m. That delay had traders holding their breath and wondering if one of the largest IPOs in history could have been fumbled. Traders also reportedly had trouble changing or canceling orders ahead of the offering, according to the Wall Street Journal.
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Wearing his trademark hoodie and standing before a huge crowd in Menlo Park, Calif., CEO Mark Zuckerberg symbolically opened trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market at 6:30 a.m. local time.
"I just want to say to all the people out there who use Facebook and our products, thank you," Zuckerberg said.
Earlier on Zuckerberg's Facebook page, under "recent activity," there appeared the post: "Mark listed FB on NASDAQ.''
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Zuckerberg is selling about 30 million shares of Facebook as part of the initial public offering. Zuckerberg, a Westchester County native and co-founder of the company, will control the company with 56 percent of its voting stock as a result of agreements he has with other shareholders who promise to vote his way.
At the $38 share price, his stake in the company is worth $19.1 billion. Even U2 singer Bono is cashing in. He bought a 2 percent stake in Facebook in 2009 that is now worth $1.5 billion, making him the richest rocker in the world.
Many of Facebook's 3,000 employees are now freshly-minted millionaires, but the company has its work cut out for it. It must now find a way to build on its 900 millions users and stay relevant, like its recent acquisition of the photo sharing service Instagram.
Some analysts had advised the public to not buy into the hype.
"Wait about a month after the stock has been released. The mutual fund institutional investors are going to be the major ones buying up the stock," Ryan Mack, president of Optimum Capital Management, said. "So when the stock does actually open I believe it will probably go between $90 and $100 a share. Let the hype go down, let the euphoria die down."
Even the most famous investor said he will not buy the Facebook IPO.
"I can't recall ever in my life buying a new offering," Warren Buffet said.
Facebook is on track to become the biggest-ever valuation by an American company at the time of its offering and the second-largest U.S. IPO ever behind Visa.
By comparison, here are the top five companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 index by market value, based on Thursday's closing stock prices:
- Apple, $496 billion
- Exxon Mobil, $383 billion
- Microsoft, $250 billion
- IBM, $229 billion
- Wal-Mart Stores, $210 billion
Several of last year's must-have IPO stocks aren't exactly must-haves anymore.
Pandora, an Internet radio company, went public June 15 at $20 a share. You could have bought the stock during the day for $26. It's now trading under $11.
Groupon, the online daily deal company, priced its stock at $20 a share on Nov. 4. It traded above $31 the first day and is now under $13.
And LinkedIn, a social network for professionals, more than doubled from its $45 offer price within minutes of hitting the market last May 19. It reached $122.70 on the first day before closing at $94.25. It's back to about $105.
Are you buying into the hype? Let us know below...
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