Facebook will unleash its historic initial public offering at $38 a share. Billed as the largest internet IPO in history, the deal should garner the social networking mammoth around "$16 billion in proceeds," and place the company at more than $100 billion value-wise. CNBC reports: "Including the overallotment (a 30-day option underwriters have to include an additional batch of shares in the deal), Facebook could raise up to $18.4 billion, which would make it the second largest IPO in U.S. history, behind only Visa, which raised $19.7 billion when it went public in 2008."
How will this affect the market overall? Well, it will be just grand. Naturally. Josh Brown of Fusion Analytics tells CNBC, "It will probably be a positive for the market overall tomorrow...This is a really dreary atmosphere, but something like a Facebook could really make people feel a little bit better about wading back into some Nasdaq names."
Facebook will start trading tomorrow on the Nasdaq under the ticker "FB." Scores of employees and lucky bastards stand to gain loads and loads of cash. Brace yourselves.