For Facebook, life ain’t nothin’ but glitches and IPOs

In addition to being one of the largest initial public offerings ever, Facebook’s IPO drew so much interest that the system couldn’t keep up with demand.

Facebook expected to make its public debut at 8 a.m. PT this morning, but trading took an extra half-hour to get underway. While details weren’t provided, Bloomberg was able to confirm that NASDAQ was experiencing a delay.

The Wall Street Journal reported that traders were unable to confirm changes or cancellations made to Facebook orders as early as 4:30 a.m. PT. Once trading did begin, traders were unable to get a confirmation on if they got the stock at the intended price. These glitches ended up putting the social network giant’s stock price into a slump, which caused a sinking reaction among other tech stocks.

It’s possible the glitches were due to the extremely large volume of trades — over 460 million shares traded (with nearly half of those happening within the first two hours). NASDAQ was unavailable for comment about the glitches at the time of publication.

So lets recap: Facebook’s IPO was one of the largest ever, generated so much activity the system couldn’t keep up, and caused other industry stocks to mimic its behavior. However, all that demand didn’t translate to a great first day for the stock, which closed at $38.06, down $4 from where it opened.

But the company’s largest stakeholder and chief executive showing up to the bell ringing in a hoodie rather than stuffy business attire? That was no big deal. (To test this theory, Twitter’s largest shareholders should wear Jedi robes and plastic light sabers when it goes public.)

Photo via NASDAQ live feed video