Countdown begins for Facebook IPO trading on Nasdaq

D-day is here, when Facebook, the world’s largest social networking site, with over 900 million users will go public. Facebook’s stock will begin trading on the Nasdaq exchange under the logo “FB.” The Nasdaq opens at 9.30 am (East Standard Time) which is around 7 pm Indian Standard Time. However FB won’t start trading until 9.30 am sharp, reports CNN.

Its not because Zuckerberg is looking for an auspicious time but as the report mentions, because Nasdaq doesn’t permit initial public offerings being traded until a bit later in the trading session.

The report states,

“It’s not a delay or a problem, just a matter of style,” said a source familiar with Nasdaq’s process. “We want to have an IPO stand alone at its own special time.” The company in question – right now, that’s Facebook – can decide when to debut and works with Nasdaq to set the time. Technically, an IPO stock could even start trading in the afternoon, as long as it’s well before the closing bell at 4 pm ET.

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Facebook’s shares are priced at $38 per share and the company has a market value of nearly $104 billion. Facebook hopes to raise around $16 billion through this IPO which is one of the biggest in the history of the world.

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Meanwhile how are Facebook’s employees preparing ahead of the IPO? Well FB has an all-night Hackathon going on at its Menlo Park headquarters.

According to TechCrunch, Zuckerberg got a standing ovation before the 31st Facebook Hackathon began. It goes on to say:

Hackathons are a company tradition. They’re a place where engineers and other non-technical employees get to stay out all night building concepts into real products that sometimes eventually get shipped. Some of the big products that have come out of earlier Hackathons include Facebook chat and an early version of Timeline.

While there is massive interest in the company’s IPO, there are also increasing questions about whether the site will be able to live up to investor expectations. The one particular concern that will continue to haunt Facebook is advertising, since it is a major source of revenue for the company.

Once the company goes public, Zuckerberg and his social network will be subject to a lot more investor scrutiny.