NEW YORK – U.S. stocks opened higher on Friday as the debut of Facebook titles lifted the spirits of investors.
Shares of the largest online social network start trading at 1500 GMT.
Still, the major indexes are on track to close its worst week of 2012 under pressure from the financial and political crisis in the Euro area.
The Dow Jones industrial average went up 23.54 points or 0.19% to 12,466.03 points, while the S & P 500 gained 2.74 points or 0.21% to 1,307.6 units. The Nasdaq Composite Index meanwhile added 7.68 points, or 0.27% to 2,821.37 units.
The Facebook social network set the price of its shares in its IPO at $38 on Thursday, giving it a value of 104 billion and beating firms such as Hewlett Packard and Amazon. Market analysts are still watchful of Facebook shares though, as prices during public offerings are never really an indication of the actual performance of the market when it comes to entities doing trading.
The firm founded by Mark Zuckerberg issued a total of 421.2 million shares to raise 16 billion dollars during its stock’s initial public offering, making it the third largest IPO in U.S. history and certainly one of the most expensive.
