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Facebook begins trading

<a href="http://content.fortune.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/facebook_like_pop.jpg"><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-35539" title="facebook_like_pop" src="http://content.fortune.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/facebook_like_pop.jpg" alt="" width="340" height="189" /></a>Welcome to Facebook Friday!

FORTUNE — The moment we’ve all been waiting for is finally here: Facebook (FB) has begun trading as a public company.

The social network’s shares began trading just past 11:30 am, or about two hours after Mark Zuckerberg remotely rang the Nasdaq’s opening bell from Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park (including a delay in Nasdaq being able to post the initial pricing, causing some to suggest Facebook’s ticker symbol should be TILT).

Initial trades were for around $42.05 per share, compared to the $38 per share IPO price. That puts its current market cap at approximately $90 billion, and its fully-diluted value around $117 billion.

Expectations for where it will go for the rest of today are all over the place, with many expecting a gigantic pop reminiscent of what happened last year for LinkedIn (LNKD). In general, the consensus seems to be that Facebook shares will close out the day at around $50, although such prognostications were made before learning about the actual opening trade figures.

Update: As of 11:52pm, the shares had fallen back to $38.01 per share. Perhaps we’re seeing a replay on Zynga (ZNGA), rather than on LinkedIn.

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