Fidelity, Knight problems add to Nasdaq’s Facebook woes

Advisers familiar with the situation at Fidelity said many investors are now finding out, nearly a week after the fact, that their orders were not executed at the prices they thought.

The repercussions from Facebook’s botched initial public offering deepened on Thursday as Fidelity Investments found itself dealing with “thousands” of customers with order problems and Knight Capital demanded tens of millions of dollars in compensation from Nasdaq for trading-related losses.

A technical glitch delayed Facebook’s market debut by half an hour on Friday and many client orders were delayed subsequently, costing some investors and traders big losses as the stock price dropped after an initial gain

The exchange operator is facing lawsuits from investors and threats of legal action from brokers that have been compensating customers for delayed trades.

Action on Facebook stock has essentially become secondary to the fallout from the IPO — its price, its size, its execution and questions about selective disclosure of its financial prospects.

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin are looking into how the IPO was handled. The U.S. Senate Banking Committee is also reviewing the matter.

Nasdaq also has to contend with the outside prospect that it could entirely lose the Facebook listing after having just obtained it.