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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg rings the Nasdaq's opening bell from the company's HQ in Menlo Park, Calif.
By Roland Jones
Updated at 11:35 a.m. ET: Shares of Facebook began trading on the public markets Friday morning in one of the largest and most watched initial public offerings of stock of recent years.
Facebook?s shares jumped to?$43 in initial trading, up about 13 percent from an IPO price of $38.But the stock quickly gave back some of its initial jump and was lately trading below $39.
The opening trade was delayed. Facebook?s stock was originally due to begin trading at 11 a.m. ET, but was delayed by about 30 minutes as traders experienced problems with changing and canceling orders they had submitted to the Nasdaq, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Traders told CNBC that retail demand for the public stock offering was the highest ever for an IPO, with an expected retail component of 15 percent to 25 percent. Trading volume in Facebook exceeded 100 million shares in the first three minutes of the stock?s trading, the Journal said.
Earlier, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg rang the opening bell at the Nasdaq stock market. Shares of Facebook are now trading on the Nasdaq market under the symbol ?FB.? (You can track the performance of Facebook?s stock price here).
Facebook went public after the close of trading Thursday at $38 a share, raising $16 billion in a landmark initial public offering that values the company at more than $100 billion.
Investment banks organizing the?stock offering set the price at the top end of the range of $34 to $38 per share estimated by Facebook in a regulatory filing earlier this week.
Related: Facebook founder Zuckerberg opens trading at Nasdaq
At $38 a share, the offering values the eight-year-old company at $104 billion, making its IPO the largest-ever stock market debut for an Internet company. It will raise more than?$16 billion for Facebook and selling shareholders, including?Zuckerberg, and ultimately could raise up to?$18.4 billion, assuming underwriters exercise their option for ?overallotments? to meet strong demand.
Zuckerberg updated his profile on Facebook Friday morning, listing his company on the Nasdaq market.
Facebook has enjoyed remarkably swift growth. In just eight years the company has gone from a college service founded in a Harvard dorm to the third-largest public offering of stock in U.S. history, after stock offerings from General Motors and Visa.
The sky-high valuation of Facebook puts it a bit ahead of Web veteran Amazon.com, which has more than 10 times Facebook's $3.7 billion in revenue. But Facebook is growing quickly and posted $1 billion in profits last year, more than Amazon's $631 million.
CEO and founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg rings the Nasdaq opening bell.
Individual investors have their first chance to buy shares of Facebook in the open market Friday. But analysts note that intense?interest in Facebook?s offering is likely to drive the price up sharply.
Buying shares of Facebook on their market debut ?is not a strategy for the faint of heart,??said Hugh Johnson, chief investment officer of Hugh Johnson Advisors in Albany, N.Y.
In an example of the type of pressure investors could face, LinkedIn, another social media company, went public almost exactly a year ago at $45 a share and closed at $94 on a volatile first day of trading that saw its shares top $122 at one point.
Related: Want a piece of Facebook? Here's what you need to know
That means investors lucky enough to get in at the offering price were able to book an immediate paper profit of more than 100 percent or?"flip" shares and cash in. Other investors paid as much as $122 a share for LinkedIn that day and were left with paper losses. (LinkedIn shares currently trade for about $105.)?
Facebook could easily see a similar first-day trajectory, but it is impossible to know. Online investors who place a general order for Facebook stock will get shares at whatever price happens to be prevailing at the moment.
?Is it a sound investment for a sensible portfolio? No,? said Johnson. ?Is it a worthwhile speculative investment? Sure, but you have to be fully prepared for something that could be a very emotional event. And I have the sense that [the IPO price] could be very overvalued.?
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Facebook will make its much-hyped debut on Wall Street Friday morning, and it's shaping up to be one of the largest IPOs ever, with analysts predicting the social network will be valued at more than $100 billion. TODAY's Savannah Guthrie takes a look at whether the stock will live up to the hype.
Where do you think Facebook shares will close today?
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