It's a failure if you're in the business of buying IPO stock. For Facebook itself, it's a glorious success: they have successfully raised alllll the moneys. Mo

It's a failure if you're in the business of buying IPO stock. For Facebook itself, it's a glorious success: they have successfully raised alllll the moneys. Most IPOs try to "pop" a little as an incentive to get the big underwriters to take multimillion/billion dollar positions (which they would be totally unable to liquidate at the 'popped' price, because they'd run out of buyers willing to pay decent money). But Facebook had people tripping all over themselves to get the stock. Why give away shares for anything less than they had to? Preserving existing shareholders' values is the name of the game, not giving away valuable shares to a bunch of outsiders. An incredibly successful IPO.... for Facebook's existing shareholders. Possibly the best IPO ever. (Disclosure: I bought 50 shares as part of the IPO, because I had that kind of money sitting around and was getting bored with medium-term corporate bond funds.)