The Facebook boom began today with a bit of a bust. CNBC.com reports that the public stock offering for the company generated more volume than any other IPO launch in history. All of that trading, however, didn"t raise the stock price up by much at the end of the day on the NASDAQ stock market.
After delaying the launch of the IPO by 30 minutes this morning, the Facebook IPO began with the price of $38 a share. 82 million shares of the stock changed hands in just the first 30 seconds and went up to 100 million in its first four minutes. In the end, 573 million shares in Facebook were traded today; the stock price itself went all the way to $45 at one point.
In the end, the stock price for Facebook ended up at just $38.23 for the end of its first trading day, a very modest .61 percent rise in its price. CNBC.com said that of the 17 previous IPO launches that were priced above their initial ranges, the average price rise in their shares after the first day of trading was 45 percent.
Some traders complained that there were issues with being able to trade Facebook stock today. The US Securities and Exchange Commission said it would "review the incident" with NASDAQ.