(Intechnica - May 25th 2012) - Intechnica has highlighted the impact web application performance had on the resounding "flop" of the Facebook IPO one week ago.
One week after Facebook shares went public, the company's initial public offering is being resoundingly labelled a "flop" due to a lower-than-expected share value. There are arguably many factors behind this, as out-of-pocket investors are filing lawsuits against Facebook itself for their losses, but some blame lies on Nasdaq.com for its systems buckling under the strain of massive demand.
Due to a technical glitch on Nasdaq.com, the Facebook IPO launch was delayed by half an hour. Then, traders suffered a lack of visibility on order changes, and problems cancelling orders or even accessing the site, allegedly due to a “high-volume rush”. This hiccup affected 30 million shares and may have cost investors $100 million, as in some cases the price of shares had already dropped by the time orders had eventually been processed – hours after being placed, and in some cases “cancelled”.
Nasdaq acknowledged “design problems” with its technology and vowed to improve it for future IPO openings. The fallout is looking to be costly; Nasdaq has already agreed to reimburse investors as much as $13 million for the blunders, and a multi-million dollar lawsuit has been filed against them by representatives of investors.
These glitches were ultimately blamed in part for share prices dropping below the expected level after several days of trading.
About Intechnica
Intechnica are a Digital Consultancy specialising in performance assurance, and the development of great custom applications. We design, build and optimise fast websites and applications that will not fall over; not today, not tomorrow—and not on the day of your biggest sales push ever.
