Submission + - Facebook IPO Stumbles out of the Gate (theglobeandmail.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Perhaps unsurprisingly, the most hyped IPO in U.S. history did not go off without a hitch. Public trading didn't get underway until about 11:30 a.m. ET, half an hour after it was supposed to. The delay was likely caused by the huge amount of interest in the stock – especially by retail investors. In the first few minutes of trading, Facebook shares were only up between 5 and 10 per cent and by noon were essentially back down to the IPO price of $38. Many observers had expected the stock to double in price by the end of the day, if not sooner. But the relatively mild increase indicates the company priced its IPO accurately. However, it was still unclear whether myriad technical difficulties were having an effect on Facebook's share price. Even if the price change early in the day was very small, trading volume appeared incredibly high. Some trading sites seemed to crash under the weight of the trading orders, and even the NASDAQ site itself was intermittently inaccessible.
