Poker and farmville king Zynga shares slide after Facebook IPO

Zynga the makers of popular Facebook games like Poker and Farmville watched their shares slide after today’s launch of Facebook shares on the Nasdaq

Zynga shares were hammered on Friday ( 18th May 2012 )  as Facebook’s mediocre debut weakened investor enthusiasm for the social game maker as well as for other newly issued online stocks.

Zynga shares opened slightly higher Friday but then tumbled as much as 15% after Facebook showed only modest gains at its opening. The decline was so sudden that the stock hit a single-stock circuit breaker, temporarily halting trading. After the stock reopened, shares recovered a bit before tripping another circuit breaker, halting shares again.

Shares have started trading again but its been a bad day for Zynga who at the end of trading today will have lost around 15% of its value in a single day.

If you’re not a fan of Facebook farming games and invites, you’ll probably not lose any sleep over this.

Linked-In was down 5% as well as Groupon at around 7%.

Facebook at the close of trading was worth $38, exactly the price it was initially launched at. Not what people were expecting..

And for no reason whatsoever here’s a picture of Poker playing hottie Clonie Gowan

hot poker playing clonie gowan