Facebook’s Opening Trade Has Been Delayed On NASDAQ

Kim-Mai Cutler

Kim-Mai Cutler is a technology journalist who has worked for Bloomberg, VentureBeat and The Wall Street Journal. Before she joined TechCrunch, she led mobile coverage at Inside Network, a six-person media startup that was acquired by WebMediaBrands in 2011 for $14 million in cash and stock. She specializes in covering gaming, distribution and monetization of mobile applications and venture... → Learn More

Friday, May 18th, 2012
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Facebook’s opening trade on NASDAQ has been delayed. We don’t know why, but we’re hearing mixed reports involving both unexpectedly high demand from retail investors and problems with canceling orders. As we explained in a post about 20 minutes ago, the underwriters of the deal are meeting and trying to set an opening price.

But because of unexpected changes in demand, it seems market makers are having issues settling on an opening price. They have the option of delaying the offering in five-minute increments until they can find a final price.

This is not terribly uncommon and it’s happened in very recent, popular IPOs like Splunk, according to Bruce Aust, who is NASDAQ’s executive vice president and head of the global corporate client group. Early word is that we’re looking at a $42 price, or a pop of just over 10.5 percent. That would give Facebook a $115 billion valuation.

 

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