Facebook shares, 44% below IPO, continue to fall
— -- Facebook's rocky relationship with investors just keep getting worse.
After hitting a new low Tuesday as shares tumbled 6% to $21.71, the drop continued Wednesday. The stock (FB) was down more than 3% in early trading to $21.01.
Four trading sessions after the social-networking giant reported earnings for the first time as a public company, concerns about growth and share valuation are far from over.
The shares are now almost 45% below the $38 a share IPO price when it started trading May 18.
The worst may be yet to come. On Aug. 16, 91 days after the IPO, insiders, such as company officers, directors and employees, can sell 268 million shares of stock. Between 91 and 181 days after the IPO, insiders can sell an additional 137 million shares. Given the stock's plunge so far, investors are braced for an avalanche of available shares from insider sales, putting more downward pressure on the stock price.
It's a stunning reversal of fortune in a short period of time. Facebook is now the second-worst performer of all IPOs in the U.S. so far this year, says IPOScoop.com. Around the time of the IPO, individual and institutional investors alike were clamoring for shares of the multibillion-dollar IPO. Facebook shares' precipitous 43% price drop is slightly better than the 51% decline by Renewable Energy Group, which went public in January.
The fallout from Facebook's dismal performance isn't confined to the billions of dollars erased from CEO Mark Zuckerberg's personal fortune. Analysts attributed at least part of Tuesday's sell-off to the announcement of Facebook-related losses by a large Swiss bank. UBS on Tuesday reported a disappointing 58% decline in quarterly profits, in part, to a 349 million franc loss ($357 million U.S.) from its handling of Facebook stock at the IPO launch. The bank says it lost money due to technical problems handling orders of Facebook stock for clients.
"Facebook doesn't have any friends on Wall Street or Silicon Valley," Gaskins says. "That's a problem. Their brand has been damaged a lot."
