The excitement around Facebook’s debut in the stock market, with the biggest ever deal for NASDAQ, has died down.

The social networking site’s shares fizzled on its first day of trade on the NASDAQ, erasing early gains as much as 18 percent to trade close to its initial public offering price.

The stock opened 11 percent higher and rose to USD 45 before rapidly heading down south in frenzied trade, touching its initial public offering price of USD 38. The No. 1 online social network raised as much as USD 18.4 billion in one of the biggest IPOs in US history.

However, the drop in Facebook’s share price wiped more than USD 11 billion off the company’s market capitalisation.