Business

First flight out

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See ya’, Zucker!

Facebook shares — in a perpetual free fall since the company’s much- maligned public debut in May — hit a record low yesterday as a wave of 271 million shackled shares were freed up for sale.

Shares of the social network fell more than 6 percent, at one point touching $19.69, as the prospect of early backers racing to dump their shares spooked investors.

Facebook fell 6.3 percent to close at $19.87. The shares, which have been on a downward slide since the company went public at $38, have lost nearly 50 percent of their value.

While the first day of trading was marred by technical glitches, it’s become clear that investors were also spooked by the company’s growth prospects.

Even more troubling is the prospect of an even bigger wave of new shares hitting the market.

On Nov. 13, 1.3 billion shares will be freed when a second lockup period expires, making yesterday’s flood seem like a trickle, analysts warned.

Yesterday, employees and early backers, such as DST Global, Elevation Partners and Accel Partners, could start selling part of their holdings following a 90-day lockup — and it seems many investors decided to head for the exits.

On the average day, 30 million Facebook shares exchange hands, but yesterday more than 155 million were traded.

Analyst Ken Sena with Evercore Partners said that early employees would be in a rush to sell, especially the ones who were awarded shares at well below $20.

The pressure on the stock will only continue as more lockups expire, he said.

“We see over 1 billion shares becoming freely tradable by November,” Sena wrote in a note to clients.

The message is that there’s no rush to jump into the free-falling stock, even if there are some retail investors still enticed by the story.

Some money investors have jumped in already, including Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, who bought $1 million worth of shares last week at a price just above $20.