Facebook, Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) is finally public.  After pricing about 421 million shares at $38.00, the company raised $16 billion without taking into consideration the green-shoe or overallotment option for the underwriters.  This IPO is opening at 11:00 AM EST and the prevailing thought is a premium IPO happening here today.  It goes without saying but this has been one of the most anticipated IPOs of all-time.  We will be updating the action and the commentary throughout the trading day after this opens up for trading.

The underwriting syndicate was perhaps the largest we have seen yet: Morgan Stanley; J.P. Morgan Securities; Goldman Sachs; Merrill Lynch; Barclays Capital; Allen & Company; Citigroup Global Markets; Credit Suisse Securities; Deutsche Bank Securities; RBC Capital Markets; Wells Fargo Securities; Blaylock Robert Van; BMO Capital Markets; C.L. King & Associates; Cabrera Capital Markets; CastleOak Securities; Cowen and Company; E*TRADE Securities; Itaú BBA USA Securities; Lazard Capital Markets; Lebenthal & Co.; Loop Capital Markets; M.R. Beal & Company; Macquarie Capital; Muriel Siebert & Co.; Oppenheimer & Co.; Pacific Crest Securities; Piper Jaffray & Co.; Raymond James & Associates; Samuel A. Ramirez & Company; Stifel Nicolaus; The Williams Capital Group; and William Blair.

UPDATE 10:30 AM EST: We’ve been looking at different aspects of the Facebook IPO for the last few days. Here are links to some of our earlier coverage:

• How Criminals Use Facebook
• Big Risks to Consider at Facebook’s IPO
• Shares Getting a Boost from Facebook’s IPO
• Facebook Shares as Collectibles

UPDATE 11:05 AM EST: Opening delayed nearly half an hour. Expect heavy volume gets the blame.

UPDATE 11:29 AM EST: Still waiting. Opening price started at $45, now down to $42.

UPDATE 11:31 AM EST: Now open – at $42.35.

UPDATE 11:32 AM EST: nasdaq.com overwhelmed with traffic.

UPDATE: 11:33 AM EST: FB trading down slightly at $41.17. Enough. Other things to do for a while.

UPDATE 11:43 AM EST: Shares now bounced off $40 and turned north again.

UPDATE 11:52 AM EST: Less than 30 minutes after the first trade, shares are bouncing around the IPO price of $38.

UPDATE 12:37 PM EST: More than 261 million shares of FB have traded hands in just over an hour.  Share price now at $39.95.

UPDATE 12:55 PM EST: Shares of Zynga halted on IPO delay. More coverage here.

UPDATE 2:27 PM EST: After nearly 3 hours of trading, FB has moved nearly 385 million shares. The price jumped to around $41.70 at one point but has vacillated between $40 and $41 for the last 45 minutes or so.

UPDATE 2:44 PM EST: We have now seen the whole IPO volume trade as 425 million shares have traded hands; last print still up 5.2% at $40.00.

UPDATE 3:08 PM EST: Facebook has now broken an IPO record on share volume after passing the record held by GM with 458 million; FB volume is now 461 million shares.

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