Bankers Got Too Aggress...

The underwriters of Facebook’s $16 billion debut on NASDAQ fought to the finish to keep the company’s shares above last night’s final price of $38 a share. Shares closed at $38.23 today . Sources tell us that the syndicate of banks underwriting the deal have been putting in buy orders to keep its price afloat. It’s not necessarily a bad outcome for Facebook as the company didn’t leave any money on the table, but bankers are sure to be unhappy. Plus, the company’s tepid premiere is killing the performance of tech stocks across the board. Basically, what we hear is that the underwriters including Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, just got too aggressive in the final days before the IPO about pricing. Earlier this month, the company was slated to open at a $28 to 35 price range, but that range was pushed up to $34 to 38 a share. Then Facebook priced at the very high end at $38 last night. “The only thing keeping it at $38 are support mechanisms,” a source tells us. “There just wasn’t the institutional investor demand that people thought there would be.” They added that about 20 percent of buying orders seem to be coming from retail investors (e.g. regular people), which is “unprecedented.” Because prices are being held up to avoid a negative finish, shares might dip lower into early next week. Already, we’re seeing the impact on other stocks across the board. Zynga is down 13.4 percent to $7.16. LinkedIn is down 5.9 percent to $99.02. “They’re all in the shitter because now they look expensive since Facebook didn’t go anywhere,” we’re told. From Facebook’s perspective, the company shouldn’t care. The company and its early shareholders raised $16 billion at the very best price they could, leaving no money on the table for the underwriters’ wealthy clients to scoop up and sell for a quick profit. Indeed, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has warned investors from the very beginning that Facebook was originally not meant to be a company. He even said today before the market opened, “Going public is an important milestone in our history. But here’s the thing: our mission isn’t to be a public company. Our mission is to make the world more open and connected.”

Facebook’s Opening Trad...

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.

Explainer: What Happens...

Facebook shares are supposed to go live on the NASDAQ market in about 20 minutes. But what happens in the next crucial 15? We caught up with NASDAQ’s Bruce Aust, who is the executive vice president and head of the global corporate client group there. After several years of carefully courting the company’s management, NASDAQ beat out rival New York Stock Exchange for Facebook’s hand. NASDAQ is usually is the exchange of choice for most tech companies like Google and Apple, but NYSE has snuck away with a company or two in the last year like LinkedIn. Companies generally go live after market opening at around 10:30 or 11 a.m. Eastern, he said. About 15 minutes before shares start trading (e.g. right now! ), the underwriters of Facebook’s offering like the offering’s lead Morgan Stanley get together and discuss current market orders, he said. “The market makers have a chance to work on price discovery to find the opening price,” he said. “If there are more orders coming in than they expected, they may choose to delay it in five minute increments.” Update:  Yep, it’s delayed by 5 minutes! This has happened in very recent, popular IPOs like Splunk. So while Facebook is expected to go live at 11 a.m. Eastern, it could get delayed if there is insanely high demand. Over the past few days, the market makers have had a chance to sort out orders at Facebook’s final price of $38 a share. But right around market opening, many new orders often flood in amid the hype. It can be a little unpredictable. But after that opening price is settled, Facebook will move forward just like any other stock traded on the exchange. “Once we’ve got the buyers and sellers matched off, it’s off to the races,” he said.

Video & Photos: Fac...

Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg didn’t travel to New York’s Times Square for the company’s big day. He did it unconventionally like you’d expect a hacker would.  He opened the bell remotely from the company’s Menlo Park Headquarters after Facebook employees had just finished a long, all-night Hackathon — their 31st. They played midnight hockey and worked on extra projects, as you can see from photos we re-posted here . Just ahead of the 6:30 PST open, the company’s employees got together again in the main headquarters “Hacker Square” in front of a big stage where he rang the bell. A Nasdaq representative gave him an honorary hoodie and trophy. Facebook is the second company ever to ring in NASDAQ’s bell remotely on its IPO day. Zynga was the first back in December. Zuckerberg gave some brief remarks ahead of the bell opening. He said: ““I just want to say a few things, and then we’ll ring this bell and then we’ll get back to work. Right now this all seems like a big deal. Going public is an important milestone in our history. But here’s the thing: our mission isn’t to be a public company. Our mission is to make the world more open and connected. All of you out there have built the largest community in the history of the world. You’ve done amazing things that we never would have dreamed of and I can’t wait to see what you’re going to be doing as we go forward. So on this special day, on behalf of everyone at Facebook, I just want to say to all the people out there who use our product, thank you.” He was flanked by chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, vice president of product Chris Cox and Elliot Schrage, who is Facebook’s vice president of public policy and communications. “Mark and Sheryl wanted to make sure it was about team that helped grow this company,” said Bruce Aust, who is NASDAQ’s executive vice president and head of the global corporate client group. “They wanted to make it special, but they also wanted to remind everyone that this is just one day in the life in company. They wanted say, ‘Let’s get back to work once we have the IPO opening bell. It’s a company that’s very focused on its mission.” There were also many long-time Facebookers on-stage like Javier Olivan, who oversees internationalization and growth, Sam Lessin, who oversaw Timeline, another vice president of engineering Mike Schroepfer and more. A Facebook engineer named David Garcia had hacked the NASDAQ button to auto-post the bell opening to Zuckerberg’s Timeline ( and we have the inside scoop on how he did it !) It was the culmination of an eight-year journey that began in Zuckerberg’s Harvard dorm room. But it’s the company first step in what may be a very long life. Facebook is the most anticipated IPO of the last eight years after Google. It’s the largest tech IPO in history because the company stubbornly waited so long to go public. Facebook and its early shareholders are raising $16 billion today, or nearly 10 times what Google raised in its highly-hyped and very unorthodox Dutch Auction-style IPO in 2004. When the market finally opened, Zuckerberg had signed a statement to be shown in Times Square. It was a company motto. It read, “to a more open and connected world.”

Charts: Facebook’s IPO ...

Facebook will be the largest tech IPO in history today as the company and its early shareholders raise about $16 billion at the final price of $38 a share. There is also an allotment for them to sell up to $2.4 billion more in the next 30 days. Here’s how it compares to other historical IPOs, according to NASDAQ data. Then here’s how it compares to how much Google and Microsoft each raised in their respective IPOs. We also have historical price data from SecondMarket , which is a private secondary market that became popular among former Facebook employees who wanted to offload part of their stake in the company. Facebook has outperformed many of the largest tech companies in the world over last few years. (That’s not totally surprising though since they started from a much lower base.) Here’s how the number of transactions has scaled up on SecondMarket over the last few years.