New York: Facebook stock sank on Monday in the first day of trading without the full support of the company's underwriters, leaving some investors down nearly 25 per cent from where they were Friday afternoon.
Facebook's debut was beset by problems, so much so that Nasdaq said on Monday it was changing its IPO procedures. That may comfort companies considering a listing but does little for Facebook, whose lead underwriter Morgan Stanley had to step in and defend the $38 offering price on the open market. Also read: Morgan Stanley works on Facebook IPO orders
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Without that same level of defense, its shares fell $4.64 to $33.67 in the first minutes of trading. That represented a decline of more than 12 per cent from Friday's close and about 24.4 per cent from the intra-day high of $45 a share.
Volume was again massive with more than 52 million shares trading hands in 15 minutes. Nearly 581 million shares were traded on Friday in the five or so hours that the stock was open.
As the stock fell, there was a long list of questions—ranging from whether the underwriters priced the shares too high to how well prepared the Nasdaq was to handle the biggest Internet IPO ever—and few immediate answers.
"It was just a poorly done deal and it just so happens to be the biggest deal ever for Nasdaq and they pooched it, that's the bottom line here," said Joe Saluzzi, co-manager of trading at Themis Trading in Chatham, New Jersey.
Copyright: Thomson Reuters 2012
Facebook's debut was beset by problems, so much so that Nasdaq said on Monday it was changing its IPO procedures. That may comfort companies considering a listing but does little for Facebook, whose lead underwriter Morgan Stanley had to step in and defend the $38 offering price on the open market. Also read: Morgan Stanley works on Facebook IPO orders
See our complete coverage here
Without that same level of defense, its shares fell $4.64 to $33.67 in the first minutes of trading. That represented a decline of more than 12 per cent from Friday's close and about 24.4 per cent from the intra-day high of $45 a share.
Volume was again massive with more than 52 million shares trading hands in 15 minutes. Nearly 581 million shares were traded on Friday in the five or so hours that the stock was open.
As the stock fell, there was a long list of questions—ranging from whether the underwriters priced the shares too high to how well prepared the Nasdaq was to handle the biggest Internet IPO ever—and few immediate answers.
"It was just a poorly done deal and it just so happens to be the biggest deal ever for Nasdaq and they pooched it, that's the bottom line here," said Joe Saluzzi, co-manager of trading at Themis Trading in Chatham, New Jersey.
Copyright: Thomson Reuters 2012
