Facebook's Black Thursday

The stock-market sell-off that followed Facebook’s disappointing results and outlook last week, resulted in the biggest single-day market cap loss a U.S. company has ever suffered. Having been down almost 25 percent at times during after-market trading on Wednesday, Facebook’s share price recovered ever so slightly on Thursday, dropping “just” 19 percent compared to Wednesday’s pre-earnings closing price.

That was still enough to shave nearly $120 billion off Facebook's market capitalization, dwarfing the $90 billion loss that Intel had suffered at the height of the dot.com crisis in the fall of 2000. Before you start feeling sorry for Facebook shareholders though, here’s a bit of context: before the big sell-off started Wednesday night, the company’s shares had closed at an all-time high of $217.50, and the current price of $174.89 is still 15 percent above the 12-month-low reached in late March.