Facebook ends first day of public trading at $38.37

Facebook just ended its first day of public trading at a price of $38.37, a gain of just .97 percent after opening at $38. The closely watched debut of the company saw little fluctuation throughout the day, hovering right around that $38 mark all afternoon (with a high of $45). It has been widely reported that underwriters artificially kept the price from falling below the opening price of $38.

Zynga, another publicly traded company whose fate is intrinsically related to Facebook, saw its stock fall steeply enough that trading was halted altogether at two separate points today. Zynga ended the day at $7.16, down nearly 14 percent overall.

Several issues beleaguered the opening this morning, and problems forced a delay of half an hour to 11:30 am. CNBC is now reporting that the SEC will investigate Nasdaq trading issues related to Facebook this morning. In other, better late day news, Facebook just announced it has acquired mobile gifting app company Karma.

You can see our full coverage of the day’s events right here.