When the New York and NASDAQ stock exchanges opened last Wednesday, October 31, Facebook employees and pre-IPO investors were finally allowed to sell the 230 million shares that they could sell on the October 26, lock-up period expiry date.
The price they'd get ($21.11), would be 4% less than the closing price of $21.94 on Friday, October 26, but the shares went briskly, leaving them clear for other investors to lap up.
The next Lock-up Period Expiry will be on November 15, when 800 million shares are expected to be released.
Although Facebook founder - Mark Zuckerberg, has agreed not to sell his shares within the first year of the IPO, it is felt that Facebook committed a major blunder by allowing its early investors to sell their shares within the first year of its IPO.
Facebook's stock price over the past 5 months, has not only decreased by 42%, but the price hasn't moved over the past five (5) days (meandering around $21.25).
News emerged on Monday, that Facebook has updated its iOS app with gifts, a new messaging interface amd multi-photo sharing capabilities.
(Apple smartphone and tablet users access Facebook via the Facebook app on these devices. Apple's iOS operating system facilitates this).
But we'll just have to see if this will have any effect on Facebook's share price (in the short term).
(A major criticism for Facebook's stagnant growth within the developed world, is it' s late entry into the mobile market.
In June 2012, 57% of Facebook's users, used Facebook via their mobile phones).
(I'd like to thank Glen z Collection for the use of her Flickr inset photo of Facebook's logo, above).
Gillian
Sources Include
1) Graph: Facebook Six (6) Months' Stock Price (June - November 2012), courtesy of Yahoo Finance, accessed November 7,2012
2) Article,"Facebook updates its iOS app with Gifts, new Messages interface, and multi-photo uploads", by Ken Yeung, TheNextWeb.com (TNW), November 5,2012
3) Article, "Facebook shares fall as lock-up period expires ", by Alexei Oreskovic, Reuters, October 31,2012
4) Article, "Here's The Part Of Facebook's Earnings Call That Caused The Stock To Crash", by Henry Blodget, Business Insider, August 3,2012
5) Article, "Facebook: Over 955 million users, 543 million mobile users ", by Emil Protalinski ,CNET.com, July 26,2012
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