On Friday, Facebook’s stock price closed at $18.06, putting the stock at less than half than the stock’s opening initial public offering (IPO) price of $38. That marks the furthest the stock price has fallen since May 2012, when the company was first publicly traded.
Facebook has struggled in recent months to show that it can effectively make money on mobile devices—even though some analysts, in the wake of the company’s adequate quarterly earnings report, said that they expected Facebook to turn things around.
That's not quite as bad as another Bay Area company whose fortunes are very much tied to Facebook's: Zynga. That company's stock has been hammered—losing 70 percent of its value in eight months, and a significant number of middle managers and top executives as well.
About two weeks ago, a significant number of Facebook’s early investors dropped the stock after the lockup agreements rules, which attempt to prevent insider trading by restricting such trades for a certain period.
"We expect investor attention to return to fundamentals after the technical challenges presented by lock-up expirations over the next six months have been absorbed by the stock," BMO Capital Markets analysts said in a note, as reported by Reuters on Friday.
That brokerage firm, cut its target price for Facebook to somewhere between $10 and $15, far lower than the IPO price of $38. Other financial firms cut their targets to similar levels.
AllFacebook.com notes that the next big financial date for Facebook will be October 15, when Facebook employees and boardmembers (everyone except CEO Mark Zuckerberg) can sell their stock. About a month later, on November 14, as the biggest lock-up expires, Zuckerberg and other investors will be allowed to sell theirs, should they so choose—1.2 billion shares of the company will be made available.
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