A Wild Ride: Inside Facebook's First Week After IPO
Facebook's Wild Ride
Facebook's initial public offering is now in the books, and judging by the stock's first week of activity, the buzz isn't going to stop anytime soon. Roller coaster price swings, lawsuits, heck, even a wedding. Here's a look back at Facebook's first full week as a public company.
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Friday, May 18
And so it begins. After months of hype, Facebook's IPO happens. The stock starts at $38 and reaches a high of $45 during the day before closing at $38.23, which draws headlines of both praise and criticism. All told, more than 573 million shares changed hands Friday, and the company ended the day worth more than $100 billion.
Monday, May 21
CEO Mark Zuckerberg married his longtime girlfriend Priscilla Chan (left) on Saturday, but the honeymoon with investors was a short one.
On Monday, the second day of trading, Facebook shares fell 11 percent to $34.03.
Tuesday, May 22
The freefall continues. Shares fell another 9 percent on Tuesday to close at $31.00. Meanwhile, reports surfaced of a lawsuit against Facebook and underwriters Morgan Stanley after Morgan Stanley allegedly cut its revenue forecast for Facebook in the days leading up to the IPO, information that wasn't readily publicly available to prospective stock buyers, according to the suit.
Wednesday, May 23
Some good news. After a couple of days of sharp declines, Facebook shares rebounded slightly on Wednesday to close at $32.00, up a buck a share. Meanwhile, more class action suits were in the works claiming Nasdaq OMX Group didn't properly handle stock purchase orders for Facebook.
Thursday, May 24
Facebook continued to gain some more momentum as shares increased another $1.03 to close at $33.03. But large investment firms still vented their anger. Citadel Securities said it lost as much as $35 million due to glitches in the IPO, while the CEO of Knight Capital Group told CNBC it lost between $30 million and $35 million for the same reason.
Friday, May 25
With the holiday weekend approaching, Facebook shareholders were looking to sell. One analyst told Investors.com that the company's premium ads "are not performing as well as advertisers would lead us to believe." Shares closed at $31.91, down 3.4 percent for the day and down 16.5 percent for the week.
Facebook Coverage From CRN
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