Facebook IPO finally started but its shares weren’t a bang like many predicted. They started with a value of $38 and finished the day with a value of $38.23.

The trade was scheduled to start at 11 am, Eastern Time, but the Nasdaq delayed the start of half an hour to handle the huge flow of trade requests that were already arriving.

Thus there was plenty of trading and Facebook shares quickly reached the value of $42 but at that point instead of getting higher and higher their value started falling and for a while it was even lower than the initial $38.

Expectations for Facebook IPO were enormous: according to many predictions, their value would be doubled at the end of the first day and according to the most optimistic predictions it would even touch $90. What happened?

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Clearly, now the commentators speak of disappointment and everyone’s looking for an explanation for this debut well below expectations. Let’s remember that they created a Hollywood-style choreography for the countdown and at the Facebook headquarters there were big celebrations.

According to many people, so much hype surrounding Facebook IPO ended up stimulating the caution typical of Wall Street. Some people argue that the percentage of shares placed for a social network was excessive.

Perhaps the bubble of speculation increased in recent times around Internet companies reached its peak so people in search of easy money haven’t seen Facebook as the ideal subject for their investments anymore. LinkedIn was successful in its IPO but yesterday its shares went down and even worse did Groupon, Zynga and Pandora.

There will be a lot of talks in the coming days, the fact remains that no one expected a debut so low. If you wanted to buy Facebook shares and you didn’t do it that’s a nice consolation.