When Facebook went to Wall Street

At $104 billion, Facebook's IPO is the largest ever by a technology firm, topping Google's $23 billion valuation back in 2004, and the net proceeds to the company will be $6.4 billion. However, Facebook’s stock rose by mere pennies in its initial public offering.

The performance fell far short of the expectations of Wall Street and Silicon Valley, and raised questions about whether the company's stock will be the sure bet many had counted on.

So what went wrong? Analysts point to a variety of factors that might have given investors pause.

·    Its valuation at about 100 times earnings likely struck some as too high.

·        Its growth in new users is slowing.

·      Facebook has not yet found a way to cash in on mobile devices, where social media is gravitating.

·     It’s largest shareholders moved to maximize their profits at the expense of new investors. For example, a few days before the IPO, Facebook raised the stock's projected price to a range of $34 to $38 from the initial $28 to $35, and priced it at the peak of $38 on Thursday.

·       On Wednesday, the company announced that longtime investors led by Goldman Sachs planned to sell big chunks of their holdings in the IPO. That struck some investors as greedy and a sign that Wall Street insiders were getting out while they could.