Facebook IPO Falls Flat

FACEBOOK IPO FALLS FLAT: The much-ballyhooed Facebook IPO kinda fell, well, flat on its face. Shares of the social network closed at $38.23, a mere .6% above the initial price, which represented 100 times historical earnings. After a half-hour delay, shares began trading at around 11:30 a.m. (ET) at $42.05, falling soon afterward. Trading for the third-largest IPO in U.S. history was very heavy, with more than 566 million shares changing hands. That volume easily topped the previous record for an IPO, the Nov. 2010 debut of General Motors. Experts guessed that technical glitches may have prompted some panicked selling. The desultory Facebook launch seemed to affect other tech stocks, including Zynga, the maker of CityVille and other Facebook games, closed down 13.4%, with trading in its share having been halted twice on Friday. Groupon ended down 6.7%, and LinkedIn fell 5.9%. (5/18p)