Facebook Flirts With Busted IPO Status (FB)

Facebook, Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) has been a significant debut, and it has had some surprises even if we are about as sick of hearing this name as one could imagine.  After pricing about 421 million shares at $38.00, the opening was $42.05 and the intraday trading range is $38.00 to $45.00. With barely 30 minutes until the closing bell, Facebook is only about $0.06 above its official share offering price as insiders probably decided whether or not to sell more shares at the end of the trading day.

The company raised $16 billion without taking into consideration the green-shoe or overallotment option for the underwriters.  We compiled a live blog of the matter throughout the day and that has been summarized here below.

The underwriting syndicate was perhaps the largest we have seen yet: Morgan Stanley; J.P. Morgan Securities; Goldman Sachs; Merrill Lynch; Barclays Capital; Allen & Company; Citigroup Global Markets; Credit Suisse Securities; Deutsche Bank Securities; RBC Capital Markets; Wells Fargo Securities; Blaylock Robert Van; BMO Capital Markets; C.L. King & Associates; Cabrera Capital Markets; CastleOak Securities; Cowen and Company; E*TRADE Securities; Itaú BBA USA Securities; Lazard Capital Markets; Lebenthal & Co.; Loop Capital Markets; M.R. Beal & Company; Macquarie Capital; Muriel Siebert & Co.; Oppenheimer & Co.; Pacific Crest Securities; Piper Jaffray & Co.; Raymond James & Associates; Samuel A. Ramirez & Company; Stifel Nicolaus; The Williams Capital Group; and William Blair.

Here are links to some of our earlier coverage:

• How Criminals Use Facebook
• Big Risks to Consider at Facebook’s IPO
• Facebook owning companies now have to fend for themselves
• Facebook share certificates as Collectibles

UPDATE 10:30 AM EST: We’ve been looking at different aspects of the Facebook IPO for the last few days.

UPDATE 11:05 AM EST: Opening delayed nearly half an hour. Expect heavy volume gets the blame.

UPDATE 11:29 AM EST: Still waiting. Opening price started at $45, now down to $42.

UPDATE 11:31 AM EST: Now open – at $42.35.

UPDATE 11:32 AM EST: nasdaq.com overwhelmed with traffic.

UPDATE: 11:33 AM EST: FB trading down slightly at $41.17. Enough. Other things to do for a while.

UPDATE 11:43 AM EST: Shares now bounced off $40 and turned north again.

UPDATE 11:52 AM EST: Less than 30 minutes after the first trade, shares are bouncing around the IPO price of $38.

UPDATE 12:37 PM EST: More than 261 million shares of FB have traded hands in just over an hour.  Share price now at $39.95.

UPDATE 12:55 PM EST: Shares of Zynga halted on IPO delay. More coverage here.

UPDATE 2:27 PM EST: After nearly 3 hours of trading, FB has moved nearly 385 million shares. The price jumped to around $41.70 at one point but has vacillated between $40 and $41 for the last 45 minutes or so.

UPDATE 2:44 PM EST: We have now seen the whole IPO volume trade as 425 million shares have traded hands; last print still up 5.2% at $40.00.

UPDATE 3:08 PM EST: Facebook has now broken an IPO record on share volume after passing the record held by GM with 458 million; FB volume is now 461 million shares.

UPDATE 3:25 PM EST: Shares hit $38.06 and the trading volume is now about 484 million shares.  It is expected that the underwriters will likely offer support to keep this from becoming a busted IPO, but ultimately that depends upon supply and demand.

UPDATE 3:41 PM EST:  Facebook shares were just at $38.00 on the bid with over 1 million shares supporting that bid.  Now shares are at $38.03.  Keep in mind that a $1.00 gain in this stock is $2.73 billion or so in total equity market value.

UPDATE 4:00 CLOSING BELL: Facebook closed at $38.23 on more than 560 million shares.