Facebook shares continue dropping

PanARMENIAN.Net - Facebook's stock is once again down Sept 4 morning, dropping to an all-time low of $17.58. The shares have climbed a bit to $17.70, down 2 percent compared to their opening price of $18.06, CNET reports.

After going public in May for $38 a share, Facebook has watched its shares plummet. Last week, Facebook was down 5.3 percent after BMO Capital Markets reduced its 12-month price target from $25 to $15.

"We expected investor attention to return to fundamentals after the technical challenges presented by lockup expirations over the next six months have been absorbed by the stock," BMO's Daniel Salmon said in a note.

The first lockup expiration came down last month, allowing 271 million shares to be sold by insiders and employees. That resulted in a 5 percent drop in Facebook's share price. In just the next four months, over 1.5 billion shares will be made available for sale, possibly leading to even more sell-offs.

Even Facebook's earliest, most ardent supporters have left the company behind. Late last month, Peter Thiel, Facebook's first outside investor, sold about 20 million shares to score approximately $400 million in the exchange. Thiel, who put $500,000 in Facebook in 2004, cashed out $640 million in the IPO.