NEW YORK — After all the hype, Facebook’s first day as a public company ended where it began. In its much-anticipated debut on the Nasdaq Stock Market, Facebook’s stock closed Friday at $38.23, up 23 cents. It had been priced at $38 per share on Thursday night.
NEW YORK — In one of the largest initial public offerings of stock ever, Facebook said Thursday that it is raising at least $16 billion for itself and its early investors in a transaction that values the world’s definitive online social network at $104 billion.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Caving to a massive campaign by Internet services and their millions of users, Congress indefinitely postponed legislation Friday to stop online piracy of movies and music costing U.S. companies billions of dollars every year. Critics said the bills would result in censorship and stifle Internet innovation.
With charitable drive donations down at all social service agencies, the Salvation Army of Delaware County still hopes to meet its Red Kettle Campaign fund drive goal this year.
NEW YORK — Shoppers seem to be just as enthusiastic about shopping on their computers and smartphones on Cyber Monday as they were about finding deals over the weekend.
More Americans hunted for bargains over the weekend than ever before as retailers lured them online and into stores with big discounts and an earlier-than-usual start to the holiday shopping season. A record 226 million shoppers visited stores and websites during the four-day holiday weekend starting on Thanksgiving Day, up from 212 million last year, according to early estimates by The National Retail Federation released on Sunday. Americans spent more, too: The average holiday shopper spent $398.62 over the weekend, up from $365.34 a year ago.
Trader Joe’s, the specialty grocery chain, might not have the cheapest toilet paper or the most varieties of ketchup, but it hooks customers with mango butter, chocolate-covered pomegranate seeds and cilantro-and-jalapeno hummus. These goodies aren’t on most grocery lists, but they’re eye-catching enough to tempt shoppers into an impulse buy. At a time when families are watching dollars and the Web makes discount-hunting easy, unexpected treasures are an increasingly important strategy for stores.