Facebook Falls Below $30 as Option Trading Begins

NEW YORK—Facebook Inc.'s shares tumbled under $30 for the first time, 11 days after the social-media giant launched its initial public offering, as options trading began Tuesday and a negative sentiment continued to weigh on the stock.

Shares fell 7.5% to $29.53 in recent trading, despite a broader market rally. The stock traded as low as $29.35, down nearly 23% from its IPO price of $38 on May 18. Facebook shares have slid over the past couple weeks following a messy IPO process and because of concerns about the company's growth potential.

At its low Tuesday, Facebook had a market value of $80.4 billion, down from its IPO value of $104.1 billion.

Tuesday, shares fell further as the company debuted on the options market, allowing investors to bet on the future of the stock with less money at risk. Facebook options were the second-most actively traded individual name Tuesday, behind Apple Inc. By noon, about 162,000 Facebook options had traded, granting the right to buy or sell 16.2 million shares of the stock.

The options traded all over the board, with some investors seeing a jump to $65 a share by January 2014, while others betting on a slump to $16 a share by December. The largest option trades, however, bet on Facebook seeing more downside this summer, pegging a $25 share price by mid-July.

Associated Press

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg

Also possibly weighing on Facebook's stock Tuesday is speculation that the company may be considering a takeover offer for Norway's Opera Software . Neither company has commented on the speculation.

Some analysts have said a successful bid could cost Facebook more than $1 billion as Google Inc. and others also may be looking into Opera, which is famous for its popular mobile and web browsers and, unlike Facebook, has successfully converted mobile traffic into tangible revenue.

BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield said the shift to mobile is happening quickly and Facebook investors are still trying to determine how the company is going to make money in a mobile world. Facebook is only beginning to experiment with how mobile ads might work, and the company's app makers don't have a presence on the mobile site