Facebook's IPO flopped because of a glitch in the nasdaq where orders weren't being filled for hours and then multiple orders were being filled. It was not because investors didn't like the stock
I don't think the NASDAQ glitch had anything to do with it. FB flopped for many months after the IPO, not just on the first day. A much more likely reason for the decline that lasted months and brought the price down to $18/share is that investors didn't like the stock.
NASDAQ glitches don't curse a stock for months at a time.
Right. The stock flopped because it came out at a time when Facebook was still trying to transition to mobile. Their revenue from PC's was fine but they seemed to be missing the boat on mobile revenue and analysts were unconvinced they could monetize mobile.
Then they had a quarterly report that blew the lid off of mobile revenue and since then the stock has been a rocket. They executed mobile well and that's what the market was looking for.
They've only gotten stronger as Twitter has floundered after coming out strong. I do not have a position in Twitter but if they figure out how to add users (what Wall St. wants to see) they too will explode higher. They have said they do not expect any significant user growth this year and not until some time next year as new strategies get put in place.
If my wife starts using Twitter then I'll load up on the stock.
The glitch was also an anomoly to the nasdaq system as the typical ipo behavior was usually to buy up shares.
Rather in FB's case, there was a flood of order cancellations (in response to the news) entering the system that would reset the ipo book, preventing the ipo from going off.
NASDAQ glitches don't curse a stock for months at a time.
Edit: https://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&...
Edit 2: Actually it looks like it took well over a year before the stock rebounded above IPO price.