Facebook shareholders express anger, confusion about botched IPO

A week after Facebook shares made their debut, the details of what went wrong with the sale are still unclear.

Facebook is under fire for misjudging demand and pricing the stock too aggressively. Morgan Stanley, the lead IPO underwriter, has been accused of lowering its price estimates at the last minute but only sharing the information with select clients. Technical glitches on the Nasdaq exchange confused investors, who didn’t know the status of their bids. On May 24, during a conference call with its brokers, Morgan Stanley said it would review its orders from the stock’s opening day and compensate investors who overpaid, the Associated Press reported. But the firm hasn’t addressed the more disturbing charge that it withheld information from the public that it may have been required to reveal under U.S. securities law. The outrage from individual shareholders has manifested itself in numerous lawsuits.