Facebook fever gripped Wall Street on Friday as the massive social network's IPO was hit the Nasdaq -- but after a rollercoaster day, the stock ended the frame close to where it began.

The initial IPO price was listed at $38 (all figures U.S.), and it eventually hit $45.

But when the markets closed, Facebook's brand new stock was listed at $38.23 – just 0.6 per cent above the initial IPO price.

More than 420 million Facebook shares traded hands, with about 30 banks taking part in the frenzied trading.

After an approximately 30-minute delay, the company's shares began changing hands at $42.05 around 11:30 a.m.

In the first hour of trading, 200 million shares were traded.

"We were told the demand for the shares was so strong, the Nasdaq could not match up the buy-and-sell orders in order to get the stock open at the scheduled time," BNN's Michael Kane said.

The record holder for the most IPO (initial public offering) shares sold in a single day is General Motors at 458 million in 2010.

Early investors in Facebook will hold about 241 million shares, while the company's 28-year-old founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg will retain 55.8 per cent of the voting stocks, and more than 18 per cent of the company's value, Kane said.

In 2008, Facebook stock was sold to an internal group of investors for as little as $3.50 per share, he said.

Facebook and its investors had set an IPO price of US$38 Thursday. At that valuation, the company would have been worth $104 billion – enough to rank it as the most valuable company to ever go public.

Now that Facebook is a public company, it will subject to market forces that will base its value on quarterly profits.

Since its early days in a Harvard dormitory, Facebook has grown to boast of more than 900 million users logging on every month.

The company has become one of the few profitable online ventures with a net income of $205 million during the first three months of 2012, on revenue of $1.06 billion.

In 2011, the company earned $1 billion, up from $606 million a year earlier, a far cry from 2007 when the company reported a net loss of $138 million on revenue of $153 million.

That's also a far cry from 2007 when it posted a net loss of $138 million and revenue of $153 million.

Facebook earns most of its money through advertising and also has a take on sales of online games such as Zynga's "Farmville."