Facebook’s Debut Marred by Trading Glitches

I was at a trading desk today, there really were issues at Nasdaq. I've never seen such fury and never heard such obscenities. Traders didn't know what their positions were and those who did know of their positions, couldn't be sure of the price they received.

Despite witnessing countless "enterprise" systems built out of bubble gum and popsicle sticks, I still have a hard time believing that Nasdaq really couldn't handle this technically... I'm not sure what to make of this.

I don't have insight into it but this sounds to me like the underwriters making excuses for a "poor performing" IPO.<p>I have no idea which way FB will head on Monday but am pretty sceptical that this is at all relevant to their 1st day performance. I wouldn't base optimism specifically on the viewpoint

What I've heard (from a friend at MS) is that the initial delay was due to the underwriters convincing larger funds not to just dump all their shares at the open ...

Something was definitely broke, as I was watching stocktwits to see what people were saying about Facebook. I saw at least 3 or 4 people saying that their orders were not being confirmed and still listed as pending. One was using scottrade I believe.<p>However, I was able to purchase stock just fine via tdameritrade.

So does anyone think that on Monday if Nasdaq stays more stable, Facebook's stock will do better?

Today was a Friday.<p>Markets usually sell off on the last day of the week before heading into the weekend; i.e. traders don't (usually) like holding positions for two days more than they have to.<p>I think it's important to factor this into any discussion of Facebook's trading debut.<p>I personally would be waiting to see who things fair next week/monday.<p>[addendum] I'm quite surprised the IPO was set for a Friday because of this.

I, for better or worse, decided to invest some of my dollars in Facebook. Like many others, I received radio silence about my trade. At EOD, I got a call from my brokerage, Fidelity, apologizing about the trading issues and offered to cancel my trades. They were going to absorb the costs to make me happy... And I didn't even complain. I was on the fence about canceling my order but that was besides the point, for me Fidelity just secured a lifelong customer and now, apparently a Fidelity evangelist!

<i>puts on tinfoil hat</i><p>Trading "glitch", or engineered opportunity? Any smart person can make a small fortune off of a delta. As I always say, if there is a way to make money, somebody, somewhere, is going to figure out how to do it.