Facebook, Nasdaq and the us$100s millions

Facebook shares have stabilised as they are still trading between a narrow band and closed at $31.91 yesterday. The fallout from the botched IPO though is not over as Nasdaq faces claims probably in excess of us$100 million and Facebook itself faces multiple lawsuits from angry, mostly smaller investors.

During the IPO shares traded as high as us$45 and as NASDAQ systems failed to process transactions at an average of 3 milliseconds (processed at around 5 milliseconds) the system became unable to set closing prices on trades, etc. effectively. NASDAQ also faces the very real possibility of losing the Facebook listing and the final loss amounts are not yet known.

The only winners in the Facebook saga, is Facebook but what is the true value of a stock? At us$30 a share Facebook is still trading at twice the price of a normal tech stock when comparing it to real world factors like projected earnings per share. So will Facebook trade at us$15 in a years time? Only time will tell.