Can't we all rest at peace knowing that the facebook guys priced it perfectly and raised the maximum amount of money they could and these high frequency traders and investment bankers couldn't manage to play on perception to make their share of quick money that they've been doing at every IPO.<p>This almost seems to me like they want to play on public perception to somehow bring the price to a higher number and then sell it. Is that why the news is filled with facebook this, facebook that?<p>Almost sounds like a conspiracy theory.
UBS, Citadel, Knight also announced losses, bringing total market maker losses to around $115m:<p><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/25/us-facebook-nasdaq-losses-idUSBRE84O18S20120525" rel="nofollow">http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/25/us-facebook-nasdaq...</a><p>A longer read on all the Nasdaq glitches
<a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/26/us-facebook-problems-idUSBRE84P00Y20120526" rel="nofollow">http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/26/us-facebook-proble...</a><p>Hard to know the counterfactual, but if the IPO had a clean start and some traders hadn't been scared to the sidelines by not knowing if trades were going through on NASDAQ, the stock might have traded up. If it looks like everybody's buying, people hop in. If it looks like a dud, people hold off. Social proof is a powerful thing.<p>In the long run, the market is a profit-weighing machine, not a voting machine, so a few opening trades shouldn't really matter.<p>On the other hand the perception of a hot stock and company impact ability to hire, acquire etc. Remember how a Yahoo stock drop nixed their handshake agreement to acquire Facebook. The stock price can impact the business and, in an extreme case, create the reality it tries to measure.