After months of anticipation, social-networking giant Facebook began selling shares on the stock market Friday in the third largest initial public offering in history.
The company's 28-year-old founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg rang Nasdaq's opening bell from his Silicon Valley headquarters to start the day’s trading.
He was joined by Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg and Nasdaq chief executive Bob Greifeld.
Zuckerberg posted a status update on his own Facebook page — “Mark Zuckerberg listed a company on Nasdaq.”
Facebook will raise $16 billion, trailing only Visa and General Motors as the largest IPO ever.
Under the symbol “FB,” Facebook stock opened at $38 per share. That price will value the company at about $104 billion — more than McDonald’s, Disney and Starbucks.
Facebook, which Zuckerberg founded in his Harvard University dorm in 2004, now has more than 900 million users worldwide, with about 188 million in the United States and Canada.
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