Facebook opened on the stock exchange today.
The shares jumped 13% this morning up to $43 per, but have returned back to around $38 as of this writing. More than 300 million shares traded within the first two hours. In fact, there were so many last-minute orders at the Nasdaq exchange that trading – initially set for 11 a.m. ET – was delayed 30 minutes.
Incidentally, as Facebook debuted on the scene, Zynga, which enjoys a symbiotic relationship with the social network, saw its own stock fall off a cliff, dropping 13 percent, or $1.10 a share. That drop brought the stock to a new all-time low of $7.17 and triggered a freeze on trading of Zynga shares. Other social networking companies also fell, with Groupon shares down 6.9 percent and LinkedIn down 6.5 percent by midday in New York, which some say is in response to the “overhyped Facebook opening.”
Facebook shares will become available to borrow after they settle, on May 25.
Meanwhile, for those who want a less virtual – and less expensive – experience when buying a piece of the social network, websites like Give A Share and One Share offer the option of purchasing individual shares, rather than requiring Facebook stock be bought in lots (bundles of 100 stocks). And, when I say individual share, I mean an actual hard copy of a single share like we used to have back in the day.
These sites cater to investors who are looking to grab a piece of Facebook without shelling out several grand in the process.
“It interests people who are not ordinarily interested in the stock market,” Rick Roman, the founder of Give A Share.com, told CNN Money. “We’ve been getting people asking about it for a year.”
Give A Share.com allows you to purchase individual shares of Facebook, along with the hard copy of the stock certificate for an additional $39 fee. Other online brokers such as ShareBuilder also allow limited orders for a fee.
So, even if you don’t wanna be a millionaire so freaking bad as to scoop up several lots online, you can still own a tiny piece of dot-com history.