Facebook IPO saw stocks sag down. (Image: Thos Ballantyne, via Flickr / CC)
Facebook’s highly awaited initial public offering (IPO) has failed to meet expectations in Friday as the brainchild of Mark Zuckerberg’s stock hang loosely in trading.
Facebook stock, originally priced at $38, closed the end of trade last week at $38.23, which raised $16 billion and gave the world’s largest social networking company a monetary value of approximately $104 billion.
At one point, Facebook’s stock surged up to $45, but as the day proceeded, engagement in Facebook slackened and prices sank significantly in the final hours of trading. Facebook’s underwriters – bankers who deal chiefly in underwriting new securities – had to step in and buy shares to keep prices afloat and prevent the stock from dropping below its initial price.
The dull Facebook IPO seems to have inflicted damage developers who are dependent on the social network’s distribution platform. Zynga, the developer of famous Facebook web apps such as Farmville and Words With Friends, followed its own stock drop by 13 percent during the same period.
Industry watchers viewed the Facebook IPO as a turning point and landmark event in the booming social networking and web apps market, and the company’s initial offering was the largest for an IT firm since Google had its own IPO in 2004.
