Facebook’s stock opened Tuesday at $32.59 per share, down on its third trading day from its $45 high on Friday, the first day of its rocky entry into the stock market.
Facebook’s debut was scheduled for 11 a.m. Friday, but shares didn’t begin trading until 11:30 a.m. NASDAQ, home to the stocks of many of the world’s largest tech companies, had trouble processing orders by 11 a.m.
The law firm Criden & Love announced Monday that it is investigating the role of NASDAQ “in connection with its failure to properly and adequately execute timely trades in the shares of Facebook” on the stock’s launch day.
Facebook’s attraction is the massive amount of specialized data compiled on its global database of 900 million users, but the company has already faced criticism from investors for being overvalued in the lead up to its IPO. Major investors are sitting on the sidelines until the hype cools down.
The company’s regulatory filing on April 23 revealed that the first quarter of 2012 was a mixed bag financially.
Profits were slightly down from 2011, but advertising revenue was up 37 percent at $872 million, compared to the $637 million in advertising revenue it brought in during the first quarter of 2011.
General Motors, battling problems of its own since before it was bailed out by taxpayers in 2008, pulled its advertising from Facebook after it failed to capitalize on the direct access to consumers that Facebook offers.
