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05/21/2012 12:27 pm Reuters

Facebook Share Price: Social Network's Shares Slide Below Issue Price In Pre-Market



Facebook shares sank on Monday in the first day of trading without the full support of the company's underwriters,
leaving some investors down 25 percent from where they were Friday afternoon.

Facebook's debut was beset by problems, so much so that Nasdaq said on Monday it was changing its IPO procedures.
That may comfort companies considering a listing but does little for Facebook, whose lead underwriter Morgan Stanley
had to step in and defend the $38 offering price on the open market.

Without that same level of defense, its shares fell $4.50 to $33.73 in the first 1-1/2 hours of trading. That
represented a decline of 11.8 percent from Friday's close and 25 percent from the intra-day high of $45
a share.

The losses wiped some $19 billion off of the company's market capitalization -- not far from what Chief Executive Mark
Zuckerberg was worth personally when the stock debuted.

Volume was again massive, with more than 96 million shares trading hands by 11 a.m. EDT (15OO GMT), making it by
far the most active stock on the U.S. market. Nearly 581 million shares were traded on Friday.