Shares of Facebook (News - Alert) set a record low in trading during part of Friday – falling as much as 4.3 percent, according to the Reuters News Agency.
The record low price came about after early investors in the company were able to sell their stock for the first time ever.
Facebook was selling as low as $19.01 Friday morning – which was almost half of $38 share price during May’s IPO. At midday, the stock was selling for $19.15, and then was selling for $19.23 by mid-afternoon.
Close to 62 million Facebook shares were traded during the first two hours of trading on Friday, Reuters (News - Alert) said.
Over 270 million Facebook shares were able to be traded this week – following three months where sales could not take place. In contrast, 421 million shares were sold in Facebook’s disappointing IPO on May 18.
In addition, over 1.4 billion more shares – either held by early investors or Facebook – will be able to be traded by the end of the year, Reuters added.
In a related matter, Mark Zuckerberg (News - Alert), Facebook's cofounder and CEO, found his fortune fell to a new low on Thursday, according to Bloomberg News. It was estimated at $10.2 billion, according to the Bloomberg (News - Alert) Billionaires Index.
The loss was a result of Facebook shares dropping 6.3 percent on Thursday. The shares closed at $19.87 edging up slightly from a lower price during Thursday trading.
Also, Facebook has lost more than $40 billion in value since the IPO, according to Bloomberg.
TechZone360 reported that some of the latest causes of the falling stock price are the recent earnings report (which showed costs increasing more than projected) and lingering questions about future company growth. A few key executives (Katie Mitic and Ethan Beard) have left the company. In other troubling news, Facebook reported more than 83 million Facebook accounts were duplicates or fakes.
Things could change for the company if it could come up with methods to take advantage of the users who go onto Facebook via mobile devices, TechZone360 said. More generally, the company needs to find ways it can profit from its products.