That’s just like not something we’re really interested in. I mean, yeah, we can make a bunch of money—that’s not the goal.
Individual investors were left guessing for more than two hours on Friday about whether their buy and sell orders for newly issued Facebook shares had been actually executed.
The Nasdaq Stock Market, where Facebook is listed, had problems sending electronic messages back to the brokerages that handle orders from individual, or “retail,” investors, according to people with direct knowledge of the situation.
Because the electronic acknowledgements didn’t come back from the exchange, the brokers were unable to tell their clients that trades had been executed. Such acknowledgements usually occur almost instantaneously.
“Nasdaq’s delay in passing back executions is causing a lot of heartburn on the Street,” said one source. “We had to tell clients we didn’t get the print back,” said another.
READ MORE: Facebook investors left guessing after Nasdaq glitch
Facebook Inc shares fizzled on their first day of trade on the Nasdaq, erasing early gains of as much as 18 percent to trade close to their initial public offering price.
The stock opened 11 percent higher and rose to $45 before rapidly heading south in frenzied trade, touching its initial public offering price of $38. The No. 1 online social network raised as much as $18.4 billion in one of the biggest initial public offerings in U.S. history.
After a delay in the opening print that drove up anxiety levels among traders and onlookers outside the Nasdaq, the company’s closely watched stock began trading at $42.05, compared with an IPO price of $38.
To rapturous applause from employees, Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg — flanked by Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg and Nasdaq Chief Executive Robert Greifeld — rang the bell to kick off trading at the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters at 6:30 a.m. Pacific time.
The 28-year-old billionaire founder hugged and high-fived Sandberg and other employees in celebration after he pressed the remote button.
READ MORE: Facebook fizzles in debut, shares skirt IPO price
Shareholders in JPMorgan Chase & Co on Tuesday rejected a proposal calling on the company to split the roles of chairman and chief executive, a victory for incumbent Jamie Dimon.
The proposal received some 40.1 percent of votes cast in favor, the company said at the end of its annual meeting.
DEVELOPING: JPMorgan shareholders reject chairman/CEO split
Romney campaign defends JPMorgan loss as market risk
U.S. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s campaign said on Tuesday that JPMorgan Chase & Co’s huge trading losses were an unfortunate part of a free market economy.
Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom told NBC that, while Romney supports some financial regulation, the losses at one of the nation’s largest banks involved investors, not taxpayers, and that rules for Wall Street should not hamper investments.
“The leadership of that company will be held accountable for this trading loss, but we don’t want to punish companies, he told NBC’s “Today” program. “There was no taxpayer money at risk. All of the losses went to investors, which is how it works in a public market.”
READ MORE: Romney camp defends $3bn loss by JPMorgan
WATCH LIVE: Former FDIC chairwoman Sheila Bair speaks with Reuters on the topics of banking regulations and the JPMorgan trading loss. The interview streams live on our website at 10am ET.
Solutions for the “Sandwich Generation” supporting children and parents
How families paying for kids and elderly parents can discover hidden day-care, flex-spending, telecommuting, and financial help. Lauren Young offers leads in this week’s Money Clip.
For a bank lauded for navigating the fallout from the 2008 financial crisis without reporting a loss, the errors are embarrassing, especially given Dimon’s criticism of the so-called Volcker rule to ban proprietary trading by big banks.
Dimon conceded the losses, which could rise by a further $1 billion, were linked to a Wall Street Journal report last month about a London-based trader Bruno Iksil, nicknamed the ‘London Whale’, who, the paper said, amassed an outsized position which hedge funds bet against.
Iksil, who graduated in engineering from the Ecole Centrale in Paris in 1991, was not available for comment. The Frenchman, and the Chief Investment Office (CIO) where he works, are known by rival credit traders for taking extremely large positions.
A friend and former JPMorgan colleague said Iksil and his team were not involved in so-called prop trading, where a bank makes bets with its own money, and its activities were known about at the highest levels.
READ MORE: JPMorgan $2 billion trading loss spooks bank stocks
A Northern California jury on Monday found that Google Inc infringed upon Oracle Corp’s copyrights on the structure of part of the Java software programming language, in a high stakes trial over smartphone technology.
However, the jury failed to decide after days of deliberation whether Google had the right to fair use of that copyrighted structure.
The verdict on copyright was read in a San Francisco federal courtroom.
Angry Birds maker Rovio Entertainment said sales jumped tenfold to $100 million last year as gamers flocked to download its titles, adding business was now strong enough for a stock market listing.
The Finnish startup making Angry Birds games — in which players use a slingshot to attack pigs who steal the birds’ eggs — has been valued by analysts at up to $9 billion, just short of that of struggling world No.2 phonemaker Nokia.
Rovio said on Monday its finances were good enough for a listing after revealing a highly profitable 2011 in its first public disclosure of business results and forecast a bumper year ahead.
Rovio, originally founded in 2003, became a global phenomenon after it launched Angry Birds for Apple’s iPhone in late 2009.
READ MORE: Angry Birds maker eyes IPO golden egg
